Last week's Wyze camera break-in allowed more than 13,000 customers to peek into each other's homes This is not just a problem for one company; even the best security cameras from Eufy and TP-Link are in big trouble because of mixed streams and improperly secured layers of certificates With the best smart home devices constantly connected to the Internet, there is always a risk of this happening

You don't want hackers spying on you through backdoors or other app users accidentally looking into your indoor cameras While no system exists to completely prevent attacks, a few practical measures can greatly reduce the chances of your privacy being compromised Here are some quick tips on how to lock down your smart home security system

The first step in protecting your home is to buy the right security cameras from the start; we've picked out the best security cameras from reputable manufacturers like Ring and Eufy, which include privacy layers such as end-to-end encryption This high level of security scrambles activity by sending it through a virtual tunnel Data is encrypted until it reaches a secure location (one of our trusted devices), so outsiders cannot see what is happening While this is the highest level of protection, there are still ways to enhance your setup if you are using a non-encrypted model

Use long, unique passwords composed of different upper and lower case letters to prevent bots from guessing your credentials in a password generation attack You can use one of the best password managers to generate and store such passwords If your camera supports two-factor authentication, you should always turn it on

Another easy way to protect your privacy is to keep your device's firmware up to date Insufficient security certificates make the device vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks (man-in-the-middle attacks), which criminals use to view and edit communications between the camera and the app Manufacturers provide frequent updates to address these potential vulnerabilities

Privacy shutters are physical lines of defense that manually disable the camera's view; they are built into models such as the SimpliSafe Indoor Security Camera and the GE Cync Smart Indoor Camera and are used primarily while home You can also purchase these general-purpose products on Amazon ($7, Amazon)