Before I hacked a stranger's smart home, I asked for permission. An anonymous creep who hacked a Texas family's baby monitor was not as polite. ABC News reports that a Houston couple heard an unfamiliar voice talking to their sleeping 2-year-old daughter on Saturday night and realized that a stranger had taken control of their camera-enabled monitor. And he wasn't a very nice stranger: 
 
 Marc Gilbert was doing the dishes after his birthday dinner and he heard strange noises coming from his daughter Allyson’s room while she was sleeping. “Right away I knew something was wrong,” he told ABC News. As he and his wife got closer to the room, they heard the voice calling his daughter an “effing moron,” and telling her,”‘wake up you little slut.” 
 
 So not the best birthday. Luckily (?) his daughter is deaf and her cochlear implants were turned off. So the hacker turned his vitriol on her parents: 
 
 The hacker then began shouting expletives at her parents and calling Gilbert a stupid moron and his wife a b****. “At that point I ran over and disconnected it and tried to figure out what happened,” said Gilbert. “[I] Couldn’t see the guy. All you could do was hear his voice and [that] he was controlling the camera.” 
 
 In comments on an article about the hack, Marc Gilbert said he did take basic security precautions, including passwords for his router and the baby-stalking IP cam, as well as having a firewall enabled. Looking at the footage taken by ABC News, it appears that Gilbert was using a Foscam wireless camera. That may have been the problem, as a vulnerability in that product was disclosed by security researchers just months ago in a presentation titled "To watch or to be watched: Turning your surveillance camera against you." 
 
 I've reached out to Foscam (but the wait time on the Hong Kong-based company's customer service line is currently 41 minutes). One of the features of the camera the Gilberts appear to have is "remote internet monitoring from anywhere in the world." That sounds eerie rather than reassuring given the vulnerability exposed earlier this year by security researchers Sergey Shekyan and Artem Harutyunyan of Qualys, Inc. (Shekyan has since moved to Shape Security.) They revealed that Foscam had a firmware vulnerability that would allow someone to take control of the company's products remotely and said that thousands of Foscam cameras in the U.S. were vulnerable. The presentation did not seem to garner much attention -- just a few articles; this is probably because the researchers called them "IP cams" rather than the more-alarming "baby monitors." 
 
 According to connected device search engine Shodan, there are over 48,000 of these types of cameras connected to the Web, and over 400,000 around the world. It's not clear how many of those are vulnerable to the hack exposed by the researchers. The conference put the researchers' presentation online, which provides a guide on how the exploit works. Apparently, the hacker who harassed this Texas family took advantage of the vulnerability. 
 
 A June blog post from Foscam says the company recently released a firmware update meant to fix a few issues with the product. Some of the security fixes provide insight into how the Gilberts may have been hacked; according to the Foscam blog post, the update "increased security by prompting for users to change default admin password" and "allow[s] for changing of the default admin username from 'admin' to something else." However, when the Qualys researchers revealed the vulnerability at a conference in April, they said that "99% of Internet-connected wireless Foscam IP cameras [were] still using the old firmware," reports Network World. 
 
 So, if you've got a Foscam camera aimed at your baby or anything else in your home, make sure your firmware is updated and check out the advice at the end of this article. 
 
 Hat tip to Trustwave security researcher Daniel Crowley for helping to identify the monitor brand. ||||| Imagine a stranger not only spying on your child, but talking to them too. It happened to a Houston dad. He heard a man yelling at his little girl through her baby monitor. Marc Gilbert says he used internet cameras as a baby monitor to watch his kids in their rooms. 
 
 "It felt like somebody broke into our house,” Gilbert said. 
 
 Gilbert believes a hacker got access to this internet-based baby monitor that sits in his daughter's room. He says someone hacked his router and the camera... allowing them to taunt his toddler through the camera's speakers. 
 
 "He said, 'wake up, Allyson, you little (expletive),’” Gilbert said. 
 
 Factfinder12 sat down with Cybertron International's Bill Ramsey for some advice on securing your internet-based baby monitor. 
 
 “You should always change default user names and passwords on any device that you buy,” Ramsey said. 
 
 Ramsey says change the passwords on your router and the device itself. And don't use a word out of the dictionary--make it hard. 
 
 "If your baby monitor is a wireless baby monitor, then you really need to set-up a very strong encryption for it to talk to the wireless router,” Ramsey said. 
 
 Finally, if your baby monitor is connected to a website, make sure you set-up a strong password on that site too. 
 
 While internet-based baby monitors can give you access to your child's room from anywhere, Ramsey says you don't want just anyone to have that kind of access too. 
 
 "There are some inherent security risks that come along with that and this is demonstrating that very well. Somebody being able to see and talk to your baby. Wow, that's like somebody standing in the window,” Ramsey said. 
 
 Ramsey says a hacker could break into a monitor through your router, the device, or the device's website... if it has one. That's why it's important to protect all three of those areas with strong passwords. We also asked how a hacker could find internet-based baby monitors. Ramsey says hackers often drive around looking for open wireless networks. So make sure yours is locked. Also, they can try to hack a website to get access. ||||| HOUSTON, Texas (WTVR) – A Texas couple is warning other parents after the camera they were using to monitor their two-year-old and keep her safe was hacked. 
 
