# Is Webcam Safe?



## Megalord

*Webcam Safety*

Hello there, thank you for your time. I was just wondering if webcam is safe from perverts. I mean is it possible while you are viewing cam with your friend there could be an unknown hacker watching you and even recording you without you having any clue about it?


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## jjsevdt

not unless you're broadcasting it.  It all depends on the service you use to chat.


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## Megalord

Well I am using Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger. So let's say I am viewing my cam with my friend and my friend is viewing his / her cam. Are we at risk? Could anyone be hacking and watching us without our knowledge?


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## tremmor

i would think its possible. On my Asus Eee ive used Skype with family. the option is there to keep private and by invitation only. My wife had one that attached to the screen on hers. She used it the same way. and found out one day she had turned it on by accident. the people that were invited before could just watch her do what ever she was doing on the computer or walking around in the room. 
She said get rid of it. thats enough. has not used it since.


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## Megalord

So webcam removed? So what should I do then? Msn can only be by invitation, yahoo messenger by request / invitation. How come hers allowed others to view automatically? This is scary!


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## tremmor

i know for sure she logged out. it might be it bothered her because she still had the camera on. forgot to turn it off and got paranoid. even with the camera on i think you would have to log out and be safe. Im not sure. only used it a few times. kind of neat though.


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## jjsevdt

I haven't experienced that personally.  The camera could be activated on the computer without broadcasting.  I use Skype and haven't experinced any problems.


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## FairDoos

Lol your treating webcam as if its something not to be messed with..

The webcam will only be turned on by request from the person who uses the PC with the webcam. No hacker will be watching you unless your mum has put some spyware software that takes screenshots of your screen but they wont be able to record you if they tried to you would notice and it would be quite hard for a hacker to da that anyway just keep your Anti-Virus software up to date and you wont have problems

Trust me its safe to use just watch who you go on webcam to *cough*chatroulette*cough*


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## Megalord

Hmm, thanks for the replies guys. I was browsing similar topics online, some asking afraid during cam sex, some asking for their girlfriend's insecurity, and some are just afraid to even turn on the webcam. Wow.


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## Geoff

Nothing on the internet is safe.


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## tyttebøvs

FairDoos said:


> if they tried to you would notice



If we go there, why should the user notice anything?

Anyone remember the flash exploit?


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## bkribbs

[-0MEGA-];1483326 said:
			
		

> Nothing on the internet is safe.



That is true. Anything that is done can be hacked by someone, somewhere. It is just more of being careful and not drawing attention to yourself.


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## tlarkin

If your machine gets rooted, by any sort of malware, trojan horse, or through some sort of social engineering hack, your web cam can be recorded and you can access it remotely.


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## tyttebøvs

tlarkin said:


> If your machine gets rooted, by any sort of malware, trojan horse



And this happens to many, many people each and every day


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## ianne

Anything you do on your webcam can be recorded without your permission, you can be recorded on any website and on any video chat program. Unless you are in a private mode.










______________
6ave.com coupons


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## tlarkin

ianne said:


> Anything you do on your webcam can be recorded without your permission, you can be recorded on any website and on any video chat program. Unless you are in a private mode.



I have a bridge I would like to sell you


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## Twist86

Yep sadly when your not using it id unplug your webcam. Specially if its in your bedroom...might find yourself on the net one day


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## ganzey

just tape a small peice of paper over it, or put a sticky note on it when its not in use


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## mep916

ganzey said:


> just tape a small peice of paper over it, or put a sticky note on it when its not in use



My solution for everything.


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## tlarkin

Here is how you avoid this:

1)  Use strong and secure passwords

2)  do not download or install any software that isn't from a legitimate company.

3)  Keep active and up-to-date security software

4)  Don't go to websites that promote illegal activity or that aren't for a legit cause or organization

If you use best practices you have little to worry about.  If you are that paranoid use a band-aid to cover the web cam, that way the padded part of the band-aid will not scratch the lens of the camera in case you ever want to sell that laptop.


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## fastdude

Webcams may let you stay in touch with friends and family,, but they also pose risks of people hacking into them and spying on you. A reccent  lawsuit accused a school district of using webcams on school-issued laptops to spy on students and their families. And in China, a sophisticated network of hackers known as GhostNet has cracked 1,295 webcams in 103 countries. Now that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.


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## tremmor

just getting ready to find a post from another site and checked here first again. you already said it. one in mich going on or getting ready to happen. i think laptop's on loan from the school and could be accessed with webcam for identification. 
Problem was it was being views while in there daily routine and other purposes.


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## Egon

Ahem... *Raises hand* I.. through some ways.. have turned on people's webcams just to see what's going on. It isn't that hard at all to do.

But since the ways of doing it are slightly illegal I'm not willing to say how or what to even Google.

Just know that it can be done without any detection of any software. And I'm not talking about remote connection or teamviewer either. The best 'solution' is to keep a strip of tape over your webcam and never remove it until you want to use your cam.


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## tyttebøvs

Egon said:


> The best 'solution' is to keep a strip of tape over your webcam and never remove it until you want to use your cam.



Yes, you don't want to get caught while using those not-for-young-people sites


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## tlarkin

Egon said:


> Ahem... *Raises hand* I.. through some ways.. have turned on people's webcams just to see what's going on. It isn't that hard at all to do.
> 
> But since the ways of doing it are slightly illegal I'm not willing to say how or what to even Google.
> 
> Just know that it can be done without any detection of any software. And I'm not talking about remote connection or teamviewer either. The best 'solution' is to keep a strip of tape over your webcam and never remove it until you want to use your cam.



There is no zero day exploit out there that does it.  Almost all access to machines remotely to activate any hardware what-so-ever is done through some sort of malicious software.  Typically installed by the end user by some social engineering or them visiting malicious sites that elevate code from basic programming flaws like stack over flows and such developers still can't seem to fix (well bad developers), or from something embedded in pirated software.

You also can detect what is running on your system, the problem is you have to know what to look for.  Everything in Windows, OS X, or Linux has a process (service) name and is taking up resources.  

So, as long as you execute "best practices," on your computer and have decent up-to-date software for security you most likely will not succumb to such an attack of having your webcam controlled.  If you are that paranoid perhaps you should stop using Windows, or just put a band-aid over the web cam itself like I previously mentioned.


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## Egon

The problem is is that all anti-whatever software needs to know the program name or part of the code to be able to stop it. If it doesn't know then most likely you don't either. The only way to find out then is to stop the process. But even then if it look legal and that it should be there most of the time it will be ignored.

It comes down to this. If you install something check to see if your start-up process list had any new items.


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## Dizzy714

Get a webcam that has a power-up light when it's active? My buddy has one of them Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000's an it has an orange dim light on it that only comes on when it's active.


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## tlarkin

Egon said:


> The problem is is that all anti-whatever software needs to know the program name or part of the code to be able to stop it. If it doesn't know then most likely you don't either. The only way to find out then is to stop the process. But even then if it look legal and that it should be there most of the time it will be ignored.
> 
> It comes down to this. If you install something check to see if your start-up process list had any new items.



Yes, and if you go back to my original point on this post, which is if you use best practices you won't have to worry.

Use strong passwords

Up to date OS and security software

Use smart web browsing (don't go to malicious sites)

don't install or use non legit software


MY PC has been virus free for years and years because of these methods.


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