Ring IoT Doorbell Bug Showed Videos from Other Houses

The company that makes Ring smart doorbell products has recently fixed an issue in its system that mixed up home video feeds and showed video streams from other houses.

The issue came to light last week via Android Central, who received complaints from users who reported that they received on their phones notifications from their smart doorbell systems, showing recorded videos that were not from their house.

Ring doorbells are modern Internet of Things (IoT) systems that connect to a home's WiFi system and allow the owner to view who's in front of the door via the Internet, from their mobile device. If the homeowner installs a custom lock system, they can even use their app to open the door remotely and allow the person in front of the door to enter.

Company blames problems on recent server migration

This recent bug that mixed up video feeds is a grave invasion of privacy, and Ring's management took the issue seriously, putting out the following statement that explained what happened and how they fixed it.

“  Security is at the core of our company and this is something Ring takes very seriously. Here's what happened: We use random numbers to generate a call ID from Ring products. We did a very robust Beta test of the new Ring Video Doorbell Pro on experimental software, and when we moved it out of Beta for the commercial launch, some customers' numbers were in two different databases. As a result, those call ID numbers were overwritten. We believe, based on all the data we have analyzed, that this caused less than ten instances - out of more than 4 million calls per day and over 84 million calls in total - where video recordings overlapped for Ring Video Doorbell Pro users only. We are in the process of merging those databases so this will no longer occur. This issue only affected Ring Video Doorbell Pro users, not users of our other products, Ring Video Doorbell and Ring Stick Up Cam.  ”