Finding A System With the Right Features

Having a video surveillance system installed inside and outside your home gives you peace of mind, and it can give you valuable security footage of intruders if your home is ever burglarized. However, your security system won't do you much good if an intruder is able to disable it or destroy the video that your security cameras recorded. For maximum effectiveness, you'll need to ensure that your home's security camera setup is tamper-proof. The process differs based on whether your home has wired security cameras or wireless ones, as the process that intruders can use to disable them differs. To find out how to protect your security cameras from tampering, read on.

Wired Security Cameras

If you're using wired security cameras for your video surveillance system, you'll need to protect both the wires and the digital video recorder that they're connected to in order to prevent intruders from tampering with your cameras or the recorded video.

Wired cameras should ideally be placed high up, whether you're installing them outdoors or indoors. If intruders need to use a ladder in order to reach them, then they're less likely to attempt to tamper with the cameras or cut the wires. The cameras should be installed as close to the walls as possible, and you should run the wiring through the wall cavities inside your home. This minimizes the amount of wiring that's exposed, which makes it more difficult for intruders to cut the wires using a bolt cutter or similar tool.

The digital video recorder needs to be protected as well. If intruders realize that your home has video surveillance, they may try to steal the video recorder in order to remove any video evidence that you could show to the police. For maximum protection, the digital video recorder connected to your video surveillance system should be placed in a locked safe that's located against the wall. Drill a small hole into the side of the safe so that you can connect the video recorder to your camera wires. If you're using a small safe, you may want to bolt it into your home's foundation in order to prevent intruders from simply lifting up the safe and stealing it. When intruders can't access the digital video recorder or the wires that lead to them, they'll be prevented from tampering with your home's security setup.

Wireless Security Cameras

Wireless security cameras constantly upload video to the cloud or to a digital video recorder in your home. Wireless cameras are much more convenient to install, but they open up a new avenue of attack — intruders who are tech-savvy may be able to hack into your wireless security system in order to disable your cameras or delete video footage.

In order to protect your wireless security cameras, make sure that you keep the software and firmware that runs them updated. Manufacturers release updates in order to fix security vulnerabilities, and you'll need to install patches as soon as they're released in order to protect your wireless system against cyberattacks.

If you use a smartphone app to view your cameras remotely, make sure the app is kept updated, and never use the app to view your security cameras if you're on a public wireless connection — some hackers set up fake wireless access points in order to steal the data that passes through them, which can result in a hacker learning the password that you use to access your wireless security cameras.

Some wireless cameras upload security video to a digital video recorder located in your home, whereas others upload it to the cloud. If you're using a digital video recorder, you'll need to secure it in the same way that you would secure the video recorder in a wired system. If your video is being uploaded to the cloud, make sure that you use a unique password to control your wireless system and manage your recorded security footage. Using a unique password prevents someone from gaining access to your wireless video surveillance system if your password is leaked from a security breach on another website.

Keeping your security cameras safe is important to ensure that the footage that they record is usable if an intruder steals something from your home. Intruders who know that your home contains security cameras may be tempted to defeat the system by disabling cameras or stealing security footage. Following the tips above will reduce the chances of an intruder successfully tampering with your video surveillance system. If you're having difficulty making your system tamper-proof or want to make sure that you've done it correctly, contact a security camera installation service in your area and have them examine and modify your surveillance system in order to stop intruders from having the ability to disable it.