We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds. 🫥

Our Take

Benn Jordan isn't a typical security researcher, which is exactly why this video is worth watching. When someone outside the usual pentester circuit says they can compromise a Flock Safety unit in under half a minute, it should make anyone who's been told these cameras are "secure infrastructure" sit up straight. We won't restate his technical steps here — watch his video for that — but the core takeaway lands hard: a device capturing every plate and driver on your street shouldn't be this easy to mess with.

This matters because Flock's entire pitch to city councils rests on trust — trust that the data is locked down, that access is audited, that the hardware itself isn't a soft target. If a single independent creator can find a fast way in, it's fair to ask what a motivated bad actor, stalker, or corrupt insider could do with the same access, and how long these vulnerabilities have been sitting in plain sight before anyone outside the company noticed. Vendors love to talk about "guardrails" in press releases; they're a lot quieter when someone actually pokes at the lock.

Whether or not Flock patches this particular flaw, the bigger lesson stands: mass surveillance infrastructure deployed with zero public oversight is a liability by design, not just by accident. If there's a camera like this near you, check our map to see what's already watching your block, and head to take-action for ways to push back at the local level.