Tara Thomas thought her toddler daughter was just having nightmares when she would say there was a monster in her room of their California home and point to the Nest Cam installed on her wall.
However, in August of last year, Thomas walked into the room and heard pornography playing through the Nest Cam, which she used as a baby monitor. Hackers were playing the recording from the camera using an intercom feature in the software.
Though it would be nearly impossible to find out who was behind it, The Washington Post reports, a hack like that doesn’t take much effort for two reasons: Software designed to help people break into websites and devices has gotten so easy to use that it’s practically child’s play, and many companies, including Nest, have effectively chosen to let some hackers slip through the cracks rather than impose an array of inconvenient countermeasures that could detract from their users’ experience and ultimately alienate their customers.
The result is that anyone in the world with an Internet connection and rudimentary skills has the ability to virtually break into homes through devices designed to keep physical intruders out.
As hacks such as the one the Thomases suffered become public, tech companies are deciding between user convenience and potential damage to their brands.
Nest could make it more difficult for hackers to break into Nest cameras, for instance, by making the log-in process more cumbersome. But doing so would introduce what Silicon Valley calls “friction”—anything that can slow down or stand in the way of someone using a product. Read the full story.
