If you suspect your computer has been hacked and someone is spying on you through your webcam, you can follow our advice to find out and protect your privacy by taking steps to avoid being taken back by the webcam.
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1- Detect excess activity in your network
Webcams can become an open door for cyber criminals to see everything that happens in front of your computer, seriously violating your privacy.
You think it’s easy to know when your webcam works, just because an LED lights up when it is running.
Sorry to tell you that if someone managed to take control of your webcam, they can also turn off that LED by easily hiding the evidence that the camera is working and spying on you.
There are some ways to know if they are spying on you from the webcam based on your computer’s behavior and to see if there is an excess of outgoing connections.
To do this, you need to use a program that allows you to monitor incoming and outgoing connections from your computer, to detect connections with high bandwidth consumption, which reveals if images are sent from the webcam to a server controlled by a cyber-criminal.
One of these connection monitoring programs for your computer can be NetWorx, for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
To detect this excess of network usage, restart your computer and start NetWorx only. When started, the program is minimized to the taskbar.
Click on the icon with the right mouse button and, in the Tools menu, choose the NetStat option.
In this mode, NetStat shows you the services that are using your network connection. Select the option Resolve IP address in Host Names and the program will tell you which connections are connected to your local network, and which ones are on the Internet.
If you find excess traffic on any of these connections, there may be a security breach on your webcam.
2- Antivirus up to date
Antivirus, antimalware or security suites are specialized in detecting this type of intrusion and blocking it, so having one of these security systems installed and updated on your computer will avoid more than one problem.
If in the previous step you detected excessive data traffic, the first thing you need to do is disconnect your computer from the network to avoid sending other data or the cybercriminal sends commands to your computer.
The next step will be to examine your computer with an updated antivirus or anti-malware program.
You can also restore your computer to a clean version of Windows 10 by accessing the Settings panel, clicking Update and Security and from there select the Restore option in the side panel.
Click the Start button on Restore this PC to reinstall the operating system.
This option allows you to keep your files intact by deleting only the configurations and programs. However, it is always advisable to back up data before performing this operation.
In the end, your Windows will be as if just installed and without the trace of the malware that allowed you to spy on your webcam.
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3- Check the security options of your webcam
If your webcam is external or a little-known manufacturer, it might include software that allows you to configure the operation.
These options may include some security options with which you can set a password to access your webcam.
Use these security options and make things a little more difficult for cyber criminals.
If your webcam does not have these security options but has integrated them into your computer, you can restrict access to them from the Configuration panel.
Access the Configuration panel from the Start menu and click on the Privacy section. Then, on the side panel, choose the Camera option and turn off the Allow button for applications that use the camera.
By doing so, the system will prevent third-party programs from using the webcam.
4- Disconnect your webcam and avoid being spied on
It may seem obvious, but the most effective and recommended method by computer security experts is to unplug the USB cable from the webcam every time you don’t use it. This avoids any possibility of access.
In the case of equipment with integrated webcams, such as laptops and All-in-one equipment, the easiest option is to cover the webcam with a cover.
With this simple method, even if someone managed to access your webcam, you would see only a black screen.
