As if parents don’t have enough to worry about already – consider this your Monday panic story.

It turns out that if some sick, twisted puppy wanted to gain access to your baby monitor they wouldn’t have to work all that hard. A study conducted by a security firm called Rapid 7 revealed some terrifying results, a summary below taken from Wired:

[They] tested nine widely available internet-connected baby monitors for security vulnerabilities, [and] the results weren’t pretty. “Eight of the nine cameras got an F and one got a D minus,” security researcher Mark Stanislav [said].

Security flaws included issues such as a lack of encryption, the use of default passwords, and access to Internet portals with the device’s serial number or account number. Rapid 7 disclosed the vulnerabilities to the companies, who will hopefully all take the information to heart.

Does this mean parents should assume the foetal position and rock back and forth in fear? No, cool your jets, there are other options:

Another option is a radio frequency-based baby monitor, which could only be hacked by someone intercepting the radio signal with a sniffing device outside your house…

Because we care we’re going to make it easy for you and steer you in the right direction. A Motorola monitor that doesn’t need wi-fi and sets you back just the R1 399? See, no need to freak out just yet, we’re here all day.

[source:wired]