Hacker Breaks into Baby Monitor, Shouts Obscenities to Baby
Warning to parents that technology is not fool-proof. A couple from Ohio was roused from their sleep one night due to the obscenities they heard coming from their child's baby monitor.
Heather Schreck woke up to a man's voice barking at her 10-month-old daughter who was in the other room. It wasn't her husband because he was asleep beside her in their bed.
"I heard what sounded like a man's voice but I was asleep so I wasn't sure," Ms Schreck told Fox19, a Cincinnati-based news station.
The man's voice screaming "wake up baby!" over and over to their baby Emma.
Ms Schreck then picked up her cell phone to check the Foscam camera in her daughter's room, which sits above the baby's crib. She saw it was moving, on its own.
"About the time I saw it moving, I also heard a voice again start screaming at my daughter. He was screaming, 'Wake up baby. Wake up baby.' Then just screaming at her trying to wake her up."
At that time Mr Schreck then rushed to their daughter's room. When he got to the room, the camera then turned from his daughter and pointed at him.
The camera then started shouting obscenities at young's Emma's father until Mr Schreck disconnected it.
The couple said they felt "violated." "Someone had hacked in from outside," Ms Schreck said.
According to the portal Consumer Affairs, this wasn't the first time that the Foscam baby monitor was hacked.
"However, the Schrecks were particularly vulnerable because their Foscam camera had a known security flaw in its firmware; Foscam had released a patch, but the Schrecks did not know about it," the portal said.
The portal reminded consumers that constant vigilance is needed with connecting any home system to wifi or the Internet. "You can never just install it and forget about it."
"Consistently look for and install any relevant security patches for the baby monitor/spy equipment in your home in addition to your regular wifi, and of course make sure you have a strong password for both," portal Consumer Affairs said.