Peeping Toms Use Webcams to Take Nude Photos of Women

Sophos, an anti-virus and anti-spyware company has posted an alert on their website about the increase in cyber-voyeurism, citing a four-year jail sentence for a 47-year-old man from the island of Cyprus convicted of hacking into a teenage girl's webcam in order to take pictures of her in her bedroom. Additionally, Florida man was arrested for allegedly installing software on a woman's laptop computer that remotely controlled the webcam to take pictures without her knowledge.

"Most spyware is designed to steal your identity, your passwords, your banking information - but it is just as easy to program a Trojan horse to take over your webcam," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said in a written statement on their website. "This case [in Cyprus] highlights that as well as malware being used for financial gain, it can also be used by voyeurs. Everyone needs to treat computer security as paramount importance to ensure they do not fall victim to an Internet blackmailer or peeping tom."

According to the Sophos alert, the man in Crprus infected the teenager's with a spyware trojan horse that he sent to her through e-mail. He later threatened to e-mail pictures of the girl to e-mail addresses found on her computer unless she agreed to pose nude in front of the webcam. That's when the girl called the police.

In another case, according to an article in the FloridaGainesville-Sun, more than 20,000 photos were taken of a woman in various states of undress and uploaded to a remote server. The Florida woman took her computer to the man for repair after her computer began running slow. After the repair, she began to notice that the little red light beside her webcam came on whenever she got close to the laptop and her battery did not last as long as it did before the repair. In most cases, the red light signals that the webcam is in use. She often kept the laptop in her bedroom.

Later, the woman took the computer to a trusted friend that discovered the installed monitoring software. Police identified the software as the freeware programs Log Me in and Webcam Spy Hacker.

Police said the Florida man admitted to installing the programs on the woman's computer and viewing photographs of the woman and controlling her computer remotely over the Internet. Police suspect that the man may have installed the spying software on other women's computers. He has been charged with modifying computer data and disrupting or denying computer system services under Florida law.

Getsafeonline.org offers Internet safety and security tips for children and adults.