Forget About Big Brother; Is Spycam Watching You At Home Or At Work

Now here’s a different twist when it comes to viruses, it’s just possible that your computer could have turned the tables on you, and is in fact, actually watching you! Many people now have a webcam and a microphone on their computer with a broadband connection to the Internet. Most will use these types of setups as a very cheap and effective way to chat with their friends and family all around the world. Likewise, many businesses also use this method as a very cost effective way of “video conferencing”.

Here’s the latest catch however, a hacker could indeed be watching you and recording your surroundings and everything you do. So perhaps if the computer is located in your bedroom, you may just need to rethink your privacy requirements.

Some computer security experts have recently warned that a succession of Windows viruses that have been released on the internet are able to take control of the audio and video accessories that are attached to many computers and then turn them into a zombie that spies directly on people at home or work.

Known as a worm type of virus and dubbed as the W32/Rbot-GR, it is said to be the equivalent of a peeping tom peering through your curtains or so said Graham Cluley, at Sophos, a British-based antivirus company.

How do we protect ourselves from these types of viruses?

These types of worm viruses can be fairly easily neutralised by most of the good quality anti-virus software packages that are available. The trick is to make sure to update the software regularly and download the “signature” files very frequently. Many anti-virus companies have a very handy feature that lets you automatically download and install the latest anti-virus updates every time you logon to the Internet. Some of the more sophisticated systems, often found on business networks, will actively “push” virus inoculations down automatically, whenever a new virus is registered, to protect important computers and networks.

Either way, given that viruses are now being released into the wild on an hourly basis, whatever method you choose, make sure you adequately protect your system by not forgetting to update it.

Furthermore, if all this is starting to make you decidedly uneasy and just a bit paranoid, remember - if you are not using your webcam, you can always simply unplug it.

This is a pretty nasty kind of invasion of privacy?

True enough, but as some commentators have noted, while spying on people in the privacy of their own homes probably falls into the “nasty-prank” category, when it occurs in the workplace, these kinds of worms bring a whole new set of concerns for owners and stakeholders, not the least that of industrial espionage or at the very least a serious loss of competitive advantage.

Some security experts are saying that some hackers who once demonstrated their skills and expertise by developing viruses who were often snapped by computer security firms as experts are now just as likely to be recruited by criminals and fraudsters.

Seems like it is getting tougher and tougher to stay safe on the Internet?

One recent security report out of America has suggested that an unprotected computer loaded with a Windows Operating system "fresh out of the box", on average will remain a "virus virgin" for about 19 minutes only, immediately after being connected to the internet.

The very rapid world wide uptake and use of broadband Internet connections, which are known as “always-on” type connections, (similar to mobile phone type connections if you like), is very significantly increasing the risk of viruses that infect victims' computers and turn them into "zombies".

These so called zombie computers which are then remotely controlled, almost certainly without the knowledge of their owners are most often used to churn out millions, of spam emails, many of which carry a virus payload. By many estimates, spam is now choking the Internet by taking up at least 60 per cent of all email traffic, running into billions of messages a day.

What is the government doing about this – surely it can’t be legal?

In many countries, the penalties for spammers and other illegal users of computer systems are quite high. Legislation now provides penalties as high as $1 million a day. Consequently, commercial and illicit spammers are increasingly turning to zombies to cloak their identity, so that they may remain anonymous and at arms reach from the law, while they continue to spew out their billions of unwanted messages.

Hot on the heels of ongoing phishing probes, yet another recent warning has been issued to alert Internet users about email-distributed worms that load onto their hard drives and are often used in conjunction with keystroke recorders with the explicit aim of extracting sensitive information such as financial and bank account information and passwords.

And hot off the press news reports, a flaw in the very popular Microsoft Word 2000, and possibly Word 2002 as well, could be used by hackers to crash a victim’s computer or even run other code on the compromised machine. Hackers send specially crafted documents as attachments, or entice users to a malicious website where bad Word docs lie in wait. One security firm rates the bug as "Highly Critical." Thus far, a patch for the problem is not yet available from Microsoft.

Arthur Hissey
Computer Research & Technology
www.crt.net.au