A mum from Mississippi has spoken out after a hacker managed to use their Ring security camera to talk to her eight-year-old daughter.
Ashley LeMay bought the security camera during the Black Friday sale this year, and thought it would be a good way to keep an eye on her three young daughters while working her nighttime nursing shifts.
However, just four days after the camera was installed in the girls’ bedroom, Ashley’s daughter Alyssa began hearing strange noises.
You can find out more about this chilling story in the following clip:
Unsettling footage from the children’s room shows how Tiptoe Through The Tulips began to play through the security camera. Horror fans will no doubt recall how this tune was used to eerie effect in the 2010 horror movie, Insidious.
When Alyssa began investigating the source of the creepy music, a male voice could be heard saying, ‘I’m your best friend. I’m Santa Claus. Don’t you want to be my best friend?’
As reported by 6abc Philadelphia, the voice went on to taunt Alyssa, encouraging her to act disobediently. The voice stopped after her dad entered the room and disconnected the camera.
Ashley – who had been out running errands at the time of the incident – later told WMC5:
I watched the video and I mean my heart just like… I didn’t even get to the end where she is screaming ‘mommy, mommy’ before I like ran inside. […]
They could have watched them sleeping, changing. I mean they could have seen all kinds of things. Honestly, my gut, it makes me feel like it’s either somebody who knows us or somebody who is very close by.
Ashley reportedly had not set up the two-factor authentication for the Ring account, which would have offered more protection against hackers. The family has since taken other security precautions, such as making sure their WiFi is not longer visible to others.
Ring have since made the following statement to WMC5 regarding the incident:
Customer trust is important to us and we take the security of our devices seriously. While we are still investigating this issue and are taking appropriate steps to protect our devices based on our investigation, we are able to confirm this incident is in no way related to a breach or compromise of Ring’s security.
Due to the fact that customers often use the same username and password for their various accounts and subscriptions, bad actors often re-use credentials stolen or leaked from one service on other services.
As a precaution, we highly and openly encourage all Ring users to enable two-factor authentication on their Ring account, add Shared Users (instead of sharing login credentials), use strong passwords, and regularly change their passwords.
The camera in question has reportedly now been disconnected, and will be returned by the family.
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.