Hacker gains access to family’s home security system, spies on young girl

Steps to prevent security camera hacking

A man hacked a Ring camera inside a little girl's bedroom and then he used it to taunt her! FOX 5's Ike Ejiochi is here with what you need to know to make sure this never happens to your family.

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - The video is terrifying. A hacker gained access to a Ring home security system in Tennessee. He then used the hardware to speak to a little girl for more than five minutes.

He goes on to play creepy music through the speaker in the girl's room. The hacker goes on to tell her that he’s Santa Claus — even going as far as trying to make the girl say a racial slur.

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Experts say all of this could have been prevented.

Ibrahim Youssef owns K2 Security, a company that focuses on security systems. He says a home’s WiFi system is to blame.

“Hackers have certain tools that they use to scan the area for unsecured WiFi networks. And so once they find an unsecured network that maybe has a default password or a password that’s not secured they’re able to hack into that right away," said Youssef.

He says the easiest way to fix this is to change your password.

“Make sure you’re WiFi password is very secure. Don’t just have an easily guessed password. Make sure you’re using best practices, a good combination of special characters, numbers, letters, capitals so on and so forth.”

Ring released a statement saying the incident could have been prevented with a stronger WiFi password. They are also encouraging users to use two-factor authentications when setting up your WiFi.