Is it normal for a CCTV recorder to connect to servers abroad?

It can be, but you should know why it does. Many camera recorders keep a permanent connection to the manufacturer's cloud so that the phone app can show video without opening a port on your router, and those servers may be in another country or continent. That connection is also a remote-access channel you never configured, run by a third party, and older recorders have a long history of security flaws. Find out from the installer or the manufacturer's documentation which service it is, decide whether you need remote viewing at all and, if not, switch off the cloud feature and block the recorder's internet access. If you do need it, keep the firmware current and change the default passwords. NetSenX shows the recorder's destinations from a SPANSPAN: switch port analyser. A switch setting that sends a copy of network traffic to one port, where a sensor can watch it. or TAPTAP: test access point. A small device that copies the traffic on a network cable for a sensor to watch. port and flags beaconing and unusual outbound volume on every plan, so a recorder that suddenly uploads far more than usual stands out. Whether the vendor's cloud is acceptable stays your decision.

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