‎alarm disarmed/account compromised? | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
dpirovolos's profile

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020 11:47 PM

alarm disarmed/account compromised?

So my wife and I are sitting at home getting ready to have dinner and we hear an announcement that our system has been disarmed (it wasn't armed to begin with).  At the same time I get a notification on my phone that our system has been disarmed by Remote.  Checking the timeline in the SimpliSafe app, it says that the system was disarmed via the SimpliSafe app.  I did not initiate this and neither did my wife, and now I'm worried that somehow my login credentials have been compromised and someone logged in to my account via the SimpiSafe and can see all of my pins, etc.

Coincidentally (or not), about 15-20 minutes before this happened I added three new glass break sensors to our system.  Am I just being paranoid or is this something I should be worried about?  I know I can just change my password, pins, safe word, etc. but it's a pain in the a$$ to retrain everyone, especially my wife.  Have any of you guys ever had something like this happen to you where you can't figure out who or what triggered an event like this?  

I did call SS support but they were useless and had no more information about what happened than I did.

1.2K Messages

5 years ago

I would change your password immediately. You may want to contact SS as well. Do you use the same passwords for multiple sites? If yes stop doing that right now.

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I do not use the same password for multiple sites and my SS password is very complex.  I did contact SS and they were not helpful at all.  The other odd thing is that as I sit here right now with our system disarmed, tapping the "off" option in the SS app does nothing. If someone else had somehow obtained my login credentials and done the same thing via the app, I would expect the same result so this is puzzling.

731 Messages

5 years ago

It might be a pain, but I would not hesitate to change everything. Better safe than sorry. A bit of learning and discomfort is not a good enough reason not to do so.

(I am also curious if you did, would it happen again)

Perhaps someone has compromised one of your phones or alternative log-ins (computer, tablet, etc.).

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5 years ago

It's possible it was just a wierd glitch of some kind.  I do know that when you are adding sensors like you were when you exit out from the keypad the alarm will say "Alarm Off" even though it was already off.  I suppose it could be possible that you were still in the menu system when you finished and it eventually timed out and exited the menu, resulting in the "Alarm Off" message.  I'd have to test this theory and see if that time out takes a while, AND if it registers as an APP command, but just a thought.

Either way, at a very minimum I'd probably change your app login password.  Pins and secret codes?  That would be a stretch that someone from the internet somewhere is gonna jump on an airplane and come to your house to break in.  Seems pretty unlikely, but crazier things happen.

9 Messages

5 years ago

Just to add to the weirdness here, I navigated to the "Manage Logins' area under "Account' and I did see two devices in there listed as "Unknown'.  I should have taken a screenshot of exactly what it said there but I just logged both of those devices out and changed my login password, master pin and safe word.  The other devices that were showing as logged in there were my phone, my wife's phone and my computer.

I am going to reach out to SS support again tomorrow to see if they maintain logs of which devices sign in to an account; however, based on my experience with support so far, I'm not going to get my hopes up.  It's totally possible all of this could be nothing, but I'm not risking the safety of my family.

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Their support is literally terrible 

983 Messages

5 years ago

Im with drunkpenguin on this, if you add a sensor a d did not exit out ot waits a certain time and will time out or exit itself out and say alarm off. Same with test mode as i did that one time where i forgot to exit out of test mode a few minutes later i heard (alarm off) so that coukd be what happened but not 100%sure

1 Message

2 years ago

My system was armed in away mode when I got the message that it was disarmed by remote. Neither my wife nor I had disarmed the system. SimpliSafe created a complaint and will let me know what they find after they investigate but, this is a very scary happening.

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Did you get a resolution? This has happened to me twice in the past few days.

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This just happened to us. Neither my wife nor I disarmed the system. We have had simplisafe for years. Had the original system for 5 to 6 years with zero issues. Upgraded to the new system over a year ago and have had a couple of minor issues, but never the system disarming like this. If this can't be resolved as to why or how it happened it is time to find something else.

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@sandy8367​ and @trentdang Thank you for reporting this. I've forwarded your cases to our engineers to look into. A member of our team may reach out to you to help them with their investigation. 

197 Messages

11 months ago

I'm not sure, but this sounds related to an incident I had over a year ago.   I never really figured out what the cause was, but it also hasn't happened again.

https://support.simplisafe.com/conversations/gen-3-simplisafe/system-disarmed-master-pin-via-keypad-but-no-one-entered-pin/625f5c0a5929ed7176f2c06e?commentId=6260354061c81e7c7cd38cf1&replyId=62615e97e19a9178e3ca3e2d 

1 Message

6 months ago

We are considering installing a SS system and my friend warned me of 2 things— (1) it can somehow be disarmed remotely by hackers so do not use the SS signage in your yard because it makes you a target and (2) it would not work on a metal door they had and it had so many issues with that door the finally uninstalled the system 

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

Hi @SoCalGal​, 

Jamming is a big concern for all wireless security systems. That's why SimpliSafe features intelligent jam detection to immediately warn the user of a possible attack. We even have regular firmware updates to stay ahead of future threats like this. Check out this post on our blog for more info.

