Is Your Baby Monitor Safe?

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.

Is Your Smart TV Spying on You?

New York State Senator Chuck Schumer recently issued a warning to all smart TV owners:  If your TV is equipped with a camera and can connect to the Internet, it could be used to spy on you.  Yes, your smart TV is capable of allowing a hacker to steal your credit card information, or worse, your identity.  Not only that, but a hacker can remote-access your TV’s camera and watch everything you do in the room that the smart TV is in.  To make matters worse, these TVs don’t have much in the way of security settings. 

Researchers Aaron Grattafiori and Josh Yavor were at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada recently and showed how a smart TV can be hacked.  During the demonstration, they were able to control social media and any other application installed on the TV, they accessed files and even turned on the camera.  If they were able to do this, anyone else can do it too.  It’s like giving up your remote control to a hacker.

Mr. Grattafiori spoke with Mashable regarding this issue (Your Smart TV Can Be Hacked to Spy on You).  He said, “Because the TV only has a single user, any type of compromise into an application or into Smart Hub, which is the operating system – the smarts of the TV – has the same permission as every user, which is, you can do everything and anything.”

Grattafiori and Yavor, who work for iSEC Partners, a security firm, began looking into the issues with smart TVs in December of 2012.  They notified Samsung about this security breach in January 2013.  Samsung issued a statement to CNN shortly after claiming that “patches” have been issued to plug up the holes in security (Your TV Might be Watching You), which now makes it difficult for hackers to break into your smart TV.

What are the Advantages of Using a Proxy Server?

I have been asked many times if it’s worth it to use a proxy server.  My answer is always an emphatic “YES”!  

I travel a lot.  Since my means of transportation is usually a car, I often work while on the road.  This means using public hotspots, whether it’s when I stop at Starbucks for a quick snack, or when I stop for the night at a motel.  This always worried me before I started using Private Proxy’s proxy servers.  You never know if someone at the next table or in the next room is a hacker, but now, I don’t have to worry because I know that everything I send out from my computer is encrypted.  Sure, you can find some free proxies, but some may not be so trustworthy.  Because they’re free, they can be used by anyone and they are usually not encrypted, so you’re not really safe from hacking.  You also have to be careful because some of these proxies are monitored by the owners of the sites.  By monitoring, they can get your personal information.  

Another advantage is that no one knows when I’m traveling or when I’m at home.  With Private Proxy, I have a choice of many servers, both rotating and static, in many areas of the United States, Canada and the Netherlands.  This way, I can use a server in my area of the country when I want my travels to remain private or, I can choose a server across the country when I’m invited to the hundredth kid’s birthday party of the year at Chuck E Cheese!  After all, there is a limit on how much bad pizza and how many screaming kids one person can take.  

Even when I travel outside of the United States, I can still keep in touch with friends, family and my local news.  Since some websites aren’t available all over the world, all I have to do is choose which one of the US servers I would like to use and no matter where I am, the Internet will be “fooled” into thinking I’m home.  I will then have access to sites that would normally be blocked in whatever country I’m traveling in.  I can watch my favorite TV shows, read my local newspapers and shop on sites that would only be available to me in the United States.  All of this without worrying that someone could steal my information by breaking into my data stream.

When I chose Private Proxy as my proxy service, encryption was one of the major selling points.  I like knowing that no matter where I go in the world, even if I’m just around the corner or at home using my wireless router, no one will be able to grab my information and use it to their advantage.  Also, the proxies are never monitored and only Private Proxy clients have access to their servers.  Add that to the choice of multiple servers in different areas of the United States, Canada and the Netherlands and I was hooked.  

Private Proxy offers a free trial period so you can see all the advantages for yourself.  Simply go to the home page and click on the link for the Risk Free Trial at the right of the screen.