Wyze, the Seattle-based tech company that specializes in smart home products and wireless cameras, has released a major security update that it hopes will rebuild some lost trust. The company has been plagued by numerous security failures over the past few years, most notably when an AWS outage led to thousands of users gaining access to recorded videos from other people’s homes. That incident, paired with the company’s history of lackluster responses to security flaws, even led The New York Times to explicitly stop recommending Wyze products more than a year ago.
Now, in a YouTube video announcement that cheekily mentions the AWS outage, Wyze is introducing a new layer of security that the company is calling Wyze VerifiedView. The added layer of security works by embedding a unique user ID into the firmware of a Wyze camera upon setup. The camera in turn stamps that ID onto every photo, video and livestream. Before any device can access that footage, the Wyze software will check that the embedded ID matches the one for the user before it allows the footage or images to be seen.
Wyze is adamant that this new layer is simply building upon its already robust security structure, which the company somewhat meaninglessly says is akin to “barbed wire fencing, booby traps, security guards, acid sharks, laser scanners, and AI robot guard dogs.” While it’s not mentioned in the press release, the announcement video clarified that VerifiedView may never come to older models like the Wyze Cam Pan V1 and V2 due to hardware limitations.
Wyze says it has been pushing this update to its most popular models since the beginning of April, and that users of those models just need to update their firmware and app to receive the update. Which models exactly remains unclear, as Wyze also mentioned that some other models will receive the updates over the coming weeks and months, but again did not specify which models they were referring to.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/wyze-adds-major-security-update-to-its-security-cameras-after-numerous-security-lapses-181735619.html?src=rss
