Hyderabad: Cyber crooks can hack your personal webcam, capture your private pictures and use them to blackmail you.
Some cases regarding this were reported to the cyber crime police by women who were exploited by hackers. Cyber crime officials say that all that a hacker needs to do is to get a malware activated in a person’s laptop or PC. The malware can be sent using any file including files in PDF or JPG formats. The police team detected cases in which hackers from other states were involved and arrested them.
In an incident that took place in the city, a girl student of a reputed institution was contacted by a person from UP who claimed that he had her nude photographs. He blackmailed her and extorted thousands from her. As a last resort she approached the cyber crime police and they started a probe.
“At first, she thought the photos were morphed. However, on verification, it was found that those were taken using her own laptop’s webcam by the hacker. He had remotely accessed the webcam by hacking into her laptop,” said an official.
Similarly, hackers have targeted girls living in hostels and captured moments when they change their dress and their private moments. Ethical hackers explained how easily a crook can hack the webcam using simple methods.
Zaki Qureshey, a renowned cyber security expert and CEO of E2 labs, an IT security firm based in city, said that the hacker would make the victim install a malware to access the webcam.
“Trojan viruses are generally used by hackers for this purpose. The malware can be encoded in a music, video, or picture files and will be sent to the victim. It can be sent through phishing mails and other usual ways. As soon as the victim clicks it the malware gets downloaded and the hacker can access the webcam. In social networking sites viruses are spread encoded in attractive photographs and videos,” he said.
