A Bend mom walked down the hallway with her toddler after he told her he heard he heard strange noises and talking. Following the noise to his bedroom, she found the baby monitor camera moving and a voice speaking through it making threatening statements and questions in the presence of the children.

As it turns out, she and her family were victims of their baby monitor being hacked. Unfortunately, this is something that seems to be happening more and more frequently. These top-of-the-line devices, which are meant for safety and security of monitoring your children, could mean potential vulnerability. Although this Bend mom’s camera came with a username she changed it and created a unique password. The hacker was able to access this device since it was connected to Wi-Fi. This means it could have been hacked from anywhere in the world through an IP address. Police detectives are investigating and take these hacking incidents seriously.

It’s important to know that you and your family can take some preventative steps to avoid a similar scary and incredibly violating experience.

  • Never use the default username or password for your camera. Once your camera is fully set up it is imperative to change both the default username and password.
  • Choose a username and password that is at least 8 – 10 characters or longer. Try to use a combination of lower-case and upper-case letters as well as numbers and special characters.
  • Check the logs of your cameras often. Many cameras have embedded logs, which allow you to see exactly which IP addresses are accessing the camera. You will be able to tell if an outsider has gained access to your camera.
  • Change your default port to a port in the 8100 or greater range. Hackers often target default ports and you do not want to make yourself an easy target. By using a non-standard port it will make it more difficult for hackers to find your camera.
  • Make sure your camera has the latest firmware installed for your camera model.
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