Hacker takes control of Ohio couple's baby monitor and screams 'bad things'

Heather and Adam Schreck were woken up by the sound of a strange voice in their ten-month-old daughter's bedroom

The parents of a 10-month-old baby in Ohio were left reeling when an unknown hacker took control of the infant’s baby monitor and screamed “obscenities”.

Heather and Adam Schreck were asleep at their home in Hebron, Cincinnati, when they heard a strange voice around midnight, FOX19 reported.

Ms Schreck picked up her mobile phone to check the wireless video monitor set up in her daughter Emma’s bedroom and was startled to find the camera panning around the room without the baby touching it.

She told FOX19: “About the time I saw it moving, I also heard a voice again start screaming at my daughter. He was screaming, ‘Wake up baby. Wake up baby.' Then just screaming at her trying to wake her up.”

Mr Schreck dashed into his daughter’s bedroom, at which point the camera swivelled around to face him.

“Then it screamed at me,” he said.

“Some bad things, some obscenities. So I unplugged the camera.”

The couple realised what someone had hacked into their Foscam IP Camera. Wireless devices such as this present an easy opportunity for hackers to infiltrate people’s homes without their knowledge.

Tech experts advise that people can protect themselves by using different passwords for Wi-Fi networks and cameras and regularly checking manufacturers’ websites for software updates.

It is not the first instance of hackers targeting baby monitors. In August 2013, a Houston couple heard the voice of an unknown man swearing and making lewd comments via the wireless baby monitor in the bedroom of their two-year-old daughter.

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