It's obviously later than usual so I can't even say good afternoon, but welcome back to another post from ToBeSecured. I actually wanted to try posting during late hours to see if more people were more active at night time versus normal hours of the day. This will be a great way to find out! Anyways October is slowly approaching, so feel free to send me or tag me in articles, videos, or any content relating to cyber security. I hope you all are excited as I am!
I'm not sure if you remember, but two posts back I wrote about how people are now living and interacting with technology. Well, today a coworker of mine sent me an article relating to the topic and guess what? It went downhill!
A Milwaukee couple's technology was taken over by a hacker and left them feeling violated and in a panic. Samantha and Lamont Westmoreland realized something was wrong when they began to hear a voice over the in-house video system. Then they started hearing loud music throughout the house and noticed the thermostat had been ratcheted up to a sweltering temperature. "My heart was racing," Samantha told Fox 6 News. "I felt so violated at that point." The couple had originally installed a Google Nest system in their house in November 2018. On September 17, Samantha came home and found that the thermostat had been turned up to 90 degrees. Thinking it was a mistake, she reset the thermostat. The thermostat went back up, though, and a disembodied voice started talking to her and her husband through the camera in the kitchen and playing loud, "vulgar" music. "So I unplugged it and turned it facing the ceiling," Samantha said. The Westmorelands eventually contacted their internet service provider and changed their network ID, thinking that someone had hacked first into their WiFi and then begun using their Nest.
"People need to be educated and know that this is real, and this is happening, and it is super scary, and you don't realize it until it's actually happening to you," Samantha said. This is the message I am trying to portray to you all: all technology is not good technology and we need to practice being secured and protected. Of course we do not think these kind of situations can happen to us but they are happening more and more often. If you are aware now, you will start to second guess purchasing these new technologies. This is not the first time this has happened and it will not be the last!
In January, someone took over a West Barrington, Illinois, couple's Nest cameras and began talking to their 7-month-old. "I was shocked to hear a deep, manly voice talking," Arjun Sud told WBBM-TV. "My blood ran cold. [He was] asking me, you know, why I'm looking at him — because he saw obviously that I was looking back — and continuing to taunt me." The hacker reacted with indecency and changed the temperature in the house to 90 degrees. After Sud disconnected the cameras, he contacted Nest, which told him to use two-factor authentication when logging in for added security.
That same month, a California family says someone used their Nest camera's speaker to warn of an impending missile strike from North Korea.
These are the specific reasons I will not live with smart technologies besides a phone and television. If I have to go beyond that, I do not want it simply because the risks are extremely high and I would have to wonder if my systems are hacked. I already cover my laptop cameras as it is and cringe every time I have to enable my location services. It has been too many television shows, movies, and real life events relating to new technologies being hacked or exploited for malicious reasons. If you have any sense, do some research and read about case studies before purchasing anything. Find out if there are any flaws or vulnerabilities in the device and the options that are available for securing your life and environment. The goal is to be secured and protect your privacy at all times and by any means necessary.
If you would like to discuss further, please leave a comment or ask a question. I'd love to chat with my readers and hear your thoughts. Thank you for dropping in and remember ToBeSecured!
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