“Laura Lyons was preparing food in her kitchen Sunday when the lazy afternoon took a turn for the absurd,” Matthias Gafni reports for The Mercury News. “A loud squawking — similar to the beginning of an emergency broadcast alert — blasted from the living room, the Orinda mother said, followed by a detailed warning of three North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles headed to Los Angeles, Chicago and Ohio.”
“‘It warned that the United States had retaliated against Pyongyang and that people in the affected areas had three hours to evacuate,’ Lyons said Monday. ‘It sounded completely legit, and it was loud and got our attention right off the bat… It was five minutes of sheer terror and another 30 minutes trying to figure out what was going on,'” Gafni reports. “Lyons and her husband stood slack-jawed in the living room, terrified but also confused because the television continued airing the NFC Championship football game. As their scared 8-year-old son crawled underneath the rug, the couple realized the apocalyptic warning came from their Nest security camera atop their living room TV.
“After many panicked minutes and phone calls to 911 and to Nest, the couple learned they likely were the victims of a hacker,” Gafni reports. “And that panic turned to anger when they found out that Nest knew that there had been a number of such incidents — none involving nuclear strike scenarios — but failed to alert customers. Lyons said a Nest supervisor told them Sunday they likely were the victims of a ‘third party hack’ that gained access to their camera and its speakers.”
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