At a meeting today, I noticed a colleague (on a Windows machine) had covered the "camera eye" on his computer. He said that hackers were accessing that function and spying on people. (Them and the NSA).
Is this a bona fide issue? Is this prudence or paranoia?
Thank you for your help.
OS X Mountain Lion, 8 GB RAM
Yes, there have been numerous exploits of Windows that give the hacker access to the camera. Even wifi based child monitor cameras have been hacked under windows.
Just do an internet search - several of these exploits have been featured on CNN, ABC, FOX and other major news sites.
I have not, however, heard of a single such exploit for OS X.
P.S. here is what Symantec has to say about it - http://us.norton.com/yoursecurityresource/detail.jsp?aid=webcam_hacking
and a fairly recent tech news site coverage - http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/5463/20130620/webcam-spies-hackers-selling -access-womens-laptop.htm
For that to happen the rest of your computer can also be accessed and your security systems, whatever they are, need to be reconfigured.
No one can gain access to any computer without a very weak security protocol in place or the users somehow allowing the hack to happen in the first place.
Just because a computer is connected to the internet doesn't mean it can be hacked. There are millions of computer that have never been hacked or had a virus on them.
As already indicated, there's no known Mac malware that spies on you through the webcam. There could be in the future, but you should note that the light that indicates that the camera is on is controlled by hardware, and cannot be overridden by software... So even if some pops up, you'll have warning if it turns your camera on.
One other note... If you have Adobe Flash Player installed, it's possible that Flash has access to the camera, allowing Flash-based web apps to access the camera. Make sure to turn that option off in Flash's settings, and use a Flash blocker (such as ClickToPlugin for Safari) to prevent Flash content from running unless you explicitly allow it.
Its a Mac. So, No
Photo Booth paranoia?
