Baby monitors are designed to help parents keep their bundle of joy safe, but growing reports of hacking are highlighting the dangers of internet-connected monitors.
In a recent post to the subreddit r/beyondthebump, Redditor EnvironmentalBerry96 explained how they discovered their Owlet baby monitor was hacked.
Their baby, normally a very good sleeper, woke up distressed. After changing him and putting him back to bed, their husband heard a strange voice talk to the baby over the monitor.
"[We] researched and found that this cam is often hacked and the company just keep telling people to change passwords," they said, claiming they already had a very secure 16-digit password to begin with.
Unfortunately, baby monitors, like any internet-connected device, aren't immune to bad actors. Unlike FHSS/DECT baby monitors, which use short-range transmission to connect the camera to the parent unit, Wi-Fi baby monitors transmit data via the Internet, which can leave the gate open for hackers.
"Even if you lock things down at your end with secure passwords it could go wrong if the company you use reveals that footage of your child was stored on an open server somewhere," antivirus company Malwarebytes explains.
In May 2023, Owlet came under fire yet again after a mum's account of how her baby monitors were hacked went viral on TikTok.
Kurin Adele noticed that the camera in her son's room was unplugged. Upon asking her husband to plug it back in, her son began crying and begging him not to.
"I don’t want my camera plugged in, someone talks to me at night and it scares me," he said. "Someone wakes me up and talks to me and I’m scared, I don’t want my camera plugged in."
When Kurin went to change the password for her baby monitors, she was informed that her password had been leaked in a data breach.
“Who the heck knows how long someone has had our password and has been messing with my son? Owlet never notified us.”
The best way to prevent your baby monitor from being hacked is to switch from an internet-connected model to an FHSS/DECT model.
If you decide to stick with a Wi-Fi baby monitor, here are some steps you can take to keep it safe from hackers.
- Use a strong password. The longer your password is and the more numbers, letters and special characters you include in it, the harder it will be to guess or break.
- Enable two-factor authentication. If possible, ensure you turn on two-factor authentication. That way, even if someone knows your password, they won't be able to get into the camera.
- Opt for local storage. As is the case for security cameras, local storage is always safer than cloud (online) storage.
- Unplug when not in use. An unpowered baby monitor can't be hacked, so when you're not using it, make sure it's switched off.
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