WARNING: FBI Director Tells Americans To Do This ONE Thing on ALL Laptops

webcam warning

Before writing this article, I took a quick minute to do one weird thing to my laptop – I covered my webcam with tape. FBI Director James Comey does it and he says you should, too, because you never know who might be watching.

According to The Hill:

The head of the FBI on Wednesday defended putting a piece of tape over his personal laptop’s webcam, claiming the security step was a common sense one that most should take.

“There’s some sensible things you should be doing, and that’s one of them,” Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen,” he added. “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.”

Comey was pilloried online earlier this year, after he revealed that he puts a piece of tap over his laptop camera to keep away prying eyes. The precaution is a common one among security advocates, given the relative ease of hacking laptop cameras.

Comey knows what he’s talking about – the FBI has been tapping into people’s webcams for years. There’s also the risk that hackers could infiltrate your system, take photos of you in compromising positions, and attempt to blackmail you.

Luckily, there’s a low-tech fix for this high-tech privacy invasion. Just grab a piece of tape or post-it and cover up your computer’s camera. Voila, done!

And if you think only paranoid people would protect themselves this way, check this out:

What other strategies do you use to protect your online security? Share your tech tips below!

Alexa is a freelance writer and communications consultant, with experience working on the Hill, at the RNC, and for... More about Alexa

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