FBI Director Comey: Cover Your Webcam To Protect Yourself From Hackers…Or The FBI
During a sit down with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, FBI Director James Comey was asked if he still covers his webcam.
“Heck yeah. Heck yeah,” he responded to the interviewer.
This comes after Comey publicly said he covers his laptop’s camera after seeing Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg doing it, as reported by The Independent.
“I saw something in the news, so I copied it,” Mr Comey told an audience earlier this year. “I put a piece of tape — I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop — I put a piece of tape over the camera. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera.”
The FBI itself is reported to have used technology that can hack into webcams and allow it to spy on targets. And away from law enforcement, hackers have repeatedly broken into webcams and used them as ways of spying on and then extracting money from people.
So if the FBI is worried about hackers, and that very organization is known to hack itself, it’s no wonder that its own director considers it a smart idea for both he, and the general populace. In fact, he puts it on par with common sense measures, such as locking your doors at night.
“I hope people lock their cars…lock your doors at night. I have an alarm system. If you have an alarm system, you should use it. I use mine,” said Comey. “It’s not crazy that the FBI Director cares about personal security as well, and so I think people aught to take responsibility for their own safety and security. And there are some sensible things you aught to be doing, and that’s one of them.”
“You go into any government office we all have our little camera things that sit on top of the screen- they all have a little lid that closes down on them. You do that so that people who don’t have authority don’t look at you. I think that’s a good thing,” finished Comey.
