A good way to test is to turn on your camera and find out exactly where these indicator lights are on your devices.Īdditionally, you could make use of a webcam cover. Here’s an example of what camera indicator lights look like on some Apple devices, but active camera indicators come in all kinds of colors and formats, so be sure to understand how your device works.
If you are not actively using your camera and these camera indicator lights are on, this could be a signal that you have software on your device that is actively recording you, and it could be some form of spyware. These are often a hardware controlled light of some kind that indicates the device is active. On many types of video camera devices, you get a visual indication that the video camera is recording.
However, there are some ways by which you might be able to detect spyware on your computer or phone that aren’t overly complicated to check for.
How to detect spyware on your computer and phoneĪs mentioned above, spyware, like any malware, can be elusive and hard to spot, especially for a layperson.
Once installed, it’s often difficult for a lay person to have 100% confidence that their device can be trusted again, but for many the hard part is first detecting that surveillance software is running on your device. With all the above examples, the bottom line is that there could be software running with a surveillance intent on your device.
You could leave your laptop unlocked and unattended in a public place, and someone could install spyware on your computer.You could visit a website that prompts you to access your camera or audio devices, even though the website doesn’t legitimately have that need.You could visit a website and be asked to download and install some software you weren’t there to get.You could visit a website with your web browser and a pop-up prompts you to install a browser extension or addon.Depending on what type of device, this could manifest in a variety of ways, but here are a few specific examples: It often needs to first be installed or initiated. Spyware, much like any other malware, doesn’t just appear on a device. This surveillance could include but is not limited to logging keystrokes, capturing what websites you are visiting, looking at your locally stored files/passwords, and capturing audio or video within proximity to the device. Spyware is a sub-category of malware that’s aimed at surveilling the behavior of human target(s) using a given device where the spyware is running. Spyware has been in the news recently with stories like the Apple security vulnerability that allowed devices to be infected without the owner knowing it, and a former editor of The New York Observer being charged with a felony for unlawfully spying on his spouse with spyware.