The majority of people doing the spying aren’t government agents, but low-tier hackers that use simple tools to catalog and monitor all the devices a computer may have access to. This article over at Ars Technica, Meet The Men Who Spy On Women Through Their Webcams, is an unsettling account. We want to emphasize the whole “hardly a new trick” bit and the ease with which even marginally skilled malicious users can gain access to your computer.
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In early 2015, a group known as BlackShades was broken up after it was discovered that the software they sold for $40 a pop had been used to give millions of purchasers remote access (including webcam access) to victims computers that’s hardly a new trick though as old programs like Back Orifice were used in the same fashion back in the 1990s. In 2014, again courtesy of the Snowden leaks, we learned that the NSA has a host of tools at its disposal to remotely monitor users like “Gumfish”: a malware tool that allows for remote video monitoring via your webcam. In 2013, courtesy of the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, we learned that the NSA had successful programs they used to gain backdoor access to the cameras on iPhones and Blackberries. A former FBI agent confirmed that not only was this possible but that they’d been doing it for years.
In 2013, researchers demonstrated that they could activate the webcam on MacBooks without the indicator light turning on, something previously considered impossible. In 2009, a student sued his school when he discovered his school-provided laptop was secretly photographing him (the ensuing legal investigation revealed that the school had collected 56,000 photographs of students without their knowledge or consent). A slew of news stories over the intervening years, however, have revealed that what was once considered paranoia is now an uncomfortable reality. Ten years ago the idea that people-be they government agents, hackers, or just law-breaking voyeurs-could actively spy on you through your computer’s webcam would be the considered the ramblings of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. If you have kids, you should strongly consider reading the entirety of this article and implementing something to stop their webcams from being on all the time (or ever). They can store images and videos of people in compromising situations in their bedrooms, and many of these images and videos are uploaded to shady websites. TL DR version: Script-kiddie hackers and teenagers can, and do, use easily accessible tools and phishing techniques to hijack webcams of unsuspecting people, often who they know, and watch them through their camera. Once a concern that was the province of the paranoid, years worth of reports and revelations have made it readily apparent that people really can spy on you through your webcam. Here’s why you should disable or cover yours.
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