Hackers Stole Flock’s Camera Software, Revealing How the Company Tracks Cars and People
Hackers who removed a Flock Safety license plate camera dumped its data, revealing person-detection capabilities and an encryption key stored unencrypted on the device.
A hacker collective calling itself stegan0gram physically removed a Flock Safety automatic license plate reader camera from a roadway, copied its storage, and shared the files with 404 Media, WIRED, and Distributed Denial of Secrets. Analysis found an encryption key in an unencrypted 'media' partition that unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections, with logs showing more than a million images generated in weeks. The software explicitly detects people, bicycles, and even bumper stickers, and records from one Georgia city were searchable by more than 2,000 agencies nationwide. The findings follow 2025 research by Jon Gaines documenting flaws enabling root-level access to Flock cameras.
- Collective stegan0gram physically removed a camera and copied its storage
- Unencrypted 'media' partition held a key unlocking vehicle-detection videos
- Software detects people, bicycles, bumper stickers; logs show 1M+ images
- One city's camera records accessible to 2,000+ agencies including ICE-linked lookups
- Flock previously downplayed 2025 root-access flaws disclosed by researcher Jon Gaines
- Vendors
- Flock Safety
- Products
- Flock ALPR camera
- Threat actors
- stegan0gram
- Victims
- Flock Safety
- Organizations
- 404 MediaWIREDDistributed Denial of Secrets
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
8 min read at 404media.co
While people around the U. S. are tearing down Flock cameras, one group of hackers went a step further: extracting the camera's software too.
By Joseph Cox · 404media.co
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.