Growing Trend

This week alone, there were four high-profile cases of creeps hacking into Amazon Ring cameras that families had installed inside their homes and using them to harass or spy on them.

In one, a man used the camera’s speaker to harass a family with racist comments and by triggering their alarm, according to The Cut. In others, predators spied on and communicated with children through the cameras that had been installed in their bedrooms. The takeaway: putting a poorly-secured smart camera inside your home can readily put your family at risk.

Each time I've watched this video it's given me chills. A Desoto County mother shared this Ring video with me. Four days after the camera was installed in her daughters' room she says someone hacked the camera & began talking to her 8-year-old daughter. More at 6 on #WMC5 pic.twitter.com/77xCekCnB0 — Jessica Holley (@Jessica_Holley) December 10, 2019

Change Your Passwords

A spokesperson for Ring told The Cut that the hackers didn’t actually bypass the camera’s security systems. Instead, they said, the individual users had used easily-guessed passwords or failed to enable security protocols like two-factor authentication.

But it seems unfair to expect customers to also become cybersecurity experts before buying their cameras — wouldn’t it be trivial for Amazon and Ring to make two-factor authentication a default setting or even a requirement for camera access?

my friend’s @ring camera was hacked last night when she was sleeping!! Listen to the guy trying to wake her up HOW SCARY @wsbtv pic.twitter.com/agQ4j6OUNj — Lacy (@LacyHartzler) December 10, 2019

READ MORE: Terrifying Videos Show Men Hacking Into Home Security Cameras [The Cut]

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