Shoutout to the guy who told me to tape my webcam for real

I work remote for a company in Austin and my laptop camera light kept flickering green even when I wasn't in a meeting. Drove me nuts for like three months. Finally a buddy in IT said just cover it with a sticky note when you're not using it. I thought it was paranoid until I ran a quick scan and found a keylogger from a fake Zoom installer I clicked back in February. Now I keep a piece of black electrical tape over the lens at all times. Has anyone else caught something weird just from covering their camera?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenixw115d ago

Doesn't covering your camera really just make you feel like you're hiding from something, @spencer_coleman? I get the peace of mind thing, but honestly, if someone's got that kind of access to your machine, tape isn't stopping them from grabbing your mic or your files.

spencer_coleman5d agoTop Commenter

Three months? Bro you basically ran a free OnlyFans for hackers.

patricia_gonzalez5d ago

Got a friend who used to sell used laptops and he said the amount of people who never covered their cameras was wild. He'd do data recovery for folks and half the time he'd find random screenshots from someone's webcam saved in some weird folder, probably from some malware they picked up. I've got a little plastic slider thing on my new laptop now but I still put a piece of tape over it just for the peace of mind. Better safe than sorry especially when you see how easy it is for someone to turn that thing on without you knowing.