Protect your baby monitor from being hacked

FOX 8 -- It's happened all over the country. You hear a voice in your house and you don't know who it is. Only to discover, it's coming from the baby monitor.

How do computer hackers break in and take control?

Giovanni Masucci is a digital forensic examiner. He's the guy law enforcement hires when they need to track down a computer hacker.

FOX8 On Your Side asked him to hack into a family's baby monitor system. Of course, we asked their permission first.

Outside of the house, with his laptop and some simple computer software, it took him less than an hour to defeat the password protection. He now has a clear picture of the family inside.

He says, "I just locked on and I can watch what they're doing so I'm cyber stalking which is against the law in North Carolina."

What was most surprising is Masucci didn't need any expensive tools to gain control of the baby monitor. He tells us, "The way that the apps are that you can get free on the web and the tools, you don't have to be smart."

What can families do to protect their privacy?

Even though passwords aren't fool-proof, Masucci says they are the first line of defense. He says, "we find out most people don't change their default passwords on their network their router their baby cameras."

Make sure you use a complicated password and change it every three months. Always use a special password for your home's wi-fi network router.

Install anti-virus and malware software on your Smartphones and computers. Malwarebytes is highly recommended and it's free.

Also, pay attention to software updates from the manufacturer of the baby monitor. They know these hacks are happening and are working to make their coding stronger.