Can a Pet Camera or GPS Tracker Actually Be Hacked?
Quick answer: Yes, both realistically can be — two distinct, documented failure modes exist. Weak or unchanged default passwords and unpatched vulnerabilities let an outside attacker in directly (a well-documented IoT camera industry problem, not specific to pet cameras). Separately, a company's own backend systems can mix up whose footage or data goes to whom even with a strong password on your end — Wyze's February 2024 incident briefly exposed roughly 13,000 users' camera thumbnails (about 1,500 of whom actually viewed footage) to the wrong accounts due to a caching error, not a password breach. Strong-password advice only protects against the first failure mode, not the second.
“Can this be hacked” has two genuinely different real answers, not one — and the mitigation for one doesn’t protect against the other.
Failure mode one: someone gets in from outside
This is the familiar version — a weak or unchanged default password, or an unpatched vulnerability, letting an outside attacker access a device directly. It’s a well-documented, industry-wide problem for connected cameras generally, not something specific to pet tech brands: research on deployed IoT cameras consistently finds a large share still running factory-set credentials, a straightforward and well-known entry point. Specific disclosed vulnerabilities happen regularly too — a 2026 flaw in TP-Link’s VIGI camera line (tracked as a formally assigned CVE) affected the password-recovery feature in the camera’s web interface, patched after a security researcher disclosed it. This is the failure mode that a strong, unique password and prompt firmware updates genuinely protect against.
Failure mode two: the company’s own systems mix things up
This one is less intuitive and not protected by anything on your end. In February 2024, Wyze — a brand commonly used for indoor pet monitoring, among other things — had an incident where roughly 13,000 users briefly saw camera thumbnails from other users’ homes, and about 1,500 of those users actually clicked through to view footage or recorded video, before the issue was caught and fixed. The cause wasn’t a hacker or a weak password: a third-party caching system got “wires crossed” during a service outage, mixing up which device’s data was mapped to which user account. No password strength on an affected user’s end would have prevented this, because the vulnerability was in the company’s backend infrastructure, not the device or account. This followed an earlier, separate 2019 Wyze incident where a data leak exposed millions of users’ email addresses. Worth being clear-eyed about: this is a different category of risk than “getting hacked” in the conventional sense, and it’s one no individual security practice fully protects against — it depends on the company’s own infrastructure quality and incident response.
What actually helps, and what it protects against
Change the default password immediately at setup, and use a unique one, not one reused from another account — this directly closes the most common outside-attacker entry point.
Install firmware updates promptly rather than deferring them — see our firmware update guide for what these updates actually do; a meaningful share of them patch specific, sometimes publicly disclosed security vulnerabilities, not just add features.
Enable two-factor authentication if the app offers it — an added layer that protects your account even if a password is somehow compromised elsewhere and reused.
Put connected cameras and trackers on a separate guest WiFi network if your router supports it — this limits what a compromised device could reach on the rest of your home network, a general IoT hardening practice that applies here too.
None of the above protects against failure mode two — a company-side infrastructure mistake is outside what device-level security practices can prevent. The realistic mitigation there is choosing a company with transparent incident disclosure and a track record of promptly notifying affected users (as Wyze did in both cases above) over one that doesn’t disclose issues at all — not because that stops an incident from happening, but because it affects how quickly you’d find out if it did. A small minority of owners sidestep this failure mode entirely by removing the cloud dependency altogether — see our DIY open-source feeder firmware guide for what that actually involves, and why it’s a real but niche option, not a mainstream fix.
Bottom line
Two real, different risks exist under “can this be hacked”: an outside attacker exploiting a weak password or unpatched flaw (which you can meaningfully protect against with a strong unique password, prompt updates, and network segmentation), and a company’s own systems mismatching data between accounts (which you largely can’t prevent, only judge by a brand’s transparency and response track record). Treat both as real, but don’t assume password hygiene alone covers the full risk picture. There’s a third, separate category worth knowing about too — what you reveal through your own choice to share footage publicly, plus a documented platform vulnerability that can expose a feed beyond who you actually shared it with — see our livestreaming and social-sharing privacy guide for that angle specifically.
Frequently asked questions
Is this different from the data privacy question this site already covers?
Yes, a genuinely separate question. Our [data privacy explainer](/articles/pet-tech-data-privacy-explainer/) covers what a company legitimately collects and shares as part of its normal business (with your awareness, even if buried in a privacy policy). Security is about whether someone can gain *unauthorized* access — either an outside attacker breaking in, or the company's own systems malfunctioning and exposing data to the wrong person. Different problem, different mitigations.
What's a real documented example of a camera security failure?
Wyze (a brand commonly used for pet monitoring) had a February 2024 incident where roughly 13,000 users briefly saw camera thumbnails from other users' homes due to a third-party caching error that mixed up device-to-account mapping during a service outage — about 1,500 people actually clicked through to view footage before it was caught. This wasn't a hacking attack; it was the company's own infrastructure malfunctioning, and no password strength on the affected users' end would have prevented it. It followed a separate 2019 incident where a data leak exposed millions of Wyze users' email addresses.
Does changing my device's default password actually matter?
Yes, significantly, for the outside-attacker failure mode specifically. Widespread research on IoT cameras generally finds that a large share of deployed devices still run their factory-set username and password, which is a genuinely easy, well-known entry point — some manufacturers even publish default credentials publicly for owners who lose the documentation, which cuts both ways. Changing the default password is one of the highest-value, lowest-effort security steps available for any connected camera or tracker.
Do firmware updates actually matter for security, not just new features?
Yes — a firmware update frequently patches a specific, sometimes publicly disclosed vulnerability (assigned a CVE number, as with a 2026 TP-Link camera flaw that was patched after disclosure), not just adding functionality. See our [firmware update guide](/articles/pet-tech-firmware-update-first-use/) for why skipping or delaying an update isn't just missing a feature — it can mean running with a known, documented security hole a fix already exists for.