Many of you familiar with my work are aware of my great concerns over the vulnerability of what has become known as the Internet of Things.  The Internet of Things is the name for the technology by which various things are connected and controlled over the Internet.  Some of the more common products that are a part of the Internet of Things include cars, refrigerators, televisions, copy machines and medical devices.  Here is a link to a column I wrote for USA Today about the Internet of Things.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2015/04/04/weisman-internet-of-things-cyber-security/70742000/

The Internet of Things also includes baby monitors and recently Rapid7 a security and analytics firm published its research in which they researched and ranked nine popular baby monitors.  Eight of them received a grade of F, one of them received a grade of D and all of them had serious vulnerabilities that made it easy work for a hacker to take control of the devices.  While it may seem that hacking into a baby monitor may be an invasion of privacy and nothing more, the truth is that in many instances, if a hacker is able to gain access to one device that is part of the home’s Wifi network, he or she could also gain access to other connected devices, such as the parent’s computer containing personal financial information or even the capability of connected to the computers  of the company for which the parent works if the parent’s computer is networked in for working from home.

TIPS

Here is a link to the full report of Rapid 7 to which you can go to see if your baby monitor is one of the affected ones.  https://www.rapid7.com/docs/Hacking-IoT-A-Case-Study-on-Baby-Monitor-Exposures-and-Vulnerabilities.pdf

Anyone who has a baby monitor should make sure that the camera and software are constantly updated with the latest security software from the company that manufactures the baby monitor.  It also is a good idea to, as I have advised many times previously to make sure that your router, which connects you to the Internet is password protected and that you change the default password for all of your Internet of Things devices.