Parents detail an incident when they say a creepy stranger hacked into their baby monitor. INSIDE EDITION has what you need to know to protect your family.
Millions of loving parents buy a baby monitor to keep watch on their sleeping infants. But how would you feel if you discovered a creepy stranger was also watching your child? Believe it or not, experts say baby monitors can be hijacked by total strangers.
Heather and Adam Schreck of Cincinnati, Ohio say it happened to them. Their 10-month-old daughter, Emma, was sleeping when they heard a chilling noise coming from the baby's room.
Heather told INSIDE EDITION, “I heard a man's voice screaming at my daughter, screaming, ‘Wake up baby! Wake up baby!’"
Hear More From the Schreck's About Their Horrifying Discovery
Adam rushed into the baby's room to find a stranger's voice coming out of the monitor, yelling at little Emma. Even more disturbing, the hacker was actually controlling the camera's movements.
Adam said, "The camera was right here at the time, and it turned and looked at me and it started screaming obscenities."
Adam unplugged the camera right away, but it was little consolation.
"We didn't sleep that night," said Heather.
Security expert John Lucich of the Network Security Group, showed INSIDE EDITION how easy it is for a stranger to hijack the camera.
"When using a laptop or cell phone, this [camera], can be accessed from the outside," said Lucich.
Meanwhile, Heather and Adam are just grateful they found out about the hacking in the nick of time.
Heather said, "If this man had not talked and yelled at my daughter, I would not have known that he was watching her."
Here are some safety tips: Make sure you have a strong password with both numbers and letters for your wireless network. Also, make sure you change all default settings on both your wireless network and your baby webcam.
