Ring security scare hits home in New York

A troubling issue with Amazon’s Ring security cameras has hit New York, as cameras at a Staten Island home appear to have been hacked into and used to speak to a teenage boy inside a Sunnyside home. The incident follows a similar event in Mississippi, where a Ring camera was hacked into and the hacker spoke to an 8-year-old girl.

Amazon’s Ring cameras and other similar IoT devices have been drawn greater scrutiny as lawmakers question both their contribution to neighborhood surveillance, as well as security issues prompted by malicious actors, including hackers. Ring has over 600 partnerships with law enforcement agencies, including the Nassau County Police Department, for surveillance purposes like helping to catch package thieves. Raising privacy concerns about how camera footage is used, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey recently announced an investigation into these partnerships.

In reference to the Staten Island incident, a spokesperson for Ring said in a statement that there was no evidence that its internal system was hacked, but said the company was made aware of incidents where people obtain usernames and passwords from non-Ring services and use them to access Ring accounts. The incident was reported to the Richmond County District Attorney’s office. A spokesman for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

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