Unknown IP camera keeps showing up in my network, cant get rid of it.

[davucini]

Hi,

I am having an issue with an unknown camera showing up in my network, and its making me kind of paranoid

So I have 3 pcs in my house, all running windows 7 home premium 64bit, they are connected to my netgear r7000 router, which is connected to my verizon fios ONT. 2 are connected directly with Ethernet cables, one is connected with Wifi.

So on all 3 computer when I go to "network" a camera shows up on the network. The problem is that it is not my camera, sometimes if I refresh the "network" the camera will go away, but later it will show up again. I tried to do research on the camera and there is almost nothing about the it. The model number does show up as a camera used by ADT security, but I never ever have had ADT security.

I did all the regular stuff, reset comps/routers/internet, restore everything to default, upgrade firmware, etc but nothing helped. I thought if I could block this camera on my router side it would go away. I right clicked the camera and went to properties to get the mac address. Then I blocked the mac address in my router settings. But it still shows up in my "network" page. When I log into the router settings (192.168.1.1), there is no camera shown as a connected device. Also when I look at properties for the camera there is no ip address for it. So this is making me a bit paranoid. I am pretty tech savvy and I have searched Google extensively for solutions but this has me stumped. If anyone can help I would be grateful.

I have 2 screenshots to help explain my situation.

 

[matts6887]

I would do a scan for malware and spyware and adware using the following links; download, install, and run the spyware and malware and adware programs:

Downloading AdwCleaner

SUPERAntiSpyware - Downloading File

https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/

Try these programs and see if it finds anything and gets rid of it for ya. If not; post back here and we can go from there.

 

[davucini]

I would do a scan for malware and spyware and adware using the following links; download, install, and run the spyware and malware and adware programs:

Downloading AdwCleaner

SUPERAntiSpyware - Downloading File

https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/

Try these programs and see if it finds anything and gets rid of it for ya. If not; post back here and we can go from there.

Hi Matt, thanks for responding

I had previously malwarebytes scans on all computers and nothing showed up. I even went as far as complete clean re-install of windows 7 on a new hard drive for one of my wired PCs and the camera still showed up.

Nevertheless I did install and scan will all the programs you mentioned and the only one to find anything was the ADWcleaner on one of the PCs, but it was just an aol toolbar hiding in a dormant browser I dont use anymore. The other 2 pcs were clean.

The camera still shows up.

If you have anymore suggestions I am eager and thankful to read them

-----------------

Did a little more digging, it seems this is an wifi camera, when i go to "add devices" thats what it lists as

here is a picture if it helps

 

[Layback Bear]

From post #3

I had previously malwarebytes scans on all computers and nothing showed up. I even went as far as complete clean re-install of windows 7 on a new hard drive for one of my wired PCs and the camera still showed up.

This does not add up. (Clean re-install of Windows 7)

We are missing some information.

Are these computers in a domain/network?
Are any of these computers a laptop with a built in camera?
Was the computer you did a clean re-install hooked to the network at the time of the install?
A clean install of Windows 7 does not install cameras.

How did you do a clean re-install?
Did you do it like one of these tutorial. If so which one.

By Brink:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

By Bare Foot Kid:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174907-clean-install-factory-coa-activation-key.html

By Gregrocker:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

Could you post the System Specs of the troubled computer?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

 

[BJB]

I get something very similar, in my case it's called a Phone but its Properties reveal it as a Nexus 4 tablet. It does not show in my router as a connected client and it has no IP. I believe it's probably located next door as there are no Nexus tablets here. It disappears off the network map after a short while but usually reappears if I refresh it. It used to be a concern but I no longer worry about it as without an IP it can't access my internet connection nor, more importantly, my home network.

EDIT - it's now disappeared so I guess that whoever was using it has turned it off, which happens a lot. Perhaps the camera you are seeing is a security camera on a nearby property. If so that would always be on.

 

[chev65]

I have phones and other devices show up here all the time. They come and go. Windows picks up all kinds of wireless devices on different networks, even when they aren't connected to your own network.

This is typical Windows behavior and it doesn't mean you are being spied on or that you have malware.

 

[Layback Bear]

Chev65 I need help here to understand.
I don't use wifi anything.

I'm I correct that when installing Windows 7 is does not install wifi?
One has to do that after the install is completed if one wants wifi.

So after a re-install how does one pickup wifi hardware until they install wifi on that computer?

I could be learning along with davucini.

 

[chev65]

Chev65 I need help here to understand.
I don't use wifi anything.

I'm I correct that when installing Windows 7 is does not install wifi?
One has to do that after the install is completed if one wants wifi.

So after a re-install how does one pickup wifi hardware until they install wifi on that computer?

I could be learning along with davucini.

I believe it's picking up wireless devices that the router see's through the wireless radio then assumes they are part of the local network and so places them under devices.

This problem has come up multiple times and there never seems to a virus associated with the problem.

 

[andrew129260]

Turn off universal plug and play in your router settings. Poof gone. Problem should then be solved.

Universal Plug and Play - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Windows will show these devices in your network folder when the device is available to be used, or available to be installed on the system.

