A Seattle family has claimed their daughter's baby monitor was hacked after she heard voices coming from it.

They concluded that the hacker had likely spoken to their child, but most disturbingly of all, had access to footage of the three-year-old in her crib. The revelation was made to K5 News by parents Jo and John, who requested their last names remain anonymous.

This pet sitter was caught by home CCTV getting naked inside their client's home: 

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"[My daughter] said the 'voice is talking to me,'" Jo told the news outlet. "I said, 'the voice is talking to you, what’s going on?' And she said the man said, 'Jayden, I love you.' And I said, 'What?'"

At first, the parents assumed that their daughter had simply heard someone outside talking - then they noticed that the camera had seemingly moved of its own accord and was no longer pointing down at the crib.

"I instantly wanted to throw up, my heart was in my throat," Jo explained.

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The parents admitted that they never heard the voice, but that the details of their daughter's story did not change. What did, however, was the camera, which frequently changed to what they described as "odd resets."

The only adult who claims to have heard the voice is John's mother. However, she didn't think twice about what she was hearing.

"Someone was in our daughter's room, basically watched her," Jo said. "And I don't know what all they saw, what they got from that. Is it the fear alone they're enjoying? It's just so unsettling to not know."

The parents subsequently researched the camera brand and apparently discovered that it had been associated with multiple hackings.

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"Here's a $50 camera that has glowing reviews, because it's a good camera and an affordable option," Jo explained. "Like, how many families are going to get this camera that's not secure? And that's just really upsetting. How could this happen to anyone?"

A representative from Fredi, the camera brand, has not yet commented on the incident, though Fox News requested comment.

Chilling footage captured at a home last Friday shows the moment a man broke into a Kansas home, before he quietly stands over a sleeping teenage girl.

Home surveillance video recorded the moment 15-year-old Aniyah Robinson was asleep in her bed, totally unaware she was being watched by an unknown hooded suspect.

Per Fox News, the man is still at large.

The heart-stopping moment can be seen in the video below:

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The footage was captured at approximately 2:30AM last Friday, and Robinson recalls opening her eyes and feeling like she was being watched.

Speaking to Wichita's KAKE, the teenager said: "It just scared me because of the fact that somebody was sitting over watching me that I didn't know. It's just scary."

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After realizing somebody was in her home, Aniyah's mom, Angel, says her daughter lept out of bed and started screaming, alerting her mom to the home intruder.

Angel swiftly made sure Aniyah and her other daughter, who is just two years old, were safe before calling the police and alerting her own mother of the break-in.

Carol Robinson, Aniyah's grandmother, told the station: "She says, 'Hey, Mom, he's in the house right now.' I said, 'right now?'

"I said: 'I'm on the way,' because I'm not thinking about the weapons or nothing. I was thinking he was going to get a beat down."

The footage was captured by a Ring camera that the family had recently purchased. It shows the man creeping around the house before entering the bedrooms.

Related - Hacker talks to little girl over family's smart device:

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The footage does not show him stealing anything, but Angel says that makes the incident even scarier.

"He didn't take anything and I think that's scarier," Angel said. "Because what did you want? I don't know what you want, are you going to come back?"

By the time the police had arrived at the property, the suspect had already fled. Nevertheless, the family hopes the video will be enough for police or people in the area to be able to identify the sinister intruder.

Angel told KAKE "You don't know if he's done this before. Next time it might be something different or you know who knows what he's thinking."

In this brave new world we live in, technological innovations are never far away. Whilst we eagerly awaited the day when Back to the Future-esque technology would arrive, now that we're closer than ever to flying cars and hands free gaming, it's taken on somewhat sinister connotations. Certainly, every new day seems to dredge up some report or the other that informs us that hackers are peeping though our webcams, or that our iPhones are tracking everything from our search patterns to our sleep quality. Additionally, platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook probably know us better than our significant other; they are aware of what foods we like, what bands we listen to and even what type of person we tend to find attractive. In essence, the technological revolution has reduced us to no more than data. And if you thought you were safe by having avoided Apple's eponymous iPhone, think again: Android apparently has you tapped too. Earlier in the year, iPhones were accused of recording their users without their knowledge, and now Android phones are allegedly doing the same thing. Similar to iPhone's Siri, Android users have Google Assistant. In order to "wake" the function, users simply have to say "OK Google". Whilst this may all sound innocuous enough, the Sun recently carried out an investigation which found that the microphone is triggered to switch on and start recording whenever the user, or anyone in its vicinity says "OK". And as anyone who speaks the English language will know, we say "OK" a lot - making this extremely worrying. The investigation found that on some occasions, saying "OK" triggered the phone to record the following conversation for up to 20 seconds. And it doesn't just end there; Google then translates what you've said into text so not only do you have an oral transcript of your personal conversations, but a written one too. So if you like a bit of harmless gossip, beware, as such evidence can be damning... The most worrying aspect about these audio files is that they don't just remain on your phone. Google and Android's terms and conditions state that they keep such recordings in order to "improve the quality of speech recognition across Search". The files are automatically uploaded to the cloud, and they can easily be accessed on any device that is signed into the Google account that you use on your phone.  Whilst a spokesperson from Google attempted to reassure those who have become concerned about their privacy by saying that they "only process voice searches after the phone believes the hot word 'OK Google' is detected," anyone who stays up to date with the latest technological innovations will know that Google recently launched another smart assistant, Google Home. And it turns out that our conversations, no matter how intimate and personal they are, will be used to help the artificial intelligence behind Google Home by teaching them how humans communicate. If you want to see exactly what your Android phone has recorded, it's pretty easy. You just need to sign into your Google or Gmail account and then type "history.google.com/history" into your browser. This will take you to a page which displays your entire digital footprint. I guess we have real reason to fear a robotic takeover now...