 For two years, Marc Gilbert and his wife have come to rely on their internet cameras to keep an eye on their two toddlers when they are in their rooms, KTRK reports. 
 
 However, over the weekend, someone else was watching, too. 
 
 Gilbert said he first heard a strange voice with either a British or European accent coming from down the hall from the two-year-old’s room. As he and his wife got closer, what they heard left them shaken. 
 
 “He said, ‘Wake up, Allyson, you little slut,’” Gilbert said, who the watched the cam turn and focus on he and his wife. 
 
 Once the couple was in view of the camera, ABC News reports that the hacker called Gilbert a stupid moron and his wife a b****. 
 
 Gilbert immediately yanked the plug from the camera. 
 
 He now thinks someone hacked his router and the camera. The person was able to call the child by name since he could see Allyson’s name on her wall. 
 
 The only saving grace is that Allyson never heard a thing. 
 
 “Allyson was born deaf, so she has cochlear implants. Thankfully, we had them off, and she didn’t hear any of it and she slept right through it,” Gilbert said. 
 
 A computer expert suggests following all security recommendations for these types of cameras, as well as making sure home networks are secure. ||||| A Houston couple is still shaken after saying they heard the voice of a strange man cursing and making lewd comments in the bedroom of their 2-year-old daughter. 
 
 When Marc Gilbert and his wife Lauren entered the room, the voice cursed them as well. 
 
 The creepy voice - which had a British or European accent - was coming from the family's baby monitor that was also equipped with a camera. A hacker apparently had taken over the monitor. 
 
 The incident occurred on Aug. 10 as Marc Gilbert was doing the dishes after his birthday dinner and he heard strange noises coming from his daughter Allyson's room while she was sleeping, Gilbert said. 
 
 "Right away I knew something was wrong," he told ABC News. 
 
 As he and his wife got closer to the room, they heard the voice calling his daughter an "effing moron," and telling her,"'wake up you little slut." 
 
 The hacker then began shouting expletives at her parents and calling Gilbert a stupid moron and his wife a b****. 
 
 "At that point I ran over and disconnected it and tried to figure out what happened," said Gilbert. "[I] Couldn't see the guy. All you could do was hear his voice and [that] he was controlling the camera." 
 
 Baby monitors can also be used by potential burglars 
 
 Allyson is deaf, said Gilbert, so she did not wake up. "It's somewhat of a blessing," said Gilbert of his daughters' hearing impairment. "If she had heard it it would have been a big problem." 
 
 Their son Ethan, 3, did not hear anything either and only woke up after he heard his parents that night. 
 
 Gilbert wonders whether there were similar previous incidents that he wasn't aware of. 
 
 "It's quite possible that this had been going on more than one day," he said. "Security vulnerabilities exist." 
 
 Parry Aftab, a lawyer specializing in internet privacy and security law, said that such hacking is "very uncommon" but noted that is "one of our greatest fears that people are going to be able to access these baby monitors." 
 
 Aftab said that if monitors are connected to Wi-Fi, keeping a password is imperative. Otherwise, she explained, anyone can access the Wi-Fi-and therefore has access to the monitor as well. 
 
 In order to prevent universal access, said Aftab, it is key to maintain the secrecy of passwords. 
 
 "Guard the people who have access to your computers and your passwords," she advised. She noted that baby sitters, housekeepers, or unattended cell phones can all be sources to obtain passwords. 
 
 Gilbert did not report the incident to the police, but said he is still shaken up and wary about publicizing the story for fear of endangering his children. He was also reluctant to provide photographs of his children. 
 
 He did call his internet service provider, who told him to check his passwords on the device. Gilbert said he is leaving the device permanently unplugged. 
 
 "I don't think it ever will be connected again," he said. "I think we are going to go without the baby monitor now." 
 
 But he wants other parents to be aware of the potential dangers of the monitors being hacked.
– A Houston couple was disturbed to hear a stranger in their 2-year-old daughter's room Saturday. The man, who had a European-sounding accent, was making lewd comments ("wake up, you little slut") and called both the toddler and the parents names including "effing moron" and "bitch." But he wasn't actually in the room—he had apparently hacked the wireless IP camera that was being used as a baby monitor, which dad Marc Gilbert quickly disconnected. In what he calls "somewhat of a blessing," Gilbert's little girl is deaf, and never woke up throughout the ordeal. "If she had heard it it would have been a big problem." The hacker appeared to be controlling the IP cam; that apparently allowed him to learn the baby's name (it appears on the wall of her room), which he said aloud, WTVR reports. "I don’t think it ever will be connected again. I think we are going to go without the baby monitor now," her dad tells ABC News, adding that he is publicizing his story so other parents are aware of the danger. Based on ABC's footage, Forbes thinks the Gilberts were using a Foscam wireless camera, which it notes were found to have security vulnerabilities recently. KWCH has some basic security tips for nervous parents.