Spate of hackings raise concerns about security of smart home devices

December has seen a raft of reports about hackers harassing people through their smart home devices.

File photo of Amazon Echo [Photo: Pixabay]

In one incident, a family in Mississippi claims a hacker gained access to a Ring brand security camera that was installed in their eight-year-old daughter's room. The hackers then used to the device to talk with the child. In another incident, a hacker gained access to a device and then used it to hurl racist insults at a Florida family. "Is your kid a baboon, like the monkey?" said the hacker. Ring is a subsidiary of the American tech company Amazon.

In another widely reported incident, a woman in Britain who was looking up information about heart health was told by her Amazon Echo to kill herself "for the greater good" of humanity.

"We have investigated this error and it is now fixed," an Amazon spokesperson told Newsweek in a statement on Tuesday.

Last September, California became the first state in the United States to pass a law regulating the security of smart home devices. The bill, which will come into effect on January 1, requires manufacturers to equip their products with security features that prevent the devices from being hacked.