A hacker accessed a Texas family's baby monitor and spoke to their child. Robert Siciliano explains how manufacturers ship cameras with default passwords that hackers can find, and unsecured home Wi-Fi makes it worse. Compromised cameras can spy on your home, capture passwords, and help burglars plan break-ins.
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Right now we want to get it over to Sir Bonnie.
All right, Gene, thank you. It is a story making national headlines. Parents out in Texas say that somebody hacked into their baby monitor and was able to see their child and even talk to her through it. They say it's time to warn other parents what exactly can happen. So what if you have one at your house? Joining us from our Beacon Hill studio is McAfee Online Security expert Robert Siciliano. Good morning.
Good morning to you.
Well, how could this happen? This seems crazy.
Yeah, the, um, internet is, uh, riddled with, uh, forums that teach hackers exactly how this works. The problem stems from the manufacturers of this technology, of these cameras, that have default usernames and passwords, such as username and password to access, and then default IP addresses that could be scanned online.
So this is somebody who's not taking a minute to change it and personalize it, and then someone can just hack right into it?
That is one part of the problem. Okay. In addition to the fact that wireless in general, uh, your wireless router at home can be hacked if that's not password protected either.
Okay, so people really need to find out exactly how to protect these monitors. Some are only equipped for sound, though others have cameras. Do you know what type of device that someone can hack into? Both? All?
Well, the majority of them that are sold, uh, that are consumable, you know, for the, uh, consumer market They're really basic, and if the manufacturers went ahead and made it complicated to access these devices, then consumers just wouldn't buy them. They'd be— it'd be complicated. There'd be all kinds of customer service calls. So the majority of them are default that they're unfortunately hackable.
And when you're using something that's connected to Wi-Fi, you're kind of automatically at risk, I guess, because anyone can kind of tap into that. If you take the steps that you're mentioning and you do personalize your security codes Are you safe, or are there still ways around it that you're aware of?
You are certainly much safer once you, um, add a username and a password or change the default username and password. And just this morning, you know, doing some research on the story, I found a forum, and this is one comment from one of the hackers who said, "I once used one of these cameras to target one person in a family. I only played music through the camera speakers or talked when she was alone." 'Her family was starting to think she was insane. In the end, she surrendered completely and started singing along with the music I was playing.' That is beyond unsettling. Creepy. Yeah. So bad guys, you know, see the opportunity here. They're taking full advantage of it. And know that if you have this technology sitting in your kid's room or your living room, that you have to take the necessary steps to lock it down.
Definitely. And you think, okay, sure, somebody can be creepy like that text that you just read on that forum. But how else could the monitors be used to cause damage? They might be able to tell if someone's not home and target a home for, for theft?
Absolutely. And they could watch what you're doing on your own computer. They could monitor your family's activities. They could see what usernames and passwords you might be typing into your devices. So anybody who has access to these cameras that, that have pan, tilt, zoom, so so the camera can move around, can watch anything and everything your family's doing. So you really have to, you know, buyer beware, know what you're getting yourself into, change up the usernames and passwords, lock down your wireless internet so that it's not accessible to the world.
Yeah, so it's not a portal into your world. Robert, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
Thank you.
All right, we're gonna take a quick break. Keep it right here.
