Is someone spying on you through your webcam?

[learninmypc]

A Russia-based website is peering into homes around the world and many are here in the U.S. Anyone can log on to see the live feeds from baby monitors or security systems, all with a map straight to your front door, reports CBS News Correspondent Charlie D'Agata.

They have eyes on, everywhere. Thousands of so-called private webcams are just a couple of clicks away from anyone with an internet connection.
Read more My question is my Vista has a built in one & my W7 has the Microsoft Life cam. How do I know if their passwords are the defaut or not?

 

[DelJo63]

Webcams typically use ports 8080 & 8090, both tcp & udp.

You can secure the webcam by restricting access to only ip addresses on your local lan
(ie source addresses w.x.y.2-254).

The downside is that closes access for Skype usage too.

With some reading, it is possible to use something like dyndns free to control external access. The concept is

• all correspondents map their systems into a dyndns unique name
• then you change the firewall to allow external access via known dyndns names

Don't forget that the router must port forward all 8080 & 8090 traffic to your PC,
and will immediately shutdown all other users on your router from using Skype.

Sigh: - - there's just no free lunch.

 

[learninmypc]

Ok thanks. I'll try to google a bit more to understand better what you're saying. I've heard you or others talk about port forwarding but its greek to me. Thank thou.

 

[SNGX1275]

What you heard about on the news is not the same as your webcam on your laptop or connected via usb to your PC. The ones on the news are cameras that are IP web cams and are DESIGNED to be viewed easily from anywhere. For any number of reasons these were not set up with a username and password, therefore they are open to anyone with the address.

For this to happen to your computer there would have to be an exploit in your OS or a specific program that is running all the time - so while possible - it is completely different to the news story.

 

[learninmypc]

What you heard about on the news is not the same as your webcam on your laptop or connected via usb to your PC. The ones on the news are cameras that are IP web cams and are DESIGNED to be viewed easily from anywhere. For any number of reasons these were not set up with a username and password, therefore they are open to anyone with the address.

For this to happen to your computer there would have to be an exploit in your OS or a specific program that is running all the time - so while possible - it is completely different to the news story.

Thank you