7 On Your Side examines weaknesses in home security systems

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (KGO) --

7 On Your Side spoke with a hacker who tested 16 smart security systems, connected smoke alarms and thermostats and he found weaknesses in every single one.

This is how an alarm system is supposed to work. Someone breaks into your home and sets off the alarm. The crook is caught on video. But Colby Moore is a professional hacker and his job is to expose vulnerabilities.

"We could intercept the video stream to your cameras," Moore said. "We could watch what you were doing at all times. We could even shut off your video camera. We could sometimes turn off your home alarm system."

He's part of the professional security team at Synack of Redwood City. It bought cameras, home automation controllers, thermostats and even smoke detectors.

"So on all 16 devices, it took about 20 minutes to do what we call rooting the device, and that means we can run our own code on it, and manipulate the device any way we want," Moore said.

Moore can hack into a thermostat and smoke detector then use them as an entry into other devices in your home.

"They can then kind of pivot from that fire alarm to compromise other cameras, other computer systems," he said.

Through a Nest thermostat, another hacker took control of the lights and electronically imprinted his logo on the device. A third hacker cracked a password by running a program with every imaginable password combination until it spit out the network key.

"Once you can get the network key, it's as if you were in the person's house, because you're on their network," said Jeremy Hajek, a professor of the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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7 On Your Side examines weaknesses in home security systems