As a parent, you want nothing but to ensure the safety of your baby. That's the reason why you've installed baby monitors in the first place.
But there are some horrifying stories circulating where parents found out that their baby monitors have been hacked. Much more horrifying is finding out that some strangers are controlling it, or they are communicating with your baby.
As careful as we are, hackers can get through baby monitors, especially if it is connected to a WiFi. Here are ways on how to prevent that from happening. Protect your device and protect your baby through these simple but proven steps.
1. Secure Your Wireless Router
Your router runs low-level software called firmware. The firmware controls everything the router does. Therefore, it is important to keep your router's firmware updated.
Baby Gear Essentials advises that if you want to be as safe as possible, disable remote access to your router. If it turns out that some of the apps and devices on your network rely on them, you can enable the features again anytime.
To guard access to your router, you should be using WPA2 security. This requires every new device to submit a password to connect. It's a good idea to regularly change the Wi-Fi password. More importantly, use a strong password for your WiFi network.
2. Secure Your Baby Monitor
To ensure that your baby monitor is secured, you must register your product with the manufacturer. This is important for you to receive software updates that would fix potential security risks.
Another thing that you have to do is to change the default password. You have to remove the default login details and set up a new password. Additionally, use a complex password that's difficult to guess. More importantly, do not reuse a password.
If there is an option to disable DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System), do it. Also, if there is an option to disable port forwarding or UPnP, disable it.
The UPnP is the quick option to seamlessly allow devices on your network to find others. While this might make some streaming services more complicated to set up, it will ensure the safety of your device.
Lastly, disable remote access. When you don't need it, disable your baby monitor's remote viewing ability. Through this, it will be harder for hackers to breach your device's security.
Read Also: iPhone Facing Hacking Threat With Major Security Risk: Update Now to Prevent Data Breach!
3. Change the Default Camera Access Port
You should always start by changing the default password in order to secure the connection between your baby monitor and the online portal.
Moreover, if it is really necessary to enable remote access to your baby monitor to stream the video while you're away, Watcful Dad said that you can change the default camera access port. It is usually at 80, but you can modify it to anything over 8200.
It is also important to regularly verify your monitor logs to check for suspicious activity. You should be wary of foreign IP address or strange access times.
Related Article: How to Tell if Your Webcam Has Been Hacked
