Sidor said his app worked so well it was “scary”: Sidor demonstrated how the app works in a video, using his Nexus 5 smartphone. This is the latest instance of an Android application that can hijack a smartphone or tablet’s camera for the same devious purpose.Īccording to Sidor, the Android operating system won’t allow the camera to record without running a preview – which is how Sidor discovered that he could make the preview so small that it is effectively invisible to the naked eye. Spyware of this sort has been around for a long time for Windows – the malware called Blackshades for example, which hackers have used to secretly record victims with their computer’s webcam. Now that most smartphones come with a camera (or two), and camera use is popular with apps like Instagram that encourage photo sharing, hackers are finding sneaky ways to exploit them. University student Szymon Sidor claimed in a blog post and a video that his Android app works by using a tiny preview screen – just 1 pixel x 1 pixel – to keep the camera running in the background.
Yes, smartphone cameras can be used to spy on you – if you’re not careful.Ī researcher claims to have written an Android app that takes photos and videos using a smartphone camera, even while the screen is turned off – a pretty handy tool for a spy or a creepy stalker.
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