According to The Guardian, more than 30 people from 15 different families claim their devices were hacked and used to harass them. A user claims that he was asked through his camera while watching television one evening: “What are you watching?”. One more indicated that his youngsters were tested through the tool which talked about their basketball game, prior to encouraging them to come close to the electronic camera. Death threats, racial slurs, blackmail… The victims are now suing the Ring company for invasion of privacy.
In addition, the court action mentions research by theElectronic Frontier Foundation that Ring violates users’ privacy through a number of third-party trackers on its app.
New Hacking Scenarios
The Amazon subsidiary is also facing growing criticism for its surveillance partnership with law enforcement. Through this system, users can send footage and photos to the police. This partnership was used as recently as December, reports Numerama, by two young hackers to send fake emergency calls to the police.
They then published the videos of the interventions, recorded from the smart cameras, on social networks. To be certain that the police arrive openly armed, the two individuals simulated family dramas in the process of happening: parents ready to kill each other, hostage taking… Once there, the police were laughed at through the intercom. Access to the connected doorbells would have been via the victims’ Yahoo accounts.
Thus, the proliferation of connected objects increases piracy scenarios. Vigilance is therefore required and traditional precautions are more relevant than ever, such as creating complex passwords using generators or using double authentication.