Hackers are stealing videos from private security cameras and selling them as home video tapes
- Videos can cost as little as US$3 and the perpetrators offer ‘set meal’ packages with multiple live streams
- One man claims 8,000 videos were shared in one group chat within 20 days in February
The videos are priced based on how exciting they are and are sold via social media, according to an undercover investigative report aired by the television station on Monday.
Video clips involving nudity or sexual acts are priced at 50 yuan (US$8) each, while those “normal ones shot in hotel rooms” are 20 yuan (US$3), said an unidentified seller of these videos in the report.
Real-time viewing is also available at “set meal” prices. People can buy the IDs and passwords of cameras in 10 households for just 70 yuan (US$11), while 10 hotels plus 10 households costs 150 yuan (US$23), and 20 hotels plus 20 households for 258 yuan (US$39), according to another seller.
In one group chat on QQ, an instant messaging service from tech giant Tencent, the group leader said he had tens of thousands of videos in stock, and he shared over 8,000 videos in a group chat within 20 days in February. Those group chat members were VIP members who would then sell the videos to their network.
They came from cameras located across the country, with Guangdong, Hunan and Hubei province being the most prominent sources.
