As parents, we’d do anything in the world to protect our children. But the reality is that we can’t be with them 24 hours a day – which is why we teach them well and take all safety measures possible.
Mississippi mom, Ashley Lemay, believed she was helping keep her eight-year-old daughter safe by installing a camera in her bedroom. However, everything turned chilling when she discovered that it actually opened a window to a parent’s nightmare.
Ashley explained to Inside Edition that she decided to place the Ring camera in her children’s bedroom for “peace of mind.”
It was only a few days later though, that her daughter, Alyssa, began hearing things that would raise the hairs on anyone. A voice began speaking to her through the camera.
In the captured footage, you can hear a man say the following:
“I’m Santa Claus! Don’t you want to be my best friend? You can mess up your room. You can break your TV. You can do whatever you want.”
The person also played creepy music through the device as well. His song choice? Tiny Tim performing “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” on his ukulele.
You can hear the lyrics:
“Tip toe through the window
By the window, that is where I’ll be…”
Ashley explained to PEOPLE that her husband entered the bedroom after hearing Alyssa screaming for her mommy. She wasn’t home at the time of the scary incident.
When the mom of four saw the camera’s footage she was completely stunned by it all.
She told Inside Edition:
“I was extremely alarmed; I still am … Not only could they see my children, but they were interacting with my child. I don’t know why they did this. I don’t know where they were. I don’t know what videos they saved.”
A technology security expert gave an explanation to Inside Edition about how someone may have been able to access the family’s Ring camera.
CEO of Network Security Group, John Lucich, said:
“They drive through the neighborhood looking for WiFi units that are available on their cell phone. Once they see a WiFi unit, all they do is double click, start guessing the password and if they guess it, they’re on the network and now they can connect to any device…”
Lucich offered an important safety tip during his interview. While holding the camera, he shared:
“There are so many ways to secure it, but one of the top ways you can do this is a very strong and complex password.”
A spokesperson from Ring made a statement to PEOPLE about the incident (which is similar to what they said on their site).
“Customer trust is important to us and we take the security of our devices seriously. Our security team has investigated this incident and we have no evidence of an unauthorized intrusion or compromise of Ring’s systems or network.”
The statement continued:
“Recently, we were made aware of an incident where malicious actors obtained some Ring users’ account credentials (e.g., username and password) from a separate, external, non-Ring service and reused them to log in to some Ring accounts. Unfortunately, when the same username and password is reused on multiple services, it’s possible for bad actors to gain access to many accounts.”
They concluded:
“Upon learning of the incident, we took appropriate actions to promptly block bad actors from known affected Ring accounts and affected users have been contacted. Consumers should always practice good password hygiene and we encourage Ring customers to change their passwords and enable two-factor authentication.”
On Ring’s site, they also provided more tips in regards to passwords.
Ashley doesn’t want to frighten others, but decided to come forward with her story for awareness.
Watch the video below to see the terrifying footage for yourself!
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