Zuckerberg seals webcam and laptop microphone

Photo: Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo on the social network that clearly shows that his MacBook Pro’s microphone and webcam are taped.

Representatives of the company did not respond to the request to comment on the picture. On the photo caption, the founder of the social network congratulated everyone on the fact that Instagram is now using 500 million users monthly.

FBI Director James Komi recently also admitted that he was sticking the webcam of his laptop so that hackers would not watch him.

And the digital legal foundation Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it regularly sells "stickers" for webcams.

The documents, which the former US National Security Agency official Edward Snowden made public, show that American and British intelligence agencies intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users around the world in 2008-2010.

And in 2013, BBC Radio-5 correspondents, during an investigation, found websites where hackers exchanged videos and photos of people taken without their knowledge.

"Perfectly logical"

Hackers get access to webcams through attached files that contain viruses.

When a user opens such a file, the hacker gains control over the functions of the infected computer, including its webcam.

Security software company Symantec advises users not to keep computers with webcams in their bedrooms and to "not do things in front of the computer that you wouldn't want the world to see."

“There are a huge number of viruses that give access to various parts of the computer, which allows their owners to be heard and seen. Therefore, covering the webcam is completely logical. Moreover, I don’t understand why computers aren’t made with a built-in shutter to cover the webcam,” says Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert at the University of Surrey.

But in sticking the microphone sense less, says Woodward.

“Sound can be transmitted through duct tape - it's just another membrane on top. Rather, there should be a switch on the computer that could turn off the microphone,” the professor notes.

Judging by the latest research, modern hackers use accelerometers built into their phones to recognize sound.

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