Friday, November 21, 2014

Cover Those Webcams

The practice of hacking web cameras is nothing new, but I fear that the general population remains largely unaware of the practice. Acquaint yourself with this trend by reading the story highlighted below. It's about a Russian website that specializes in video voyeurism. Recently they featured 53 webcams in Ireland where it was plain to see that many of the victims were at home lounging, some possibly in their own bedrooms.

"A Russian site which contained a link to 53 Irish cameras was taken down last night. The streams accessed a number of different types of camera screens in homes and businesses. People could be seen relaxing on screen in some footage, making it clear that many of the streams are live from private homes." (click here)

In the distant past, video voyeurism was not as easily executed by a third party as it is today. Video surveillance cameras are so small that it's difficult for professionals to spot them on occasion. Combine this with wireless technologies, as well as the proliferation of the Internet, there's a serious potential for privacy violations.

The bottom line solution for video voyeurism is two-fold:

  1. If you leave your computer on all the time, down your wireless or hardline Internet connection
  2. Cover your webcam when it's not in use, or at least while you're not using it yourself.

For more information on voyeurism, go to http://www.ehow.com/info_8723077_video-voyeurism.html.

Copyright©2014

1 comment:

  1. 15 arrested in new European crackdown of peeping tom malware users. As Ars has reported for years, RATs have been used to spy on Android phones, and individual PCs. They are often used to hijack women’s computers, which are then used to blackmail them into providing lewd videos or pictures of themselves. http://ow.ly/EIhHs.

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