According to David Cook, writer and computer fraud expert, fraudsters play a never-ending game of trying to separate us from our money are actively practicing the art of “camfecting,” using your laptop camera to steal your information. This is not a myth, and in fact it is getting worse during the COVID pandemic. While I am at it, I must also share that all of your devices are vulnerable include our phones and tablets. And here is a sobering thought: there are now cameras embedded in everything from tablets to kitchen appliances. According to Mr. Cook, around the globe there are more than 15,000 devices that have web cameras. Most modern-day homes may have as many as 17 cameras. All can be hacked.
Who Secures Us?
Experts advise that it is best to turn our laptops completely off when not in use. This is different than, let’s say, sleep mode. Cyber fraud criminals have the ability to “awaken” our computers and turn the camera on. With the rise of Zoom vide-conferences the problem is getting worse not better.
Cook tells us: “The number of recorded instances of an image captured through unauthorized webcam access is relatively low…this is because most attacks happen without the user ever realizing they’ve been compromised.”
Why would unethical hackers do this? Well, it isn’t for indecent reasons if that is what you are thinking. According to the author, “the majority of illicit webcam access is related to gathering information for financial gain.”
The scam is deceptively simple. You are sent a spam email telling you, that you’ve been caught doing something obscene on camera. They are simply phishing for your passwords and/or financial information. A percentage of the more naïve will believe they will really be blackmailed and pay whatever nominal fee they need to pay. This is precisely what the fraudsters want.
Who is to Blame?
How might a hacker gain control of your camera? Quite often it is through a remote administration tool that comes into “your home” as a virus on an email. However, just as often it is through another scam: a hacker convincing you they will offer remote technical support.
In any case, the myth of your camera spying on you – which is not a myth, has led experts to advising that a piece of paper or a sticky note over your camera may not be such a bad idea after all. In addition, the experts also warn us to not give out our passwords or to erase emails that attempt to gain information.
But the vast majority of us know those things, don’t we?
It leads me to a troubling ethical question. If the issue of our computers spying on us is at least suspected to the point where some of us are responding to blackmail or are at least covering our cameras, what is the industry doing about it?
Do software and hardware manufacturers have some culpability here? I think they do. There appears to be a design flaw that allows hackers the opportunity to gain access to our lives by either accessing us, or intimating they have accessed us through our cameras. The need they have to do this is to gain financial or personal information in order to defraud us.
They (the cyber criminals) understand the flaw, our awareness of the flaw, and that we are vulnerable. Given that, why aren’t the people who manufacture computers and the software that makes them work, more upfront in helping us to block such activity? It would seem obvious that there could be fixes.
Reminding people to put black tape over the camera seems a crude solution at best. In fact, it is like removing fourth gear from your teenager’s car so they can’t speed. Do manufacturers rationalize if they have security installed to block the camera that it somehow makes us mere customers suspect their computer has invaded our lives? I have no answer other than it seems they could be doing a better job of it, but aren’t.
If, as David Cook points out, that the modern home has at least 17 unsecured cameras embedded in various devices, have we really moved into the time of “Big Brother?” Or, is it long past time for Big Brother to help us out?
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