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Security camera startup Wyze apologizes for a breach that allowed 13,000 customers to see into other people's homes

Wyze Cam, $26
A Wyze security camera. Facebook
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Security device company Wyze has apologized to customers after a camera breach let an estimated 13,000 users see into other people's homes.

The Seattle-based company, which specializes in smart-home products and wireless cameras, blamed the incident on an "issue from a third-party caching client library" that was recently integrated into its system.

In a post on its forum, the company said: "On Friday morning, we had a service outage that led to a security incident."

"We can now confirm that as cameras were coming back online, about 13,000 Wyze users received thumbnails from cameras that were not their own and 1,504 users tapped on them. Most taps enlarged the thumbnail, but in some cases an Event Video was able to be viewed. All affected users have been notified," the email continued.

Wyze said that more than 99.75% of accounts were unaffected by the event but apologized and notified all customers.

Representatives for Wyze did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

The company has suffered breaches before. In 2019, a Wyze data breach was discovered by cybersecurity firm Twelve Security and reported on by The New York Times.

The personal information of 2.4 million Wyze customers was exposed on the internet for 23 days. The data included people's usernames, emails, WiFi details, and health information, the reports said.

In September 2023, after The Verge first reported that some customers could access other cameras, The Times' review section, Wirecutter, pulled its recommendation for the security cameras.

The Times said at the time that it believed Wyze was acting "irresponsibly to its customers" by not contacting them after the breach.

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Beatrice Nolan was a tech reporter on the business news team in the UK. She joined Insider in January 2022 as a fellow on Business Insider's careers desk. Beatrice covered tech and the future of work, with a focus on artificial intelligence. Some of her stories and early experiments with ChatGPT are widely cited. Beatrice has also discussed her work covering AI trends on panels and radio shows, including NPR.She was based in Business Insider's London office and graduated from the University of  York with a bachelor's degree in English.Featured Articles:Artists say AI image generators are copying their style to make thousands of new images — and it's completely out of their control.ChatGPT was a black swan eventFinland is the world's happiest country, but Finns say we're confusing happiness for something elseThe world is splitting between those who use ChatGPT to get better, smarter, richer — and everyone elseThis man used AI to write and illustrate a children's book in one weekend. He wasn't prepared for the backlash.ChatGPT has only been around for 2 months and is causing untold chaosTwo professors who say they caught students cheating on essays with ChatGPT explain why AI plagiarism can be hard to proveChatGPT wrote college application essays. Admissions professionals said they passed for essays written by students but wouldn't have a chance at any top colleges.College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheatChatGPT wrote my cover letters. Here's how recruiters responded.