Several families in recent days have reported the scary experience of having their Ring camera systems hacked, raising questions about the security of the devices.
Ashley Lemay of Mississippi put a Ring camera in her daughters' room to keep an eye on them while she worked overnight as a nurse. Four days after installing it, her eight-year-old heard music and a banging noise from the room where the camera was and went in. She heard a voice say, "I'm Santa Claus, don't you want to be my best friend?" The voice also taunted the girl and pushed her to mess up her room and break her TV before her father came in and turned the camera off.
A Georgia couple said the camera they'd installed in their bedroom to watch their puppy while they were at work was hacked. The woman said she was in the room when she heard someone clapping and saying, "I can see you in the bed. Come on! Wake the f*** up!"
A family in Florida heard racist abuse through their hacked Ring, with the person saying, "Is your kid a baboon, like the monkey?" The abuse continued for three minutes until they removed the camera's batteries. The family said you couldn't see their 15-year-old son on camera during the incident, so that led them to believe the hacker had been watching them for longer than that night.
A Texas couple was sleeping when the Ring alarm went off as if an intruder had come in. Then a voice was heard laughing and saying, "Ring support! Ring support!" The voice then continued, "We would like to notify you that your account has been terminated by a hacker. Pay this 50 bitcoin ransom or you will get terminated yourself." The hacker then accessed the doorbell camera, saying, "I'm outside your front door."