A Man Hacked Into a Family’s Ring Camera and Spoke to Their Kid in Her Room
Home-security cameras were created to surveil the property and give families peace of mind. But for the LeMay family, their experience with the Ring camera was nothing short of a nightmare.
Ashley LeMay purchased the Ring security camera during a Black Friday sale for the bedroom where all three of her daughters sleep, reports WMC5 News. The camera allowed the mom to watch and speak to her girls from the convenience of her phone, while she worked night shifts. But four days after installing the device, Ashley’s 8-year-old daughter Alyssa heard a strange music-like noise and banging sound coming from her room. When she went to go check it out, a man’s voice was coming directly from the Ring camera.
“I’m your best friend. I’m Santa Claus,” the unidentified, faceless man said. Alyssa, all alone, called for her mom and kept asking “Who is that?” Fortunately, Ashley’s husband heard the commotion from his daughters’ room and was able to shut it down, as Ashley was out running an errand.
“They could have watched them sleeping, changing. I mean they could have seen all kinds of things,” Ashley tells WMC5 News. “Honestly, my gut it makes me feel like it’s either somebody who knows us or somebody who is very close by.” Since the incident, the camera has been disconnected and the LeMay family plans to return it. Ashley admits she had not set up the two-factor authentication for the Ring account, which would have added another level of protection against potential hackers.
A Ring spokesperson shared a statement with WMC5 News about the incident. They claimed it wasn’t actually a security breach, suggesting that someone may have cracked the username and password of the device, allowing them on to the account. Whether or not that’s true, this video sure gave us the chills, like an episode of Black Mirror come to life.
Some advice? Research the purchase of a security camera, always enable two-factor authentication, never give out your password, and change your log-in credentials frequently.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/absolute-nightmare-man-hacked-familys-203500984.html
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