China’s top spy agency has warned that foreign agents could use flaws in the country’s massive camera surveillance network to steal state secrets. The warning, posted on the WeChat account of the Ministry of State Security, came after a citizen from an unnamed city reported that video surveillance cameras being used to monitor urban drainage and flood prevention could pose a national security risk because the cameras included views of a coastguard pier.
The cameras are intended to provide real-time water-flow monitoring of the city’s older urban areas, according to the report. A ministry investigation revealed that the cameras showed “multiple key sensitive sites involving classified information”, according to the WeChat post.
The investigation also revealed poor management of the surveillance system’s data-monitoring devices and servers, which the ministry said “created a significant risk that, in the event of a cyberattack, could leak classified information”. The system had since been secured and the cameras readjusted, the ministry said. The post did not indicate when the ministry received the citizen’s report or if any classified information had actually been taken.
The video monitoring systems “are an important technological application to maintain public safety and strengthen social governance, and are vital to protecting people and ensuring fairness and justice”, the ministry said in its post.
It called for greater awareness of potential vulnerabilities in such systems as foreign spies could be “seeking opportunities to steal state secrets and pose a threat to national security”.
The ministry’s post also identified scenarios in which the use of surveillance cameras could lead to security risks, such as sending unencrypted data, cameras installed where they should not be and a lack of proper separation between different networks.
The ministry’s warning comes as China prioritises national security after Beijing revised its anti-espionage law last year to expand the definition of spy activities. It also comes amid intensifying strategic competition between China and the US-led West in areas ranging from technology, to trade and defence.
China has a vast network of 200 million closed circuit surveillance cameras installed across the country, compared to about 50 million in the United States, according to the computer security site Precise Security.
