Webcams

Webcams are essentially digital cameras that are connected to the Internet. They were developed in 1991 by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky in order to monitor a coffee pot at the University of Cambridge and connected to the Internet for the first time in 1993. Today, they are used ubiquitously for anything from personal communication to security, in places like common households to corporate offices. Most webcams can be found embedded in an electronic device, such as a laptop or a phone, or as an auxiliary device that can be connected via a USB or FireWire port of a computer.

A webcam produced by the company Logitech

Recently it has been made clear that digitally taking over this kind of appliance for malicious use, ranging from simple breach of privacy to blackmailing, is not difficult and rather commonplace. Since the beginning of the 2010s, instances in which webcams were hijacked by black-hat hackers have become so common that a term has been coined for this specific type of hacking: camfecting. The topic of camfecting has even made appearances in popular media, having been covered by an array of TV shows and movies. Some of the most influential people in popular culture, especially in the area of technology, have also brought the topic to light.

Outstanding Instances

In 2013, a student in Glasgow had her webcam compromised while watching a DVD in her bath. She brought the incident forward to BBC Radio 5, whose live investigation uncovered websites where hackers traded photos and footages captured via webcam, even selling them for profit.

Russian webcam live stream site

In 2014, a Russian website that had indexable categories of live stream footages from baby cameras to personal webcams was uncovered. Each stream was labeled with which country it was from, and the specific location from which it was being broadcasted. The website even ran advertisements on the page for monetization.

In 2018, a hacker gained access to a baby monitor in Houston, where he then began to spout “sexual expletives” and threats along the lines of “I’m going to kidnap your baby”. Similar instances were reported at different times from cities in South Carolina, Minnesota, and Arizona.

References in Popular Culture

The prevalence of camfecting has inevitably led to popular culture media referencing this phenomenon. Perhaps one of the most prominent of these is the “Shut Up and Dance” episode of Black Mirror, Season 3. [SPOILER ALERT] In this episode, the main protagonist becomes victim to camfecting while he is masturbating to pornography, where the hacker uses footages captured in order to blackmail him into doing a variety of activities, such as robbing a bank and even engaging in a fight to the death with a stranger. At the end of the episode, the show raises a moral dilemma by revealing that the protagonist was actually viewing child pornography, making viewers ask the ethicality of humiliating someone via grey-hat, borderline black-hat hacking.

Scene from "Shut Up and Dance", Black Mirror

Another widely watched TV show that covers camfecting is Mr. Robot. In episode 3, season 1 of the show, titles “eps1.2_d3bug.mkv”, one of the main character’s boyfriend has his webcam hacked into, where the hacker records him and tells him that he has photos of his mistress. The hacker uses this as leverage, blackmailing the character into spreading malware into a company’s computer system. Apart from entertainment, some of the most influential people of this century, such as Mark Zuckerburg and FBI Director James Comey, have admitted to covering their webcams when they are not in use and are encouraging others to do the same.

Privacy Ethical Issues

Activities of computer users are consistently monitored on the Internet by third parties, including Internet service providers, advertising companies, and security agencies. The realm of what activities can be seen through the Internet is not limited to the digital space, however, as there are devices like webcams that can perceive physical activities, where the Internet acts as an enabler. For hackers, the webcam is the perfect weapon with which non-consensual spying can be done, for reasons that are most commonly malicious. Hacking into a webcam in order to snap pictures from it, or even stream it live without the consent of the owner, has shown to be terrifyingly easy. With the help of plug-ins, such as Meterpreter (a dynamically extensible payload that uses in-memory DLL injection stagers) and access to Wi-Fi, a hacker could easily take over a webcam without much programming knowledge. Although most computers now have protective mechanisms that hinder this kind of intrusion, it is still very possible to remotely hack into a webcam. Even Apple laptops, which are notorious for being difficult to hack into, have been shown to be vulnerable to a webcam attack by researchers at John’s Hopkin’s, who demonstrated that it is possible to covertly capture images through iSight cameras on MacBooks and iMacs released prior to 2008. As of now, it seems that the only measure that is 100% foolproof is covering the camera itself. It is also widely believed that the National Securities Agency is able to and has turned on webcams as well as built-in microphones without triggering the indicator light.

Bibliography

• “'Horrified' Girl Spied on in the Bath by Webcam Hackers.” BBC News, BBC, 20 June 2013, www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-22986017/horrified-girl-spied-on-in-the-bath-by-webcam-hackers.
• “About the Metasploit Meterpreter.” Offensive Security, www.offensive-security.com/metasploit-unleashed/about-meterpreter/.
• “Camfecting.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camfecting.
• "eps1.2_d3bug.mkv." Mr. Robot, season 1, episode 2, July 8, 2015. Amazon Prime Video.
• “How Hackers Can Watch You Via Webcam | ODS Cybersecurity Services.” ODS - Cybersecurity, 5 May 2017, opendatasecurity.io/hackers-can-watch-you-via-your-webcam/. Saltzman, Marc. www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/saltzman/2018/03/01/has-someone-hacked-your-webcam-heres-how-stop-cyber-snoopers/377676002/. Sparkes, Matthew.
• “Is Your Webcam Allowing Hackers to Peer into Your Home?” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 20 Nov. 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11242650/Is-your-webcam-allowing-hackers-to-peer-into-your-home.html. Wang, Amy B.
• “'I'm in Your Baby's Room': A Hacker Took over a Baby Monitor and Broadcast Threats, Parents Say.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Dec. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/20/nest-cam-baby-monitor-hacked-kidnap-threat-came-device-parents-say/.
• "Shut Up and Dance." Black Mirror, season 3, episode 3, October 21, 2016. Netflix.
• “What Is a Webcam?” Computer Hope, 3 Aug. 2018, www.computerhope.com/jargon/w/webcam.htm.
• Zetter, Kim. “How to Keep the NSA From Spying Through Your Webcam.” Wired, Conde Nast, 3 June 2017, www.wired.com/2014/03/webcams-mics/.