Hackers took over home security camera to watch family and cuss at kids, Wash. mom says

After Abby Laguidao says she caught hackers talking to her twin children through a home security camera, the mom is worried.

“Of course my imagination runs wild,” Laguidao told KING5. “Like, how long have you been watching? How many guys are watching me on a day-to-day basis?”

Laguidao said she was at her home in Auburn, Washington, on Monday afternoon when she noticed something odd, KIRO7 reported.

“The Nest started talking to us and that’s when my kids were talking back,” Laguidao said, according to KIRO7. “I thought they were talking to the TV, but they were actually talking back to the camera thinking it was my boyfriend.”

Laguidao said the voice in the Nest security camera, which connects to the internet, then “started cussing” at her and her 6-year-olds in the living room, according to Q13. That’s when she realized it wasn’t her boyfriend’s voice on the other end — and instead the voices belonged to strangers peering into her home.

Along with using the N-word, the hackers made sexual comments to Laguidao and told the family to “shut the f--- up,” KIRO7 reported.

She said the hackers told her to “stop recording” when she tried to take a video of what was happening with her cell phone — which she took as proof that they could see her, according to Q13.

It wasn’t the first time this has happened, Laguidao told Q13. She said she heard voices at “like 4 a.m.” last week in the living room that stopped when she turned on a light.

“When I went back to bed, I could still hear (the voices) in the doorbell, but I was just too lazy,” she recalled to Q13. “I thought maybe it’s an interference of signal.”

In a statement to KING5, a spokesperson for Google — which owns Nest Labs — said that “Nest was not breached.”

“These recent reports are based on customers using compromised passwords (exposed through breaches on other websites). In nearly all cases, two-factor verification eliminates this type of the security risk,” the statement reads, according to KING5. “We take security in the home extremely seriously, and we’re actively introducing features that will reject comprised passwords, allow customers to monitor access to their accounts and track external entities that abuse credentials.”

Now, Laguidao said her sense of security in her home has been shattered.

“I do definitely feel very violated,” she told Q13.

According to KING5, “Auburn Police and detectives are investigating.”

If you’re looking to keep hackers off of your Nest security camera, TechHive senior correspondent Martyn Williams suggested how you can do just that.

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 12:09 PM with the headline "Hackers took over home security camera to watch family and cuss at kids, Wash. mom says."