{"id":25378,"date":"2017-06-14T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grapevinemsp.com\/chrome-discovery-gives-more-reason-to-cover-your-laptop-camera\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T15:00:00","slug":"chrome-discovery-gives-more-reason-to-cover-your-laptop-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grapevinemsp.com\/chrome-discovery-gives-more-reason-to-cover-your-laptop-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"Chrome Discovery Gives More Reason To Cover Your Laptop Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6641\" src=\"https:\/\/sitesdev.net\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/New.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>An AOL developer named Ran Bar-Zik has unearthed a disturbing flaw in Chrome that may make you rethink using Google\u2019s web browser.<\/p>\n<p>The issue revolves around a website\u2019s ability to activate your camera and audio recorder. Google uses an API which legitimate developers call, that displays a distinctive red dot on the browser tab when the page in question activates your laptop\u2019s camera and recording equipment (like it does when you activate a video call via a Google Hangout page, for example).<\/p>\n<p>The problem is that this API is not required to be used, and an enterprising hacker can use malicious JavaScript to activate your camera without notifying you, and without any visible indication that the camera is on.<\/p>\n<p>From a practical standpoint, that means that any webmaster using the code could spy on you, and you\u2019d be none the wiser. Worse, although Google has been informed of this flaw, they\u2019ve decided that it\u2019s not a critical security issue, so there are no immediate plans to issue a patch to correct it.<\/p>\n<p>As a user, you don\u2019t really have many good options here, except to disable your equipment or cover the camera when you\u2019re not actively using it.<\/p>\n<p>Neither of these are perfect options. If a hacker can remote-activate the camera, then they can also enable it, even if you\u2019ve disabled it electronically or covered your camera lens. These measures also don\u2019t prevent a hacker from listening in on you and everyone in the immediate vicinity of your laptop.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of dangers are becoming increasingly common. Just last year, Samsung got into hot water over the fact that its Smart TV\u2019s record everything said in their vicinity, and that data is saved on a Samsung server where it could potentially be captured by hackers, and Amazon\u2019s Echo has made the news for similar reasons.<\/p>\n<p>There are no easy answers or fixes here, so users beware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An AOL developer named Ran Bar-Zik has unearthed a disturbing flaw in Chrome that may make you rethink using Google\u2019s web browser. The issue revolves around a website\u2019s ability to activate your camera and audio recorder. Google uses an API which legitimate developers call, that displays a distinctive red dot on the browser tab when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[34,30],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.2 (Yoast SEO v22.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chrome Discovery Gives More Reason To Cover Your Laptop Camera<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/grapevinemsp.com\/chrome-discovery-gives-more-reason-to-cover-your-laptop-camera\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chrome Discovery Gives More Reason To Cover Your Laptop Camera\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An AOL developer named Ran Bar-Zik has unearthed a disturbing flaw in Chrome that may make you rethink using Google\u2019s web browser. The issue revolves around a website\u2019s ability to activate your camera and audio recorder. 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