Chilling: Stranger Hacks Family's Ring Camera, Tries To Trick 8-Year-Old into Thinking He's Santa
Sometimes taking extra measures to protect your information can be a drag. Setting up accounts and two-factor authentication, changing passwords frequently and making sure your passwords are a bit more complex than “password” take time, but they can certainly help prevent sickening events like this one from happening.
Ashley LeMay first realized a Ring security camera could be used to keep an eye on her daughters while they were in their room when she saw another mom using her own device.
“She had one and she was like watching her kids on her phone and I was like ‘oh you can actually speak to them. That’s really neat,’” LeMay told WMC-TV.
When the system was on sale for Black Friday, LeMay took the bait after reading up on the camera.
“I did a lot of research on these before I got them,” she said. “You know, I really felt like it was safe.”
And what mother wouldn’t like to be able to keep an eye on her kids for their safety? The problem, of course, is that parents aren’t the only ones who can peek in on activities — a fact that soon became a disgusting reality for LeMay.
It was LeMay’s 8-year-old daughter, Alyssa, who first noticed something was odd.
“First, what happened I was in the hallway I thought it was my sister because I hear music,” she told the news outlet. “It’s like ‘tiptoe through the window.’ So I come upstairs and I hear some banging noise and I am like ‘who is that.'”
The answer? “Santa Claus.”
“I’m Santa Claus,” what sounds like a male voice can be heard saying in the Ring video. “Don’t you wanna be my best friend?”
“Tiptoe Through the Tulips” was also played over the system, and many have pointed out that it was the song used in the horror flick “Insidious,” giving the encounter an even darker vibe.
LeMay was appalled when she saw the footage — and just four days after installing the camera. Someone wasted no time getting into their home in this startling way.
“I watched the video and I mean my heart just like… I didn’t even get to the end where she is screaming ‘mommy’ before I like ran inside,” the concerned mother said.
LeMay has no idea what all the creepy “Santa” saw.
“They could have watched them sleeping, changing,” she said. “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.”
While the camera has been uninstalled and the family plans to return it, LeMay did say she hadn’t taken all possible security measures when setting up the system. You can bet they’ve upped their game in that department now, though the damage has already been done.
According to WMC, Ring released a statement regarding user privacy and reminding people to take their security seriously.
“Customer trust is important to us and we take the security of our devices seriously,” they said. “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.”
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