Jennifer S. lives in Houston, TX., and one day, she made a scary discovery…
Someone hacked the camera in her kid’s bedroom. Even worse, the hacker had been streaming the video footage online.
Jennifer had no idea the camera was streaming online until someone over 2,000 miles away told her.
She received a text from a friend who said they had seen video footage of her kid’s bedroom posted online.
After learning about the hack, Jennifer contacted a security company to find out how it occurred.
It turns out the hack wasn’t because of a weak password. Rather, the hackers used one of her kids’ video games to hack into the camera.
In one of the video games, you have to enter your internet server information. The kids did this, not realizing what they were doing.
After gaining access to Jennifer’s internet, the hackers worked their way to the camera.
After the incident, Jennifer said, “My advice is always to watch to see what your kids are doing. My kids are unfortunately no longer on the internet.”
The reality is, any device that connects to the internet is at risk of hacking.
Not only that, but internet-connected devices can send information back to the manufacturer. Meaning, the manufacturer could be collecting user information.
And with many electronic devices manufactured in China, who knows how much the risk of hacking, spying, and intrusion increases?
Chinese manufacturers don’t make security a priority. Their goal is to keep costs low.
Which is why you should take precautions with your security cameras – especially those made in China.
Now, here are a few things you can do to keep your cameras safe.
Different network:
When you set up security cameras for your house, set them up on a different internet network than you use for everyday tasks.
This way, if the cameras are compromised the hacker won’t have access to other devices in your house.
Depending on your internet setup you can create multiple networks to isolate devices.
Cloud access:
Many camera manufacturers offer cloud access. With cloud access, you can control the video footage and it’s not stored on your network or computer.
If you are buying your cameras from a trusted company, they likely use secured servers, so this is a safer option.
Since the info is not directly stored on your network, if a hacker did access the camera, they would likely be discovered by the manufacturer’s server security.
This would limit what data they could access related to your camera, and how long they could remain undetected.
Get wired:
These days security cameras are relatively inexpensive. You can find them online and connect them to your internet and you are good to go.
A less popular but more secure option is to get cameras that are wired.
Of course, wired cameras can still be hacked, but if they have no internet functions then hackers would need physical access to the cameras.
But when your cameras are connected to the internet they can be hacked from the other side of the world.
With a wired system, you can have a hard drive set up in your house and record all footage on the hard drive.
If nothing connects to the internet, you are safe from hackers.
The truth is, the more internet-connected devices we add to our homes the more ways hackers can get in.
Since security cameras are a great tool to have, take the time to set them up in the most secure way possible.
