CCTV/Surveillance n3wb thrown headlong into the jungle...

[sudo_inss]

Hey all. New-ish to this sort of thing, got a job at a company where surveillance is a big part of it! We're a mostly all-Dahua shop, which... given my experience with them already (before signing up here, about eight months), utterly terrifies me. I'm quite certain that Dahua hardware is basically just a bunch of simple robots working on behalf of the Chinese Government/Communist Party.

But heck! They're cheap, and my company isn't going to go out and re-buy new NVRs and cameras to assuage the fears of their one I.T. guy, so... I'm here to draw upon the collective experience of you all to assist me in my tasks, and hopefully after learning enough, I can add back to the community!

Thanks.

 

[Broachoski]

They are great as long as they are blocked from phoning home via blocking internet access.
Do you know what models they are using and do you know if they are the up-gradable units or the cheaper OEM Ebay cameras?
Just curious.

 

[sudo_inss]

They are great as long as they are blocked from phoning home via blocking internet access.
Do you know what models they are using and do you know if they are the up-gradable units or the cheaper OEM Ebay cameras?
Just curious.

I'll let you know when I know... we have probably 24 units in the field, all different makes/models and don't even get me started on the cameras. I'm trying to herd the cats (NVRs) in such a fashion that they're just accessible right now, before I start working on the cameras. I've got one that's giving me the "Login failed!" from the webpage (in Internet Explorer, using Dahua's documentation). And I'm reasonably certain it's not the wrong password... because when I type the wrong password, I get "

Also, as it would happen, that one gives me a "web_plugin.exe" that my computer FRANTICALLY insists that I absolutely MUST NOT run, and usually Windows Defender eats it before I can. Not that I was trying to run it, mind you, I uploaded it to VirusTotal and... hoooooly crap. So, I think that one's been hacked - a lot of these were set up before I got here and one thing that I'm gathering that I need to do is get a VPN set up. Unfortunately, the company will spend $150,000 on some capital intensive project... but balks at spending $500 on a proper computer. I'm hoping to get some OPNsense gateways set up, so I can create a mesh OpenVPN network and ditch the Ciscos once and for all.

I have my work cut out for me, and these things have presented issues to me - so I'm hoping I can learn some best practices and do what's good.

EDIT: In the meantime... I have a small spreadsheet of NVR makes/models/serial numbers that I'm getting set up... and an even smaller spreadsheet of camera makes/models/serial numbers. Getting there, though. I'm about to post a torrent of threads, though.