Sync button takes camera offline

[bibik]

Today I discovered what could possibly be a vulnerability to the Arlo system.

I have the Arlo Pro system, and found out that if you press the sync button on the camera (regardless of whether it is in Standby or regular Active mode), the blue LED slowly flashes (to prepare for syncing), and the camera turns offline.

The blue LED seems to flash indefinitely until you either sync the base station, or press the sync button again, during which the amber LEDs will flash quickly and the sync mode stops.

Has anyone else experienced this, or can replicate this situation?

It's hard to imagine that such a simple button press can completely defeat the camera.

The only barrier to this is that the sync button seems to not work when the camera is recording, so if someone sets off the camera, they can't immediately press "sync" and stop the recording, but if someone knows that the house is protected by the Arlo system (which is obvious from the dark words on the side of the white camera, unless you use one of the expensive silicone covers to hide it), they can disable the system if they can reach the button without triggering the camera. I guess at that point, someone could also just unscrew the camera completely from the mount (bringing to light the theft issue). 

I know that most people will put this camera out of arm's reach, but my single-story house has low ceilings which are just inches away from someone's standing reach (and that's without a ladder), and so this further complicates my already difficult dilemma of finding a good place to mount the camera.

I hope Netgear releases a firmware or software update which disables the sync button in certain modes (or only activates it in special "Sync" mode), to close this security hole.

[jguerdat]

While this may be an unintended bug, I'd simply grab the camera and stuff it in my pocket.  The sync button is the least of the problem.

[bibik]

---

jguerdat wrote:

While this may be an unintended bug, I'd simply grab the camera and stuff it in my pocket.  The sync button is the least of the problem.

---

Yes, definitely; if someone is in a position to reach the sync button, you may as just unscrew the entire camera.  Another issue for me. 😞