A Mark Zuckerberg Facebook photo celebrating a milestone turned into an important conversation about Internet security and privacy.
On Wednesday, the Facebook CEO posted a photo to commemorate 500 million users on Instagram. In the photo, Zuckerberg is holding a cutout of an Instagram post border while at his desk.
But everyone is paying attention to the laptop next to Zuckerberg in the photo, which appears to have a piece of tape covering the microphone and webcam.
While Zuckerberg might seem a little paranoid by covering his webcam and microphone, it is actually a popular practice for users to protect their privacy from hackers.
In 2014, Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA has a special plug-in called GUMFISH to hijack webcams and another one called CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE to hijack microphones. When they do that, they can record private conversations.
And it’s not just the NSA that has those capabilities. Cybercriminals and other trolls can hijack a webcam.
The best way to prevent your webcam from being hijacked is to unplug it or to use a piece of tape — just like Mark Zuckerberg.
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