Russia hacking site spying webcams worldwide: Britain

The public is being warned about a Russian-based website which has been found to be broadcasting thousands feeds of live video footage from inside homes and business around the world, including over 4,000 in the U.S., 2,000 in France and 500 in the UK.

The site feature live feeds from households and businesses across the world, including a gym in Manchester, a bedroom in Birmingham and an office in Leicester.

The footage has been accessed by hacking into personal webcams, CCTV cameras and even baby monitors using weak or default passwords.

"I want the Russians to take this down straight away," Christopher Graham, the information commissioner(UK), told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We've known about this for about 24 hours but we've been working out how best to deal with it because we want to take regulatory action," he said.

Graham said that the first reports about the website, which is registered in "an offshore territory administered by Australia", came from Macao and Hong Kong, then Australia and Canada.

"The website, which is based in Russia, accesses the information by using the default login credentials, which are freely available online, for thousands of cameras," said Simon Rice, ICO group manager for technology.

"The footage is being collected from security cameras used by businesses and members of the public, ranging from CCTV networks used to keep large premises secure, down to built-in cameras on baby monitors," he said.