Webcam Hacking – How to prevent webcam from hacking into your privacy?

Imagine a day when you open your inbox and there’s this one mail containing obscene pics of you flashing on the screen. Right below is a message asking you to pay a hefty ransom to prevent your pics from getting shared with all your accounts.

The thought itself is enough to give you goose bumps right!

Well, this is no melodramatic scene from some thriller movie. This is exactly what can happen with you and thousands of others who fail to protect their webcam and become easy victims of sextortion.

The cyber threat landscape is evolving every day and so are the ways of conducting these attacks. Sextortion is just another way of extortion attempt via email, where the sender of email may threaten to share obscene pics or videos of victim collected with the help of an unprotected camera with contacts or on social media, if they fail to pay the ransom.

As scary as it may sound, the fact is that the number of sextortion cases are on a constant rise, as hackers are using shame as a strong weapon to target unsuspecting victims. Such cyber incidences can not only leave the victim financially broke but also mentally traumatized for life.

Everyone has a right to privacy. Whatever you do in your private life should remain behind the walls and not become a public affair for people to comment, judge and enjoy!

So, what helps hackers in conducting sextortions?

The answer… Any PC that lacks protection for its webcam, allowing cyber criminals to easily hack it to spy into your personal life and collect pics or videos that can be used to blackmail you. Remember that you are not the only ones who can sneak peek through those cameras; hackers can do that as well with any webcam that lacks protection.

The next generation suite of Quick Heal Total Security comes inclusive of Webcam Protection feature which ensures that your private life is kept… private. It shields your webcam against privacy intrusion attempts by:

Providing control on apps – You can easily manage and control apps, by allowing only trusted apps to access your webcam. Additionally, you can allow/deny access by apps on call-by-call basis. Configuring the application in white list/black list will permanently allow/deny the access to particular app.

Preventing extortion attempts – Hackers can try to blackmail or extort you by using your obscene pics and videos. Our webcam protection feature blocks hackers from making any such attempt right in the first place.

Blocking spying agents – There are numerous incidences where hackers have breached privacy by gaining unauthorized access to webcam in order to blackmail people.

For Eg. The webcam hacking incidence of Bengaluru, where a techie’s webcam was hacked to record his private moments and the victim received an email asking him to transfer $2,200 through bitcoins, to prevent his videos from getting uploaded and shared online.

The webcam protection feature offered by Quick Heal Total Security blocks all such spying agents and malicious apps from accessing your webcam.

While the webcam protection feature provides you with all necessary protection you need to safeguard your privacy, it is a good practice to be cautious at your end also. Few things you should necessarily follow include:

• Be on alert mode while allowing access to any website or video call
• DO NOT allow access to any unknown app

Most importantly, be absolutely wary of your privacy when the webcam is on!