Ashley, a nanny to one year old baby girl was going about doing her business of changing the baby’s diapers when suddenly she heard an unfamiliar voice come out of the family baby monitor. “That’s a really poopy diaper,” the voice said, apparently watching Ashley Stanley, the nanny, and little Samantha. And it freaked Ashley out. “I thought it was [Samantha’s] mom and dad playing a joke on me,” Stanley told Houston news station KHOU 11. “I was kind of really freaked out like maybe someone hacked into the camera. He said something else like ‘you should probably password protect your camera,’” she explains. Actually no one was playing pranks with her, the baby security cam made by Foscam was hacked by hackers. The Foscam monitor which has Wi-Fi access facility so that parents can check in on their kids from time to time via their iPhone or iPad, and also has a two way audio for intercom type calls. Unknown hackers had hacked into the baby security cam and may have been snooping over Ashley and the child while the family and the nanny thought that the system was set up to only allow viewing on the mobile app when the phone was also on the network. It seems that is not the case. Foscam COO stated that Foscam has an extensive list of protections for users to make sure that the systems are safe, Chase Rhymes said “The biggest thing consumers can do is make sure that they change the default password and username.” Rhymes added that any of its cameras manufactured in the last year force users to do just that but some older cameras may require a firmware upgrade. The hack may have been a harmless prank on Ashley and the baby’s parents but it is always preferable to take precautions against such hacks as they may be used by cyber criminals for malafide gains.
