I'm sure everyone has heard of the typical identity theft or a hacker gaining personal information through banks or a personal computer, but what about someone attacking you personally through your home computer? It happens.
An Orange County computer repair technician was arrested for suspicion of installing spyware on different laptops, allowing him to take videos and pictures of women, mostly, showering and undressing in the "comfort" of their own homes. Trevor Harwell, only 20 years old, installed software on his clients Mac laptops that took over their webcam. The software sent fake error messages to the clients stating that they needed to fix their internal sensor and in order to aid in doing so, they should put their computer near hot steam to clean the sensor.
Once he had access to the computers, and after the [not so bright] victims put their laptops in the bathroom with them as they showered, he would take photographs of the users. Harwell would use his cell phone to control a program, "Campcapture" to store the photos on a remote server and download them to his computer.
Scary, huh? It is reasons like this that I try to make people aware of the error messages and little things that pop up on your computer. Most users aren't aware of what is really going on when your computer is telling you to download something to save your computer from crashing or breaking. And most users aren't aware of what really happens if you do have a virus on your computer to compare to these viral messages. Your first reaction, when your 'reliable' computer is prompting you with an error message, is to do whatever you can to fix it, right? You don't want to lose all of your stored documents, videos, pictures, etc. Who does? But be aware. Do research before downloading a 'free' anti virus software. If you don't know how to do it yourself, take it to a professional. It's not a game and your identity, dignity, and privacy are no joke.
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