And yes, we do not recommend installing either part of the Entry Sensor right on a metal surface, as it can cause the sensor to demagnetize and recognize incorrect open/closed states. However, if you have a metal door or window that you want to put an Entry Sensor on, you can place a buffer between the sensor and surface to protect the sensor. This can be anything like a piece of cardboard or an additional layer of adhesive. 

2 Messages

2 months ago

I just had the same exact issue occur.  The alarm was off and I got the message that it was disarmed by remote.  We had not done anything to the alarm.  I never use the app to turn the alarm on and off.  We always use the keypad.  I have not installed any new devices on the system in years.  Support had me power cycle the base station but I am worried as I do not understand why that would help.  When I check, there are no strange devices logged in.  We have had simplisafe since 2019 and had zero problems.  This worries me as they did not seem able to identify a cause. 

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@mrgh2345​ So your system was already disarmed in Off Mode, and you got another notification that the system was disarmed again? Sometimes when the system checks in with our monitoring center it will reiterate its current state, which may result in another notification or event on the timeline. 

I certainly understand how this can be worrisome, and I've forwarded your case details to our engineering team to look into.

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29 days ago

I am getting these messages all the time:

System Disarmed: Your SimpliSafe security system was disarmed by Remote at ____ on 06/27/2024 at 9:04 AM

several times in a day.

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@emily_s . Any idea for the remote disabling - it has been happening for months. Also my cameras will randomly not detect motion for a whole period of time. Example is last night into this morning. Not a single notification or video even when I was walking in front of it this morning. System is updated

Captain

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6K Messages

@safogle16​ Remote arming? If you look at your timeline, is it showing a keyfob? Phone app? Obviously not expected bahviour for the system, one that luckily I have not experienced. Call SS asap and review the timeline carefully. If its a keyfob, remove any all that are on the system including if one is in your possisson. See if the remote arming continues. Change your PW and institute 2FA is not already. Also, sign out of instances on your account. Unless a bug (doubt it) your remoting arming issue should stop.

Please post here after you speak with SS. This is extremely serious if it has been going on for months.

Update: is this a SS2 or SS3 system? If SS2, upgrade asap. SS can provide assistance in this effort.

(edited)

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@safogle16​ Do you happen to have any arming schedules set up? You can check this in the SimpliSafe mobile app by going to My System > Automations > Scheduled Arming. From there, you will see the arming schedules you have (if any) and edit/remove them. 

And do you happen to own any Key Fobs? It could be that the button was pressed on error. As Captain11 recommended, temporarily removing the Key Fob(s) from your account can clue us in if they are the root cause or not.

But if you do not have any arming schedules created, and you do not have any Key Fobs that could has caused this, I would highly recommend reaching out to our Support team so they can take a deeper look into your account and troubleshoot with you in realtime.

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Ok thanks, I’ll remove my remote fob for now and see if that is the issue. I’ll also change password, 2FA etc. ’ll reply back when I have an update. I think the weird thing to me is it keeps disarming when it was never even armed in the first place. Thanks @captain11 and @emily_s 

1 Message

26 days ago

I am also having this exact same issue over the last few months: the app notifying me that the system has been switched off via remote (when it was already in OFF mode).

I have no scheduled alarms set up, nor do I have a fob with my system. 

Clearly there’s something not quite right happening with the SS system that this is happening to multiple people.

@simplysafe Do you have a diagnosis/solution to this?

Community Admin

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3.1K Messages

@jon19abab​ If your system was already disarmed into Off Mode, and you received another notification that it was disarmed, then it sounds like the Base Station is re-announcing its current armed state.

There are some instances where the Base Station checks in with the service by re-sending its current armed state. One example is if you were in the Keypad Menu making adjustments to settings and then you leave the Keypad alone without exiting the Menu. The Keypad will eventually return to the status screen and the system will announce its current state.

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For me this happens at completely random times. Nothing correlated with an action I am taking. Sometimes it happens 5 times a day, sometimes not at all. No apparent rhyme or reason.

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Clearly there’s something not quite right happening with the SS system that this is happening to multiple people!

I am a CISO and I am very good and picky with my security. The problem described here by others is what is happening with my system at home too. 

It is not a remote fob, it is not a sensor , it is not my phone app. Something is disarming our SimpliSafe system remotely. 

This is VERY bad! Dealing with SS support is a joke, they will go around and around, restarting your system, changing passwords, etc. 

Do we need to contact the media and see if they can put some traction on this ?

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

@Juanmachado ​ Emily asked earlier, is your system repeating the existing armed state, or is it disarming while it was previously armed? Those are two different things.

The system repeating its current state is a known issue that we're still investigating, but overall the behavior doesn't have much negative impact (other than you getting the notification again).

If the system is spontaneously disarming when currently armed, that's definitely something more serious that we'll need to notify our engineers about.

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13 days ago

It's probably firmware glitches. When I'm fiddling moving the base around etc.

I get power outage and 7 recordings, when I plug it back in I can get as many as 3 notifications of power restored with 7 recordings each within the same minutes.

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If it is firmware glitches, @simplisafe say something!!! This is clearly happening to a lot of people and not just on the latest firmware.

Community Admin

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5.6K Messages

@dlpsr​ this is a very different symptom. What's the timestamp on that third event?

My theory is that the Base Station was able to get the signal out through WiFi, but because of latency it didn't hear back from the server that the message was received. So it sent the signal a couple more times just to be sure.

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