WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.400 It doesn't take much these days to make you feel like you're living in Orwell's 1984. 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:09.040 Our smart speakers are listening to us, Facebook isn't being very careful with our data, 00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:13.200 and what about those little cameras on all of our computers and phones? 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:19.520 Are they spying on us without us even knowing it? Well, it might not be something that you think of regularly, 00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:24.800 but there definitely have been instances of webcam hacking where people were spied on 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:31.200 in compromising situations, and as you may have guessed, it's often not easy to tell if this is 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:36.560 happening to you. So to find out more, we reached out to Troy Hunt, famous for creating the website 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:40.160 Have I Been Poned, and we'd like to thank him for his contributions to this video. 00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:46.000 So, there are a few tricks that you can use to see if your webcam has been activated without 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:51.280 your consent. A pretty obvious tell is if that light that's attached to the webcam turns on 00:00:51.360 --> 00:00:56.800 unexpectedly. Though you probably don't need us to tell you that the wrinkle in that whole plan 00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:01.280 is that the absence of a light doesn't necessarily mean that no one is watching. 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:07.120 You see, while some webcams have a light that is hardwired into the circuitry and that will 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.720 always turn on if there's a signal being sent through the camera itself, 00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:16.000 many others have a light that is in fact software-driven, meaning that a skilled hacker could 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:22.160 turn the light on and off at will. And making matters worse, it's very difficult to figure out 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:27.760 which kind of light your webcam has. However, not every trick that hackers use to spy on you is 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:33.040 super elegant, so do pay attention if the light does come on unexpectedly when you open your 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:38.960 web browser or launch an unrelated program. The culprit might be a compromised browser extension 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:44.560 or application that you may be able to simply remove easily. Other, less well-designed pieces of 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:50.480 malware can leave traces on your PC. For example, some of them will leave copies of recorded video 00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:55.280 somewhere on your hard drive, often in the default folder that recordings are saved to, 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:59.600 so be sure to check for videos that you don't remember recording if you think someone might 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:05.040 be watching you. There is some good news, though. It's actually becoming harder and harder to 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:10.160 accidentally get infected by malware that will spy on you through your webcam. Back when applets 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:15.680 like Java and Flash were far more common in browsers, it was easier to fall victim to malware 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:20.080 of this type, including spyware that could potentially take over your webcam. And it could 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:26.320 happen simply by visiting an infected website. These days, because of these security concerns, 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:32.080 Java and Flash are far less common. Plus, operating systems are automatically patched quite 00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:38.160 frequently. And the more walled-garden nature of mobile operating systems makes it even more 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:43.600 difficult to pick up malware passively on devices like those. Instead, social engineering 00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:48.640 reliant attacks that rely on tricking the user into revealing information on their own, 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:54.960 like phishing, or remote access trojans are more common ways to have your webcam compromised. 00:02:54.960 --> 00:03:00.080 Remote access trojans, which allow a bad actor to control a user's computer over the internet, 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:04.400 are quite common in tech support scams, which you can actually learn more about right here. 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:10.640 Additionally, hackers that focus on getting into webcams tend to do it in a more target-specific 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:15.440 manner, which makes sense if you think about it. Cyber criminals who are out to steal financial 00:03:15.440 --> 00:03:21.200 information often try to cast a very wide net and get the account information of as many victims 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:30.640 as possible. But webcam spying is often motivated by a perpetrator's desire to surveil a particular 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:36.800 target, maybe a business rival, or a former lover, or a celebrity who they think they might 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:41.920 be able to blackmail. That means that you could fall victim to a targeted phishing attack, 00:03:41.920 --> 00:03:46.400 or even have surveillance software installed on your machine when you aren't looking. 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:51.760 Now, that isn't to say that there haven't been instances of hackers attempting to spy on people 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:57.600 at random just to satisfy some voyeuristic tendency, or even sell the footage on online 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:03.200 black markets. But the bottom line is, just be careful about what kind of enemies you make, 00:04:03.200 --> 00:04:08.240 or if you think that people are after you, all it takes is a small piece of cardboard over your 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:13.120 webcam, and no one will be able to look through it. I guess that really is the bottom line of this 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:17.440 one, isn't it? So thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out our other videos, 00:04:17.440 --> 00:04:23.680 leave a comment if you have a suggestion for a future Fast as Possible, and don't forget to subscribe.