Covertly activate a webcam without turning on its LED?
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Okay, with these kind of worrying news I can't help, but wonder...
Is it possible to covertly activate a webcam without turning on the webcam LED on a laptop with a linux OS i.e. debian or arch? How difficult would this be to pull off on a linux PC? What would a remote attacker need to do to achieve this in linux? Does he have to replace the webcam kernel driver modules? Can it be done from sysfs? The news post suggests that the webcam's microcontroller was reprogrammed - can that be done on a linux pc, possibly from userspace? I take it this would differ for each webcam vendor.
The ability to do this will have nothing to do with the OS running on the system. It's down to how the cameras hardware interfaces are exposed to the system as a whole. You'd need to have a sutiable level of privilege on the host OS, but again exploiting that wouldn't relate to the end goal you have in mind once those rights are obtained.
Last edited by acid_kewpie; 12-20-2013 at 03:52 AM.
acid_kewpie: Can it be done by modifying the linux webcam driver (the UVC kernel module) or does the webcam's microcontroller have to be reprogrammed? I mean can the led be controlled from a driver or not?
aus9: Yeah, I used a thick black insulation tape on my old laptop. Still, there are external USB webcams...
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