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Camera Hacking: Testing Cameras with Eyesharvester
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Camera Hacking: Testing Cameras with Eyesharvester

Hands-on walkthrough of Eyesharvester, an open-source recon tool (github.com/Exhunterx/eyesharvester) that scans IP ranges to fingerprint IP cameras, DVRs and NVRs, tests default credentials, lists vendor-specific CVEs and generates a hardening checklist. The piece demonstrates finding Hikvision devices vulnerable to CVE-2021-36260, which gives shell access and can be chained with a Metasploit payload and a reverse SSH/Meterpreter proxy to pivot into the internal network.

TL;DR Hackers Arise walkthrough of Eyesharvester, an IP-camera recon/credential-testing tool, chained with CVE-2021-36260 on Hikvision devices for shell access and network pivoting.
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What it is

Eyesharvester (github.com/Exhunterx/eyesharvester) is a recon/fingerprinting CLI for IP cameras, DVRs and NVRs. Install is a plain git clone + bash install.sh, no dependencies.

How it works

It scans a CIDR range for common camera ports and fingerprints the vendor, then can confirm devices, test default credentials, and generate a vendor/port-based hardening checklist with associated CVEs.

What to do

Basic scan:

eyesharvester IP/24

Quiet scan piped to a file for later reuse:

eyesharvester IP/24 -q > cameras.txt

Confirm found hosts are actually cameras (verbose):

eyesharvester IP/24 -c confirmed -v

Test default credentials across the range:

eyesharvester IP/24 --check-creds

Generate hardening checklist + CVE list for a device:

eyesharvester IP --harden

The hardening output's core recommendations: segment cameras off business/IT networks, disable unused services, replace default credentials, update firmware.

Caveats

The page frames the tool as identification/reporting only — exploitation (e.g. the CVE-2021-36260 shell access, Metasploit payload, reverse SSH/Meterpreter pivot already noted in the catalog summary) is done with separate tooling, not by Eyesharvester itself. No version info or CVE details are given for Eyesharvester beyond what the catalog summary already states about Hikvision/CVE-2021-36260.

Organisations named here

  • Hikvision

CVEs named here

  • CVE-2021-36260

Technologies named here

  • Eyesharvester
  • Hikvision cameras
  • PwnEye
  • Metasploit
  • Meterpreter
  • Kali Linux

Techniques named here

  • IP camera/DVR/NVR reconnaissance
  • Default credential testing
  • Exploitation of CVE-2021-36260
  • Network pivoting via compromised camera

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