Last week,  twenty year old Jared Abrahams was convicted of hacking the computers of at least twelve women and attempting to blackmail them.    He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.  Among the women victimized by Abrahams was Cassidy Wolf, Miss Teen USA.  Abrahams hacked into the webcams of his victims’ computers to take nude photos of the young women, many of whom were caught by the webcams of their computers as they undressed in their bedrooms.  He then contacted the young women and threatened to post the photos on social media unless they sent him additional pictures or posed for him on Skype.

TIPS

It is not difficult to hack into the webcam of a computer from afar.  The same types of tricks used to get people to unwittingly download keystroke logging malware that enables the hacker to gather all of the personal information from your computer to be used to make you a victim of identity theft can be used to get you to download the malware that enables the hacker to control your webcam.  Never click on links in emails or download attachments unless you are absolutely positive they are legitimate.  They may be riddled with malware.  Also, install and maintain anti-malware and anti-virus software on your computer and other electronic devices.  For external webcams that are not a built-in component of your computer, a red light will signal that the camera is operating.  Be aware of this.  It is a good idea to merely disconnect the external webcam when you are not using it or merely take a post-it and cover the webcam’s lens whenever you are not using it.  For built in webcams, they too will generally have a blue light to indicate that it is operating, however, again, it is a good idea to merely cover the lens when you are not using it.  Finally, you may wish to keep computers with webcams out of your bedroom.