From your screenshot though, you have network discovery turned off. Which makes my above point irrelevant. (I still always recommend disabling UP&P on your router for security reasons.) With that turned off, windows will not show any devices it discovered on the network.

This means the following must be true:

-The device is not part of your network
-The device may or may not be a camera. It might for example be another device wrongly flagged as a camera.
-Since network discovery is off, it is something attached to your pc or avalible with something like bluetooth that does not deal with your actual network.


It may be a bluetooth device, such as a phone or wireless memory card, being detected as a camera. The window you show in the second screenshot is where windows uses all wireless means and wired means to search for new devices to install. It could be a neighbors wireless camera it is detecting by bluetooth or infrared.

Do all the pcs have bluetooth or are wireless in some way? You have a couple media tuners, it could be one of them.

What happens when you right click on it and choose view device webpage vs properties?

 

[matts6887]

I have phones and other devices show up here all the time. They come and go. Windows picks up all kinds of wireless devices on different networks, even when they aren't connected to your own network.

This is typical Windows behavior and it doesn't mean you are being spied on or that you have malware.

I believe I'm inclined to agree with chev here. Windows does have
It's peculiarities on plenty of occasions. More than I would like to say lol. So yea it's probably nothing. Like one of the others mentioned as long as their is no IP address attached to it i wouldn't worry about it. Just
My .02 here.

 

[davucini]

From post #3

I had previously malwarebytes scans on all computers and nothing showed up. I even went as far as complete clean re-install of windows 7 on a new hard drive for one of my wired PCs and the camera still showed up.

This does not add up. (Clean re-install of Windows 7)

We are missing some information.

Are these computers in a domain/network?
Are any of these computers a laptop with a built in camera?
Was the computer you did a clean re-install hooked to the network at the time of the install?
A clean install of Windows 7 does not install cameras.

How did you do a clean re-install?
Did you do it like one of these tutorial. If so which one.

By Brink:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

By Bare Foot Kid:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174907-clean-install-factory-coa-activation-key.html

By Gregrocker:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

Could you post the System Specs of the troubled computer?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

More Info: These computers are on a network, after the clean install I did connect it to a network, not during the install, because the clean install was on my htpc, and I use a network cablecard tuner for my television, the screenshots are not from the pc with the clean install.


How I did the clean install-

took an old sata II 2.5 inch drive from an old laptop,

used killdisk to erase everything,

then installed in the pc and did an install of windows 7 home premium, from an authentic disk I bought on Newegg years ago when I made this pc.



The camera isnt "installed", but you know how if you have a printer on network or a bluetooth device, and you go to "add devices" and it scans for devices, there it shows up.
The camera shows up an all the 3 pcs, its why I think it is an actual wifi camera, maybe a neighbor's, I just dont understand why it shows up the "network" page.

Maybe as another poster said, windows just picks up things, even not in the network, if so that would bring me a little bit for comfort, since I do believe my next door neighbor does had a ADT. I did a reverse check of the MAC address using an online directory , MAC_Find: Vendor/Ethernet/Bluetooth MAC Address Lookup and Search, and it did point to a company that makes IP cameras( Sercomm ), and is a provider to ADT security. I would ask my neighbor but they are never home or sleeping, I think they work graveyard or something where they have a weird schedule.

Lastly I did have a built in webcam in my laptop, but I had opened it up and phsyically unplugged it from the circuit board, 2 years ago when I got the laptop, I am a little paranoid

Thanks for taking time to help me

 

[davucini]

I get something very similar, in my case it's called a Phone but its Properties reveal it as a Nexus 4 tablet. It does not show in my router as a connected client and it has no IP. I believe it's probably located next door as there are no Nexus tablets here. It disappears off the network map after a short while but usually reappears if I refresh it. It used to be a concern but I no longer worry about it as without an IP it can't access my internet connection nor, more importantly, my home network.

EDIT - it's now disappeared so I guess that whoever was using it has turned it off, which happens a lot. Perhaps the camera you are seeing is a security camera on a nearby property. If so that would always be on.

I have phones and other devices show up here all the time. They come and go. Windows picks up all kinds of wireless devices on different networks, even when they aren't connected to your own network.

This is typical Windows behavior and it doesn't mean you are being spied on or that you have malware.

Chev65 I need help here to understand.
I don't use wifi anything.

I'm I correct that when installing Windows 7 is does not install wifi?
One has to do that after the install is completed if one wants wifi.

So after a re-install how does one pickup wifi hardware until they install wifi on that computer?

I could be learning along with davucini.

I believe it's picking up wireless devices that the router see's through the wireless radio then assumes they are part of the local network and so places them under devices.

This problem has come up multiple times and there never seems to a virus associated with the problem.

Turn off universal plug and play in your router settings. Poof gone. Problem should then be solved.

Universal Plug and Play - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Windows will show these devices in your network folder when the device is available to be used, or available to be installed on the system.

From your screenshot though, you have network discovery turned off. Which makes my above point irrelevant. (I still always recommend disabling UP&P on your router for security reasons.) With that turned off, windows will not show any devices it discovered on the network.

