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Ways to track users through device cameras
According to a survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab, 52% of Internet users in Russia admitted that they are afraid of surveillance through a laptop webcam and a phone's photo lens. 26% of respondents reported that, for fear of prying eyes, they stick cameras on their devices.
So, let's find out, is it worth giving all these people foil caps complete with lens stickers?
Real stories
A little more than a year ago, among the inhabitants of the image board "Dvach" in one of the threads, an anonymous person who successfully set up a surveillance system using the camera and microphone of laptops announced himself. Having gained access to the devices of more than a hundred people who are not attentive to their security, anonymous created a whole show on the Synchtube service, where he combined chat, collecting donations (most often donates he called "admin on grass" or "on hashish"), and, of course, a live broadcast with the participation of unsuspecting victims.
Using remote access, it turned on music and displayed various videos on their devices. Most users, realizing that something was wrong with their system, launched an antivirus program, and one of the victims called the police. Despite this, anonymous successfully continued its activities and was not exposed until today. On the image board that made this character famous, you can easily find threads with a detailed description of the methods of surveillance.
A similar case occurred in September last year in Ukraine. The 23-year-old hacker from Kharkiv went a little further than his predecessor: from his passion, he made a business of collecting compromising material. For 2 years of his activity, the Ukrainian managed to organize surveillance of more than a hundred citizens of Ukraine, India, the United States, Italy, Spain and France. It is reported that among the victims of the burglar were not only ordinary people, but also a lot of public figures and politicians.
These few stories prove that becoming a victim of surveillance is a very real scenario, and the fact that it is possible does not inspire peace of mind and thoughts about the security of private life. If you watch the video of the detention of the Kharkiv web spy, you can see: the hacker's laptop camera is carefully tapedover. So this is the most reliable way to protect yourself? To understand this, let's look at possible ways to conduct surveillance via a computer or mobile phone.
Methods of surveillance
LuminosityLink
One of the most popular means of tracking with a laptop camera is the LuminosityLink system. This service is designed to provide remote access and is mainly used by system administrators. Pirated versions of the system can easily be found on the Internet. Basically, hackers gain access to victims computers thanks to infected applications that careless users download from unverified resources. So, the Russian spy who organized the show did not disclose his surveillance scheme, but attentive viewers noticed: most of the victims had the free video download utility "MediaGet", and the author of the broadcasts himself advised Dvach users not to download such applications, since they are often hotbeds of the virus.
Unreliable password
Also, one of the possible options for hacking something is insufficient password security or not at all. When installing a webcam, you must replace the standard password. Owners of unprotected cameras often became victims of intruders. In 2014, the cyber police shut down a Russian website that hosted about 5,000 videos from webcams, whose users simply did not replace the device's standard password.
DARKCOMET-RAT
DARKCOMET-RAT is another likely method of spying on you. This Trojan program infects the laptop and gives attackers full access to the device. With this type of surveillance, the webcam does not show that it is turned on. The service disables all signs of device operation. Hackers using this service have organized a whole group and call themselves hackers. Usually their victims are young girls. When hackers find intimate videos with their participation, they sell the material to other users.
Optic Nerve
American intelligence gave curious users another surveillance service: the Optic Nerve program, originally designed to fight terrorism, recognizes a person's face through a webcam, takes screenshots every 5 seconds and sends them to a special database. For six months of its existence, the service has collected about 2 million user images.
Phone tracking
As for phones, there are also methods of surveillance, but they are not so popular among hackers, because the gadget lens captures much less interesting things compared to a webcam. Most often, the phone is used as a tool for stealing passwords and other personal data.
Android
Mostly, Android users were infected, because the system is more vulnerable to viruses. By downloading fakes of well-known programs in the Play Store (which are not immediately eliminated by moderators), users infected their devices and gave attackers access to their data. As an example, the Soundcomber program . By asking for permission to record audio, the app is able to record all phone conversations, extract text and phone numbers entered by voice, and send all this to intruders.
iOS
Similar cases involving iOS users are still unknown. However, this is also the fault of Apple itself. The "Identifier For Advertisers" feature was introduced in iOS 6 and is designed to collect information for advertisers. The service assigns a serial number to each device and collects data about the sites visited by the user and installed applications.
These are just a few of the ways we can track people using our usual devices, which are almost always with us. In fact, there are many options for hacking devices. Inventive computer geeks regularly add to this list. Therefore, the work of your device should be treated very carefully, so as not to become a victim of intruders.
