Is Your Baby Safe?
Watching a sleeping baby is the kind of mesmerizing entertainment akin to watching campfire flames or the waves of an ocean crash on the shore. There is something almost therapeutic to seeing their tiny chest rise and fall and their tiny lips suckling up towards the air. And now thank you to the magic of the Internet, you too can watch Junior napping from your desk at work or even while you are sneaking a quick shower by opening an app on your smart phone. Gotta love technology, right?!
Yes, but not always. IP camera attacks are a real and growing problem. If your baby monitor connects to the Internet, it’s vulnerable. Recently, we’ve heard of bad guys penetrating systems allowing them to watch a child (and whoever else might be in the room with them) in real time and sometimes even talk to them!
Here are a few tips to get your baby’s monitoring system safe.
∗ Make sure that you’ve changed the default settings in your camera’s software. It is imperative that you personalize your login and password. Do not use the one provided by the manufacturer beyond initial setup.
∗ Depending on your system, you should change the port your monitor uses too. It can sound scary, but the directions will tell you how to do this.
∗ Always check for updates to software and the app you use. These are issued by the manufacturer to address new threats and vulnerabilities.
Now this won’t make your camera completely secure, remember we’re dealing with cyberspace here. But you are making it more difficult for a bad guy to access your camera.
And making things more difficult increases the chance a bad guy moves on looking for a parent who doesn’t possess Super Cynja Powers.