This means the following must be true:

-The device is not part of your network
-The device may or may not be a camera. It might for example be another device wrongly flagged as a camera.
-Since network discovery is off, it is something attached to your pc or avalible with something like bluetooth that does not deal with your actual network.


It may be a bluetooth device, such as a phone or wireless memory card, being detected as a camera. The window you show in the second screenshot is where windows uses all wireless means and wired means to search for new devices to install. It could be a neighbors wireless camera it is detecting by bluetooth or infrared.

Do all the pcs have bluetooth or are wireless in some way? You have a couple media tuners, it could be one of them.

What happens when you right click on it and choose view device webpage vs properties?

Thanks guys, after your suggestions my heart is at ease, 99% of me thought it might be something like this, but that 1% of my psyche is very very loud and hard to ignore. I do used PNP to stream from my DNLA cablecard tuner and attached hardrive to my smartTV with built in DNLA features. And with you guys saying windows picks up signals that aren't necessarily on the network, along with my router settings not showing this device as a connected device in the network, I believe I can quiet down the scared little voice in my head... at least enough to be drowned out by the cooling fans in my PC.

 

[TheCyberMan]

Do you have an Open network instread of security enabled WEP/WPA TKIP/WPA2 AES network. An open network you wouldn't enter a Network key at all. Hover over the network SSID it will tell you.

No IP address would suggest it comes from your network.

A simple test would be do a test where you switch the pc, Laptop, tuners on one at a time turning them off until you have IP camera appear. Do this at a time when the IP camera appears in Network.

 

[BJB]

No IP address would suggest it comes from your network.

No IP address suggests it comes from OUTSIDE the network. Every device ON the network will have an IP address.

 

[TheCyberMan]

I don't think you right every machine would have an IP address, unless, it is from a parent device which would have an IP address in your network the OP has not seen anything else.

 

[Hagrinas]

I know this is an old thread, but people with the identical problem will read it from start to finish searching for a solution, and it doesn't quite have one. I'm curious if the OP ever found out what was going on.

I had the same problem, slept on it, and it didn't show up the next morning. I'm a bit less paranoid about it, because a bigger concern would be if I actually had such a camera and it showed up on somebody else's network. Since it's not my camera, giving me access to it is the opposite of scary. The solution would be to install the drivers if it were that simple. Then I might see the feed from the camera and see if it looks familiar and figure out where it is. Since it appears to be a security camera and ADT's documented installation guide gives me the impression that I'm supposed to have a very specific gateway and corresponding software, I assume they went out of their way not to let strangers have a way of getting access to it.

If it does show up again, I'll probably have a very hard time getting access to its feed, if I can do so at all, but I'm still curious why it's showing up on my network. If I were an ADT customer who happened to have found this thread by searching for the camera model number, I'd want to know why it's showing up on my neighbor's computer.

 

[Barman58]

It is unlikely that the OP will still be watching this thread as they last visited in May 2014 - but you never know

A lot of modern security devices actually contain their own router which allows the owner to view the feed on their mobile devices (laptops, phones, Etc.). these are often set to broadcast on one of the "private" network sub-nets, (192.168.nnn.nnn etc). Unfortunately the manufacturers are not that adventurous and can often use common names for SSID and ranges such as 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.256 and sometimes this will result in them showing up in the wireless devices of neighbours systems.

You might want to change your SSID to a unique one identifiable to yourself, and change the IP address range to something different (this is a good general idea anyway as it gives a slight improvement in security over using defaults - this also applies to wireless passphrase and router admin password and even name - Check your router manual

 

[b0bbyj0nes]

I had the same camera pop up on my Windows 7 Pro system after I paired my ZTE smart phone with it.

 

[Sevendaez]

Hi, I found this thread because, due to some change in the last 23 days since I last looked at my network, that weird camera popped up last night in the Network window. I went to log in to my router to try turning off 'network discovery', or at least UPNP - and I couldn't. The username or/and password were not the default, nor what I had written down.

So I hard reset it, and re-did those, and now the camera no longer appears. Last time I messed with it, I'd set up a bunch of not-too-power-user-ish things, but beyond stock, and perhaps something there was allowing the camera to appear. Still, since my login credentials were no longer valid/known, I suspect something more nefarious. I recommend doing as I described above.

 

[mrjimphelps]

I know that this is an old thread, but I thought I'd throw in my 2c. Go into your router, get the MAC addresses of all your legitimate devices, and set up restrictions so that only those devices are allowed to connect. This will stop the "camera" and all other unknown/unauthorized devices from connecting to your router. Save the list of legitimate MAC addresses for future reference.

Make sure that you have encryption turned on in your router -- WPA2 is what you should be using. (If you weren't already using WPA2, then you'll need to establish a new connection on each authorized device after doing this.)

Make sure you have a password set, both for accessing your wireless network, and for accessing the administrative areas of your router. (Use a different password for each.)

If there is something nefarious going on here (i.e. if someone is trying hack your network), then they might know how to get around these restrictions (i.e. they could change their MAC address to a legitimate one). Therefore, from time to time, you should log into your router and see which devices are connected. Compare to the authorized list, to see if anything is connecting which shouldn't be.