Ethical Hacking of a Ring Doorbell

Abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) devices have entered the home, offices, and other parts of everyday life at an alarming rate in recent years. A large company in the IoT space is Ring. They mostly make smart home security devices, with the mission of making neighborhoods safer, and their flagship product is the Ring doorbell. However, an important question is: Does connecting such a device to your home network introduce new threats? In this thesis, the security of the Ring doorbell and applications in its ecosystem are evaluated and presented. A structured approach is taken for the evaluation by constructing a threat model, evaluating threats, and further pursuing selected threats by penetration testing. One minor vulnerability was discovered but the overall conclusion was that this product followed best practices when it comes to securing IoT devices, reducing attack surfaces, and enforcing user security policies. The conclusion of this thesis is that adding a Ring doorbell to your home network does not introduce a new threat.