Nikon Coolpix P1 WiFi cam vulnerable to attacks

by Donald Melanson, posted Aug 4th 2006 at 6:53PM

Nikon's WiFi-equipped Coolpix P1 introduced last year seemed to be a step in the right direction. Decent enough as a camera, the P1's big selling point was its WiFi transfer capability -- anything that lets us pull one more cable from our desk immediately gets our attention. And while we were hoping for some hacks to expand the functionality a bit, this isn't exactly what we had in mind. According to Informit, in addition to sending your vacation pics flying through the air, the P1 can also open up your PC to a whole range of attacks, including DoS attacks and infected JPGs and executables, not to mention allowing others to potentially intercept your photos. The bad news, if that wasn't bad enough, is that there apparently isn't any easy fix outside just not installing Nikon's WiFi software on your PC -- thus killing the camera's only wireless functionality. So, unless you can somehow scope out everyone with nefarious intent within WiFi range, you might wanna go back to that trusty SD card reader until further notice.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Wireless

Tags: coolpix, coolpix p1, CoolpixP1, hack, nikon, security, vulnerability, wifi, wireless

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Sam @ Aug 4th 2006 7:11PM

engadget:
"in addition to sending your vacation pics flying through the air... ...not to mention allowing others to potentially intercept your photos"

That opens new horizons for the neighborhood relations... :)

Neutral

Steve @ Aug 4th 2006 7:36PM

It's interesting that you would post this kind of information without any further information about "what to do about the problem". You have links to all kinds of weird, historical blog entries, but none of them address "what to do".

To be fair, you do suggest to go back to "the card reader".

Where did you find this information? Where did you find an analysis of the risk? Of the potential solutions? Is there any further information that you used as background for your post?

I've got a Nikon S6 with what I imagine is similar problems, and was considering buying the wireless option for my D200 as well.

Steve

Neutral

x23 @ Aug 4th 2006 9:43PM

"Posted at 7:36PM on Aug 4th 2006 by Steve"

dear steve,

try clicking the "Read" link.

sincerely,
people who have used the internet before.

Neutral

Tull @ Aug 5th 2006 1:56AM

BURN!!

@x23 : Funniest thing I've read in days.

Neutral

Rico @ Aug 5th 2006 2:25AM

Ha ha! What's next? Will hackers be able to take advantage of wireless mice/keyboards? :-)

Neutral

DM @ Aug 5th 2006 10:37AM

@ Rico
Hackers can already keylog unsecured wireless keyboards...So...

Neutral

Matt @ Aug 5th 2006 2:50PM

I have the camera, love it, but I've never used the WiFi part of it because it burns through the battery life, and transfers images much slower than an SD card reader. It's a cool idea in concept, but in execution, it's pretty pointless.

Neutral

Rico @ Aug 7th 2006 11:58PM

@ DM
D'oh!

Neutral

Chris @ Aug 31st 2006 9:09PM

Amazing camera, if you need any further assistance and info on this camera I suggest you check out this forum for Nikon Owners:

http://allnikon.proboards86.com

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