As if new parents didn’t have enough to
worry about, now they have to worry about hackers taking over their baby
monitors. In August of 2013, Marc
Gilbert, a father in Texas ran to his daughter Allyson’s room when he heard a
voice saying, “Wake up, you little slut”.
When he got to the room, he realized that someone hacked the baby
monitor, took control of the camera and was watching his little girl. When he went to unplug the camera, he watched
as it turned to see what he was doing.
Little Allyson slept through the incident, but Mr. Gilbert made sure
that he had tighter security and firewalls installed on both the monitor and
his Internet.
The baby monitor used by the Gilberts
was made by Foscam and connected to the Internet. This particular monitor was known to have
security issues, but since they didn’t buy the monitor directly from Foscam,
they never received the company’s email regarding an available update that
corrected the problem. As of today,
there are estimated to be another 40,000 monitors that can still be hacked.
Just recently, a hacker found one of
those monitors in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In April 2014, Adam and Heather Schreck
woke up to the sound of someone yelling, “Wake up, baby!”, coming from their 10
month old daughter’s room. The parents
rushed to the room and were horrified when they realized the voice was coming
from their baby monitor! The monitor’s
camera started moving and pointed right at them while the person on the other
end of the monitor continued to yell obscenities at them and the baby.
This could be the same person who hacked the Gilbert’s baby monitor in
Texas or it could be a copycat, but they will never know. In order to remove the threat, the Schrecks
quickly unplugged the baby monitor. Marc
Gilbert also unplugged his daughter’s monitor.
Unfortunately, by doing this, all information stored in the monitor,
including the log of IP addresses that accessed it, are erased, making it
impossible for the police to trace who is responsible.
The more technology we have in our homes, the greater our chances are to
be hacked in some way. Any device that
connects to the Internet is susceptible to an attack. So, what are we to do? We depend on technology for almost everything,
so we can’t just stay away from it. The
Gilbert’s didn’t get an email about the fix for their baby monitor because they
bought it at a store rather than from the company. Every device comes with a registration card
that you fill in with your information and send to the company. Perhaps we should be more diligent in sending
these cards in. If the Gilberts and
Schrecks did this, maybe they would have been given a warning and instructions
on how to correct the problem.
But, it’s common practice to not send back the registration cards. If you are one of the thousands of people who
don’t see the point in registering the devices you purchase that connect to the
Internet, you should at least check the company’s website periodically to see
if there are privacy issues and what you can do to protect yourself. There are researchers who are constantly
looking for weak spots in new technology.
In fact, in 2013, researchers found a hacking threat in Smart TVs (Hackers
Can Use Your Smart TV to Spy on You) and the company was able to create a
patch to correct it. But, if you don’t
send in your registration card, or at least check with the product’s
manufacturer, you might miss a vital update.
Every day, more and more privacy concerns develop. Every time you go on-line, whether it’s using
your wireless router at home or using public wi-fi, you take the chance of
being hacked. One thing you can do to
protect yourself is to use a proxy server every time you browse the
Internet. A reputable company like
Privacy Partners can keep your privacy safe by changing your IP address and
gives you the added bonus of encryption with each and every browser
connection. Take advantage of the FREE
trial offer today. You’ll feel safer
knowing that you can surf the Net and be totally anonymous while you’re doing
it.
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