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Users of the popular Ring surveillance cameras have reported people hacking into the devices to spy on their homes and harass residents.

At least five families in five different states have reported that hackers have spoken to them through the devices, with many showing how the hackers used racial slurs to harass their family.

Joshua Koop spoke to an individual who hacked his outdoor Ring surveillance camera in Cooper City, Florida on December 12. The hacker set off his home alarm system and taunted Koop in a video shared on Twitter.

In the video, a voice coming from the Ring camera, on the exterior of his property, can be heard saying “put me on the news”, to which Koop responds: “That’s the intention, to put you on the news to figure out who you are.”

The voice then says: “I am anonymous.”

Koop speaks to the camera and says: “This person has obviously accessed my Ring cameras, I have no idea who they are and they are able to signal these sirens and talk to me through my two-way system here. I don’t know, I think we got a problem here Ring. What do you guys think?”

Koop told Storyful that he had a 15-minute conversation with the individual through the Ring camera, and the hacker claimed to have accessed thousands of cameras in the interiors of people’s homes. He said the individual claimed to have witnessed unsuspecting residents engaging in intimate acts.

Koop said he contacted Ring and was instructed to set up two-factor verification. “I got notified 20 minutes ago that he’s been trying to access them again,” he said, referring to a hacker trying to access his four Ring cameras.

“I wouldn’t take them down, but I also wouldn’t have them on the inside of the house,” Koop added.

In response to Koop, Ring said that “this was not a compromise of Ring’s systems.” The company advised customers to create strong passwords and ensure they were regularly updated. Credit: Joshua Koop via Storyful