A mom-of-three has described her terror after hearing a man's voice describe her six-month-old son as a "cute one" over a baby monitor.

Kiara, from Melbourne, Australia, said that she was woken up by the man's voice in the early hours of October 29 after putting her son Zicko to sleep.

The monitor was being used to watch Zicko, who was born prematurely and had only just begun to sleep in his own room a few weeks beforehand.

Related - This girl's bedroom monitor was also hacked by an unknown man: 

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"My partner Daniel and I were sleeping, everything was quiet and dark," she told Kidspot.

"Then I heard it, a really deep man's voice that doesn’t belong to anyone that I know.

"I heard him say, 'Mmm… that's a cute one.'

"I was frozen. I was so scared. I reached over to my partner and squeezed his arm so he would wake up."

Kiara's partner, Daniel, thoroughly searched their home to ensure the noises weren't coming from an intruder, but he found nothing, and she was convinced that the noises had come from the app connected to the baby monitor on her phone.

The couple unplugged the monitor, and Kiara removed the app from her phone.

"I didn't want to think about all the disgusting things that they were thinking of looking at my baby," she said.

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Kiara explained that she had looked at a number of baby monitors before deciding to buy the Mirabella model from the retailer Kmart.

The couple had taken all the necessary steps to ensure the security of the device, giving it strong passwords instead of using the default ones and ensuring that their WiFi system was secure too.

"I had heard of this stuff happening, but only in the movies," she said. "I thought it would never happen to me, that's why I was so shocked."

Kiara realized that she'd also heard unusual creaking noises coming from the monitor late at night, and she moved it to an adjacent wall in a bid to solve the problem in case it was being caused by a problem in her home, but it was to no avail.

Kiara returned the baby monitor to Kmart where she informed staff about the incident, but she has not heard back yet.

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The mother has explained that if she decides to purchase another baby monitor, it will be a voice-only device because of the experience she has had with the camera.

As per the Sun, Mirabella told Kidspot that the baby monitors are produced to "international standards for a global market".

"The product has had excellent reviews, and to the best of its knowledge, the baby monitor is a secure device," it said.

A Texas mother says she was forced to remove her Alexa device from her home after the voice assistant asked her four-year-old daughter a disturbing question.

Christy Hosterman, 32, said the incident took place while she was cooking dinner and using Alexa to help with a recipe.

At the same time, her daughter Stella asked the device to tell her a silly story, something the child often did.

"Alexa told her silly story, and then my daughter started telling her story about a princess, and then out of nowhere, Alexa said, 'Hold that thought, I’d love to see what you’re wearing,'" Hosterman revealed.

Screenshots shared by the mother show the young girl responding: "I have a skirt on."

Before Hosterman could step in, Alexa allegedly replied: "I’d love to see what you’re wearing. Let me take a look at your skirt," per Fox 19.

"I’m like, oh my gosh, why is this device asking her what she’s wearing?” Hosterman said. “I felt it was sexualizing my child.”

The AI later corrected itself during the conversation, saying: "This experience isn’t quite ready for kids yet, but I am working on it!"

Mother Removes Device From Home

Hosterman said she confronted the device after noticing the exchange. Alexa responded with an apology and clarified that while its response was "confusing and inappropriate," it could not actually see anything.

But the explanation did little to ease her concerns. "I flipped out on the Alexa, it said it made a mistake and doesn’t have visual capabilities, but I don’t believe that," the mom said. "No more Alexa in our house."

Hosterman said she immediately turned the device off and submitted a support ticket to Amazon.

When she later turned it back on, she claims the conversation transcript appeared to have been altered.

"My concern is that it recognized she was a child to begin with - and with or without the child profile, it should not have been asking that," Hosterman said.

Amazon Says Safeguards Prevented Camera Use

Amazon denied any wrongdoing and said the incident occurred because Alexa misunderstood a request and attempted to activate a feature called "Show and Tell," which allows the device to describe objects it sees through a camera.

According to the company, built-in safeguards tied to children’s profiles would have prevented the camera from turning on.

"We take customer trust extremely seriously. In this case, Alexa misunderstood a request and attempted to launch a feature that lets Alexa+ describe what it sees through the camera," the statement read.

"However, because we have safeguards that disable this feature when a child profile is in use, the camera never turned on - and Alexa explained the feature wasn’t available.

"That said, this has highlighted an area to improve the customer experience, and we worked quickly to implement changes so when a child profile is in use, and Alexa hears a request to launch this feature, Alexa will simply respond that this feature is not available," the spokesperson added.

The company also insisted that suggestions that the device may have been remotely controlled by an employee are "functionally impossible".

However, tech expert Dave Hatter, who has spent 25 years writing software, said he finds it unlikely that AI would go so far off script on its own.

"It feels to me like a potential predator - seeing there’s a child accessing this and gauging where the conversation is going - that’s more of a human being trying to steer down this direction," he said.

The unsettling exchange has sparked concerns about how AI systems interact with children as the technology becomes increasingly embedded in daily life.

Hosterman says the experience has forever changed her view of the technology and is warning other parents to stay alert. "Be aware when your child talks to Alexa," she said.

Featured image credit: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty