While installing cameras around your home is a good way to protect your valuables from being stolen, thieves appear to be getting more sophisticated with their methods.
Chris Montalbano of Long Island, New York learned this lesson the hard way.
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Montalbano, who had just pulled his Sea-Doo personal watercraft out of storage, recently discovered that the $25,000 jet ski was stolen from his driveway in broad daylight. His security cameras should have documented the theft, but as he discovered, three minutes of footage had disappeared.
"You see the Jet Ski for one second, and then all of a sudden, it skips for, like, three minutes and there’s nothing,” Montalbano shared with CBS News. “And the Jet Ski is gone, but you don’t know how it left.”
However, one camera — the one that’s furthest away from the driveway — did manage to capture the heist. A hooded man wearing a mask and driving a Dodge Durango can be seen hooking up the jet ski’s trailer to the hitch on the truck before driving off with Montalbano’s personal watercraft.
Montalbano believes the thief must have briefly disabled the security cameras near the driveway in order to pull off this brazen theft.
"It’s the only thing I can think of," he said. "They had to have been staking it out and known. Because you don’t just pull up like that. They knew what they were doing."
How thieves can jam surveillance camera signals
Michael Graziano, a cyber security expert, told CBS News that thieves now have the ability to jam Wi-Fi signals in order to disrupt security video recordings.
"The camera may be working, but because it loses connection with the internet, there’s no recording that goes to the cloud," said Graziano.
The Federal Communications Commission has banned the use of devices that jam signals — even law enforcement isn’t allowed to use them — but that hasn’t stopped thieves from using these devices to pull off their heists. Graziano also thinks today’s thieves can make these types of devices at home.
Jamming devices can disrupt video recordings by overloading the Wi-Fi network with a stronger signal, blocking communication between the camera and its recording device. While this doesn’t deactivate a surveillance camera, it does effectively stop the camera from recording what it captures.
Unfortunately, thieves using jamming devices to steal Montalbano’s jet ski isn’t an isolated incident. In fact, a woman in Phoenix, Arizona was almost the victim of a similar type of theft last year.
Kim Komando and her husband were preparing dinner when they noticed two police helicopters flying above and shining lights on their property, according to an article Komando wrote for USA Today. Just a few moments later, the couple spotted members of the Phoenix SWAT team poking around Komando’s property. One of the SWAT team members reportedly yelled out, “yeah, there’s a jammer right here.”
“A SWAT member said, ‘Ma’am, a South American gang is targeting homes to steal from. The jammer says you might have been next.’” Komando wrote in her article.
And while SWAT managed to find the device before the Komando’s house was robbed, their neighbor just four doors down wasn’t so lucky. That homeowner reportedly got a notification that his security cameras were offline, leading him to think that his internet must have gone down.
Meanwhile, in the span of just 10 minutes, thieves broke in and managed to steal valuables worth $100,000, as well as $25,000 in cash.
KARE 11 News also reported in early 2024 about a string of burglaries in the Edina, Minnesota area where thieves used signal jammers to disrupt security systems. The news outlet reports that thieves may be able to purchase these illlegal jammers through suppliers outside of the country.
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How to protect yourself and your cameras
Jamming devices may have created a seamless method for thieves to disrupt security cameras, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to protect yourself and your property.
For starters, try parking your cars — or in Montalbano’s case, your jet ski — inside the garage so that it can’t be seen from the road. This may not stop criminals from knowing where your cars are kept, but hiding them in the garage adds an extra layer of protection.
Some homeowners, however, don’t have a garage and therefore can’t hide their expensive vehicles. In this case, these homeowners might choose to equip their home with surveillance cameras, as Montalbano had done. But there’s one thing Montalbano could have done to prevent his cameras from being disrupted by a jamming device.
"Any camera system that you have, hardline it," said Graziano. "A hardline cable that goes right to the internet, that would stop someone from jamming it." In other words, Graziano suggests connecting your surveillance cameras directly to the internet using a cable instead of relying on a Wi-Fi connection.
Some cameras may be able to record footage onto an SD card, which means they can record even without a Wi-Fi connection. Another way to deter thieves could be to install motion activated lights outside of your home, as well as timers on the lights inside your home that turn the lights on at certain times to make potential thieves think someone is home.
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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
