Check the video camera on your laptop, desktop, or mobile device--got a piece of tape on it? If you do, bravo--you may move on to another post on this blog, preferably the benefits of staying up late--; if you don't, however, there are very important why you should, which I will list as follows:
1. Your computer and mobile device is hackable: Think about the complexity of the technological age we're in. Think your computer or smart phone is iron-clad? Think you've got finger-tip control over all the hacking software and hackers in the world? Of course not. One of the easiest ways to hack into your life is to hack your video camera.
2. Research proves it: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University three years ago proved they could hack a video camera without the indicator light turning on: This study was ground-breaking--three years ago. Here's an excerpt:
In a paper called "iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED", Brocker and Checkoway describe how to reprogram the iSight camera's micro-controller to allow the camera to be turned on while the light stays off. Their research is under consideration for an upcoming academic security conference.
So why hasn't covering the camera become a common practice?
3. IT Security experts do it: But they're all paranoid, right? If a car expert inspects your vehicle and informs you of several places where it's vulnerable, do you listen? If a professional locksmith tells you where your doors are most vulnerable and how to increase home security, do you listen? Then answer this: why would it be any different with IT security experts putting post-it notes and band-aids and cigarette paper and electrician tape on their video cams? Read this, and come to your own conclusion:
Mr Hypponen also noted that the man behind spying software FinFisher and FinSpy, which is sold to governments, was recently snapped with tape over his MacBook's web camera. Another prominent security expert, also publicly outed for using tape over his MacBook camera, was public-key cryptography expert Whitfield Diffie, at the AusCERT security conference in 2010.
4. A 14-year old can hack your cam: There was a case--as I'm sure there have been countless since--of a 14-year old boy who admitted to hacking the video cams of unsuspecting females. The tool is called a Remote Administrative Tool or RATs, and is a simple malware tool used to hack into computers and gain access of all its activity. It's a fairly common tool, which should give all of us pause. The landing photo for this post is of Jani: a 10 year-old boy who received a tasty $10,000 reward for flagging Instagram to a security flaw after he hacked into its servers and was able to delete comments.
5. Mark Zuckerberg does it: Case closed--no, really. What other evidence do you need? According to a recent New York Times article, photos of the mega-CEO have circulated tacitly revealing his covered up cam.
Is he just crazy, or does he understand the risks of using technology? The article quotes a couple of IT security experts. Here's one of them:
Covering the camera is a very common security measure,” Lysa Myers, a security researcher at the data security firm ESET, said in an email. “If you were to walk around a security conference, you would have an easier time counting devices that don’t have something over the camera.
It's simple: unwittingly click on an unsuspecting link and your computer is open to malware that allows hackers to operate your camera and spy on everything you're doing, including the rooms and belongings found in your home.
So what are you going to do now? I suggest you find yourself some tape...
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