There were some recent cases where a “hacker” got access to some WiFi baby monitors and they watched the baby and even yelled at him, I know the world is crazy so I wanted to make a shot tutorial on how to protect your WiFi enabled baby monitor from unwanted intruders.
I also did a comparison charts for all the best baby monitors on the market, but for this tutorial we will be focusing only on wireless enabled monitors because they are the easiest to hack is you don’t set them up properly. In my reviews I’ve pointed out the facts that some of them can’t be hacked since some of them are cloud based baby monitors, but some monitor apps can have security holes, but let’s start.
Contents
Buy a trusted brand
I know that some big name brands are more expensive than others but that’s because the quality is better in terms of components, plastics and software. This will also translated in security, don’t expect that a wireless monitor that costs $50 will be better than Dropcam vs WiFi baby 3, because it won’t.
Upgrade your camera’s firmware
If you have followed my advice and bought a trusted brand that this stage will be simple because most of them will update the software constantly so it would be a good idea to check the manufacturer’s website every 3 months and get the latest update. Doing so intruders will have a hard time connecting to your monitor’s video stream.
Change the username
When you will set up you WiFi baby monitor you will notice that the username is “admin” this is the default option on most other devices. My suggestion is to change that into something that only you know, this way the hacker will also have to guess the username which will make the hack almost impossible.
Encrypted Connection
This option is not always available when we are talking about IP baby monitors, but with some monitors the maker will provide a URL that will be using HTTPS (like my website) (you will see a lock icon near the address bar), this means that the connection is encrypted by the server using a 2 stage process, first you get the encrypted content and the decryption key. A hack attempt in this case will be more likely unsuccessful.
Create a trusted IP list
This applies only to IP cameras that don’t provide an encrypted url, you will add your ip to the monitor’s list. The major flaw is that while you travel you won’t know what IP you will get, this means that you have to have a tech savvy friend to add your ip each time you move location.
Create a secure password
This is probably the most challenging part because you have to navigate to a password generator like random.org and request a strong password that will be provided in 2 seconds and we are done.
Using these simple 6 step process you will make your wireless monitor unhackable, now you can enjoy the moment and pass the knowledge to your friends that are using wifi monitors but haven’t completed this steps.
