In this digital era, vigilance must be maintained. Because, cybercriminals will continue to look for loopholes to carry out their actions, including hijacking the camera on your device.
We recommend doing mitigation so that your device's camera is not hacked. There are several signs that your webcam is being hijacked by someone else and there is the potential for him to be spying on you too. Reported by Quick Books, here are the signs that a webcam has been hijacked by hackers.
1. Does the camera look inappropriate?
If your webcam is modern enough, it has the ability to rotate and move in different directions to capture the best video/image at the best angle. Always be alert to check if the camera moves or rotates without a command. If you notice any unusual movements, it is an indication that someone is spying on you.
2. Weird file storage
Once the hacker has recorded the footage via the webcam, the video or audio recording will be saved among the existing storage files. That means if a file appears out of nowhere, then it will be a red alert.
Always check files that you didn't create, especially in the webcam recordings folder. You also can't rule out the possibility that hackers have moved some of their files and some files to a new folder or to a location that you most likely don't check regularly.
For that, always comb every corner of your storage location and make sure that your webcam settings are in accordance with their specifications at all times.
3. Is the indicator light not working properly?
Is your webcam indicator flashing abnormally or keeps on flashing without you starting it? If so, someone is likely controlling it without your consent. Sometimes, a computer program or other browser extension that you are running in the background may use the webcam, causing abnormal flickering.
Although it can't be a benchmark because the indicator may not work due to technical problems, you shouldn't just let it go. Moreover, this is about your cyber security.
4. Check background apps
Sometimes malware will sneak onto the computer as a regular application. This often happens when you like to download apps from unsafe websites, so malware apps find an easy way for your operating system. Always be wary of software/applications running on your computer that you never installed
