Can hackers view your webcam without the light turning on?

[m0l0ko]

I keep my webcam covered with blu-tac because I'm a paranoid bastard. I've never seen the light on my webcam go on by itself though. When a hacker hijacks a webcam, will the light always go on, or are there ways to bypass that?

[puddi]

only in movies

[noob]

You can disable it in Device Manager and enable it when you need for

[rasenove]

If someone wants to do that, he/she would have to replace the webcam driver with his/her won coded  driver .

[silenthunder]

If someone wants to do that, he/she would have to replace the webcam driver with his/her won coded  driver .

..that is based on the original camera's driver code

[EMOKDOOM]

Yeah, the states did it to Iran ;]

[Kulverstukas]

I use a laptop and my webcam does not have a light indicator. I keep the webcam covered as well

Yeah, the states did it to Iran ;]

What do you mean?

[silenthunder]

Yeah, the states did it to Iran ;]

Iran has compute- uhh, yeah, Iran has computers n stuff and we totally did that to them. XD

[hanorotu]

With some skiddy tools like a certain keylogger, it does take pictures every so often and send them, whether or not the light comes on is open to debate. On my eyetoy usb webcam, the light came on when the pictures were being taken. But it required special configuration, nothing worked "out of the box".

[EMOKDOOM]

Just realized i don't even have the drivers installed for my webcam, which host my mic. Guess i've been talking to myself in CS:GO.

[lucid]

Lol, I'd be willing to bet that at least half the people here tape their webcam.

  < this guy does

[Stackprotector]

I doubt a hacker would love to look trough my cam.

[Snayler]

Lol, I'd be willing to bet that at least half the people here tape their webcam.

  < this guy does

Yeah, count me in 


@OP: Yeah, I guess it's possible. Some cams you can do that by tweaking the registry, others may need some driver tweaking or firmware patch.

[silenthunder]

I don't because of the lack of cosmetic appeal :/ My mom's all-in-one desktop had a built in webcam that kept turning on with the light so we taped it, I just secluded myself within the network.

[techb]

In linux I think there is a way to disable le light in /sys/class somewhere. As for windows, usually when the webcam is powered on the light will show. For them to turn it off, it will have to be a driver of some kind. I doubt the built-in webcam is USB, but this link might shed a bit-o-light. If it is built in though, I am thinking it might be something like I2C protocol or something.