Baby Monitor hacked by psycho hacker to Scare Toddler with Spooky Sounds
“Wake Up Little Boy, Daddy’s Looking For You,” says psycho Voyeur after hacking baby monitor
In September 2015, researchers had revealed that how almost every “smart” baby monitor that was examined by the team was vulnerable to security vulnerabilities that let strangers seize control over it, which allows them to spy on you and your family.
As expected, these vulnerabilities are being exploited by voyeurs and sadists these days who are hacking baby monitor to not just spy upon babies but to scare them as well.
According to NBC News, one such incident shook Jay and Sarah, parents in San Francisco, who couldn’t figure out what their 3-year old meant when he told them that he was scared to sleep because the because the “phone” kept talking to him at night.
Until one night when Sarah walked by and heard a stranger’s voice coming out of the monitor. It said:
“Wake up little boy, daddy’s looking for you.”
What was, even more, surprising for Sarah was that as soon as she walked in the room, the camera’s night-vision lens installed in the baby monitor turned to observe her and this message was conveyed:
“Look someone’s coming into view.”
Similarly, another family in Minnesota discovered their baby-monitor had been hacked when they saw pictures of their baby that were apparently secretly taken with their monitor and posted online.
The experts are of the view that the WiFi passwords and the PIN that is used for the baby monitor should be changed regularly. But considering the deep embedded vulnerabilities that are identified in most popular baby monitor models, this does look like a workable solution.
What’s more, it’s only a matter of time until one of the cloud-based companies is hacked, which would be disastrous as it will expose all the stored video streams to hackers.
Last summer, the couple informed that they did use a personal-use “smart” CCTV, which used the motion-detection to trigger a video-stream that is sent, via the cloud, to your phone.
However, a quick look at the device’s FAQs, displayed this entry which is somewhat strange, confirms BoingBoing:
“We have strict internal policies and barriers in place to ensure that all personal customer data remains private and secure within the XXXX Cloud at all times. Only select XXXX employees have access keys to systems that contain sensitive customer information. Authorized access to the XXXX Cloud is granted on a least-privilege basis.”
A followup email verified that the device didn’t offer end-to-end encryption feature. By design, anyone who could successfully impersonate a “select employee” could watch all the video of all of the company’s customers, everywhere in the world. The only layer of security was a startup that could be easily folded and the priorities of which would change from second-to-second. Hence, the device was returned immediately by the couple.
However, after the incident, the couple took notice instantly and called the manufacturer firm of the baby monitor, Foscam who explained it was possible their device was hacked and being controlled by someone using a smartphone app, laptop, or KDVR.
Worried that the hacker may have further intentions, the family’s top priority now is to protect their home surroundings and use their harrowing experience to inform others about the potential dangers of baby monitors and prevent them from this nightmare.