According to a survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab, 52% of Internet users in Russia admitted that they are afraid of surveillance through a laptop webcam and a phone's photo lens. 26% of respondents reported that, for fear of prying eyes, they stick cameras on their devices.
So, let's find out, is it worth giving all these people foil caps complete with lens stickers?
Real stories
A little more than a year ago, among the inhabitants of the image board "Dvach" in one of the threads, an anonymous person who successfully set up a surveillance system using the camera and microphone of laptops announced himself. Having gained access to the devices of more than a hundred people who are not attentive to their security, anonymous created a whole show on the Synchtube service, where he combined chat, collecting donations (most often donates he called "admin on grass" or "on hashish"), and, of course, a live broadcast with the participation of unsuspecting victims.
Using remote access, it turned on music and displayed various videos on their devices. Most users, realizing that something was wrong with their system, launched an antivirus program, and one of the victims called the police. Despite this, anonymous successfully continued its activities and was not exposed until today. On the image board that made this character famous, you can easily find threads with a detailed description of the methods of surveillance.
A similar case occurred in September last year in Ukraine. The 23-year-old hacker from Kharkiv went a little further than his predecessor: from his passion, he made a business of collecting compromising material. For 2 years of his activity, the Ukrainian managed to organize surveillance of more than a hundred citizens of Ukraine, India, the United States, Italy, Spain and France. It is reported that among the victims of the burglar were not only ordinary people, but also a lot of public figures and politicians.
These few stories prove that becoming a victim of surveillance is a very real scenario, and the fact that it is possible does not inspire peace of mind and thoughts about the security of private life. If you watch the video of the detention of the Kharkiv web spy, you can see: the hacker's laptop camera is carefully tapedover. So this is the most reliable way to protect yourself? To understand this, let's look at possible ways to conduct surveillance via a computer or mobile phone.
Methods of surveillance
LuminosityLink
One of the most popular means of tracking with a laptop camera is the LuminosityLink system. This service is designed to provide remote access and is mainly used by system administrators. Pirated versions of the system can easily be found on the Internet. Basically, hackers gain access to victims computers thanks to infected applications that careless users download from unverified resources. So, the Russian spy who organized the show did not disclose his surveillance scheme, but attentive viewers noticed: most of the victims had the free video download utility "MediaGet", and the author of the broadcasts himself advised Dvach users not to download such applications, since they are often hotbeds of the virus.
Unreliable password
Also, one of the possible options for hacking something is insufficient password security or not at all. When installing a webcam, you must replace the standard password. Owners of unprotected cameras often became victims of intruders. In 2014, the cyber police shut down a Russian website that hosted about 5,000 videos from webcams, whose users simply did not replace the device's standard password.
DARKCOMET-RAT
DARKCOMET-RAT is another likely method of spying on you. This Trojan program infects the laptop and gives attackers full access to the device. With this type of surveillance, the webcam does not show that it is turned on. The service disables all signs of device operation. Hackers using this service have organized a whole group and call themselves hackers. Usually their victims are young girls. When hackers find intimate videos with their participation, they sell the material to other users.
Optic Nerve
American intelligence gave curious users another surveillance service: the Optic Nerve program, originally designed to fight terrorism, recognizes a person's face through a webcam, takes screenshots every 5 seconds and sends them to a special database. For six months of its existence, the service has collected about 2 million user images.
Phone tracking
As for phones, there are also methods of surveillance, but they are not so popular among hackers, because the gadget lens captures much less interesting things compared to a webcam. Most often, the phone is used as a tool for stealing passwords and other personal data.
Android
Mostly, Android users were infected, because the system is more vulnerable to viruses. By downloading fakes of well-known programs in the Play Store (which are not immediately eliminated by moderators), users infected their devices and gave attackers access to their data. As an example, the Soundcomber program . By asking for permission to record audio, the app is able to record all phone conversations, extract text and phone numbers entered by voice, and send all this to intruders.
iOS
Similar cases involving iOS users are still unknown. However, this is also the fault of Apple itself. The "Identifier For Advertisers" feature was introduced in iOS 6 and is designed to collect information for advertisers. The service assigns a serial number to each device and collects data about the sites visited by the user and installed applications.
These are just a few of the ways we can track people using our usual devices, which are almost always with us. In fact, there are many options for hacking devices. Inventive computer geeks regularly add to this list. Therefore, the work of your device should be treated very carefully, so as not to become a victim of intruders.
