Excerpts from an
unsettling story at GQ:
Amy, a 20-year-old brunette at the University of California at Irvine, was on her laptop when she got an IM from a random guy nicknamed mistahxxxrightme, asking her for webcam sex. Out of the blue, like that. Amy told the guy off, but he IM'd again, saying he knew all about her, and to prove it he started describing her dorm room, the color of her walls, the pattern on her sheets, the pictures on her walls. "You have a pink vibrator," he said. It was like Amy'd slipped into a stalker movie. Then he sent her an image file. Amy watched in horror as the picture materialized on the screen: a shot of her in that very room, naked on the bed, having webcam sex with James...
Amy decided to call the cops herself. But the instant she phoned the dispatcher, a message chimed on her screen. It was from the hacker. "I know you just called the police," he wrote. She panicked. How could he possibly know?..
The campus police were in no position to handle a case like this. Whoever devised the malware—a sophisticated program capable of dodging antivirus software—clearly had a leg up on university cops. The task of hunting him down fell to agents Tanith Rogers and Jeff Kirkpatrick of the FBI's cyber program in Los Angeles...
Hackers had been accessing cameras here and there for a while. But Mijangos started thinking big: He decided to weaponize them on an unprecedented scale... As soon as she opened the file, Mijangos was in—he had access to her every file, every photo, and could even keep a log of every keystroke, which meant every password. But that wasn't all. Mijangos hit a few buttons, then watched in awe as his screen filled with an image taken by her webcam...
He says it didn't take long for word to get out that he was the go-to guy for anyone looking to spy on a girlfriend or wife. For $150, he'd infect the target's computer, then send his clients links so they could snoop themselves. Mijangos knew a few of his clients were "just perverts" spying on some unsuspecting stranger, but their money was just as good...
You can read
the rest of the story at GQ. BTW, your webcam light is off? Good. Now read this:
It's a good thing the FBI discovered the scam when they did, too. Mijangos told me that he'd figured out how to turn off a camera's LED, cloaking himself completely.
Consider covering the lens with a Post-It note...
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