Police Remind Utahns To Keep Accounts Safe After Ring Accounts Hacked Nationwide
Dec 13, 2019, 7:43 PM
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A rash of home security cameras getting hacked across the country has some families no longer feeling secure and police are reminding Utahns to take steps to protect their accounts.
Although no cases have been reported here in the Beehive State, a hacker recently used the speaker feature of a Mississippi family’s system to talk to a young girl and pretend he was Santa Claus.
“Who is that?” asked the 8-year-old girl after the voice came on over the speaker.
“I’m your best friend,” said the stranger’s voice.
“Hey, what show is that?” said one stranger’s voice coming from a Ring camera inside another family’s kitchen.
Security experts said the best way to protect accounts is to use strong and unique passwords, noting that longer passwords are more secure. They also said to change passwords often and set up two-factor authentication.
“It’s just general safety for anything that is connected to the internet. It’s password integrity,” said Detective Michael Ruff with the Salt Lake City Police Department. “Make sure you don’t use the same passwords across multiple things.”
Although no cases have happened in Utah, Ruff told KSL he’s not surprised that it is happening.
“Anything can be hacked and we’ve seen that all the time,” he said.
Ruff said nowadays, home surveillance cameras have played a huge role in catching criminals. That’s why Salt Lake City and Sandy police departments have signed up for a program designed by the makers of the Ring camera. The program is set up to help catch criminals through the use of video.
But Ruff said they in no way have access to anyone’s camera. They have to get a message to the person before they can use it.
“We have no access to anyone’s video and we want to make sure that people understand we cannot access your cameras. We have never been able to access your cameras. We can just request that through Ring and Ring will reach out to you,” Ruff said.
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