Wireless/Wired Cameras Being Hacked www.IDTheftSecurity.com

A family in their living room, a baby in her crib, a store clerk. They don't know it, but they're being watched.

This opens up a whole world of spying.

We found a simple device that allows anyone to pick up signals and spy on wireless cameras and baby monitors. High-tech peeping toms. Tonight after Back to You on Fox 25 News at 10.

Surveillance cameras seem to be, well, just about everywhere you look. Many people are even hooking them up in their homes to keep an eye on their family.

But here's a question for you: are those cameras actually allowing others To spy on your every move? Fox 25's Ted Daniel takes a closer look at that.

You're sitting in the privacy of your own home, unaware that someone's watching. Like this family. The husband is relaxing on his couch. His wife comes into the room. No idea that strangers could see their every step until they were told.

I'm sure that that family doesn't imagine that anyone else can see them.

With these little devices, it's not only possible, it's easy. This $89 wireless backup camera is designed It's designed for safety. You put the camera on your bumper and you can see on the receiver screen if any kids are behind your car when you're backing up. But that's not all the receiver shows you. Driving around with the screen on, it picked up all sorts of wireless camera images. Security cameras in stores, the lobby of a business, airport runway cameras.

You guys are just driving around, just happened to pick this up?

And possibly most disturbing of all—

There's the baby.

The camera's receiver picks up this image on a residential street. A baby playing happily in her crib. Her father almost speechless.

I mean, that's absolutely, uh, uh, unbelievable.

A wireless camera puts out a signal, sort of like your TV signals. The device can only pick up a picture if you're putting one out there. So you need to have some sort of wireless camera in your home. This family had a nanny cam.

Never occurred that it would pass anywhere beyond the confines of the house.

But in the wrong hands, it could mean trouble. Criminals casing a store before a robbery, someone checking out your valuables in your home.

Pedophile casing joints. Again, this opens up a whole world of spying that you would never even consider.

The problem? It's not illegal.

There's a big gap in the law. It covers emails, it covers voicemails, telephone conversations. It does not cover video without sound.

And with some cameras, you don't even need to intercept the signal. You can watch them from any PC. From the comfort of your home, you can do the same thing.

From the comfort of your home, you can watch, uh, be a voyeur in somebody else's personal or professional life.

Computer security expert Robert Siciliano says it's easy to access thousands of unsecured web-based cameras all over the world through the internet. And hackers have already done the work for you, showing you how to find them. You gotta wonder if this guy has any idea he can be watched by the world while he's at work.

Web-based cameras have an internet protocol address, an IP address, and they're, they're like little web servers. And anybody who has one of these cameras set up without any password protection, they are allowing the world to access them via the wired internet and wirelessly.

But you can protect yourself. If you have a web-based camera, make sure it's password protected. And if it's wireless, also make sure the signal is scrambled or encrypted. If the camera can't be secured, experts say turn it off when you're not using it. And keep in mind, you never know who may be watching. I'm Ted Daniel, Fox 25 News.

Cameras always on, that's for sure.