A man dubbed the number one ethical hacker in the world has made a shocking claim about our online safety.
Ryan Montgomery is a professional cyber security specialist and ethical hacker known for exposing online predators.
While it can be tough to think about, the internet is full of dark and frankly, terrifying corners and Ryan regularly shares advice about how to stay safe online.
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In a recent TikTok video, Ryan - who goes by @0dayctf on the platform - warned his followers that people are 'watching your private cameras' online.
"People are watching your private cameras and posting it on popular websites," he claimed.
Ryan explained that he initially conducted a Google search for controllable webcams, which brought him to a popular forum.
"The first post I saw was a water park in Czech Republic that was posted 11 days ago.
"Then I started going through other posts and I saw there were controllable cameras meaning they could pan, tilt and move the cameras without having a password.
"Then I started searching for some other terms and seeing some really inappropriate content.
"I then looked further into this and saw that there were communities with over 2,000 members, 200 of which were active today."
Ryan explained that the best thing to do is Google the model of the cameras in your home and make sure they're not exposed to the internet.
People were pretty taken aback in the comments.
One person wrote: "One of the best ways to keep your camera from being exposed on the internet is to make sure it's locked out for other users and change your password regularly."
While another said: "Personally I don’t see a benefit to putting camera up in home, outside of camera on phone, computer, ex that is more just build into a product. Just put camera up outside of house if wanting security."
And a third added: "I say that you get rid of the cameras in your house. There are very few reasons you need one."
While most of us know that the dark web exists, we don't really know what it means.
Appearing on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast earlier this year, Ryan explained the dark web and what happens there.
"The dark web itself isn't a marketplace, the black market or whatever you want to call it," he explained.
"Once you're connected to the dark web you still need to know where to go to visit these horrible websites.
"Imagine a very long string of letters and numbers and the website instead of '.com' it would be '.onion'."
Ryan went on to explain that there are different categories of websites with links to them, filled with 'horrible' sites that 'do horrible things'.
“There’s counterfeit money, there’s fake IDs,” he said. “There all kinds of different websites that do horrible things.”
Topics: News, Technology
Lucy Devine