Technology has made espionage easier than ever. You don’t need to hack into someone’s system to do that. It is possible with an app to monitor cheating spouse or just by tricking a user to give you their personal data; the way Facebook is doing these days! Surprisingly, even our household items that we connect to the internet might be spying on us. Your phone could be recording your conversations and you are not even aware of it.
If the idea of using an app to monitor cheating spouse bothered you, wait till you find out what things at your home could be invading your privacy. Here are 6 of them that may be spying on you right now:
- Your smart TV
In 2012, ReVuln, a security research firm found a vulnerability in Samsung smart TV that could easily open a backdoor for hackers to access your files on the connected USB and control what you see by adjusting the TV settings. There is even a malware developed called ‘Weeping Angle’ that could record audio when the TV was off.
- Your Laptop
The FBI busted a number of hackers in 2014 who were using black shades software to activate laptop cameras and spy on the victim. This program infected half a million computers in the USA. Does that mean it’s not safe to use your laptop? Well, fortunately, there are ways you can hack-proof your laptop and ensure your privacy is not evaded.
- Your smartphone
It is not just your S.O. who may be spying on you with an app to monitor cheating spouse. Unrecognized apps installed on our phone may be spying on you too. Wait till you hear this, an investigation from ‘The Sun’ says that Android smartphones mistake our everyday conversation with OK Google voice control intuition. In case your phone thinks you have asked it to do a search for you, it will make a 10-minute recording and you might not even know it’s happening. You can find these recordings in your audio history.
- Health devices
FDA announced that cardiac devices from St. Jude Medical can be hacked. Although these claims were denied by St. Jude initially, but after FDA’s confirmation, they patched this vulnerability. So, be careful what information you give to your health devices and how you use them.
- Voice assistants
Google Home and Amazon Echo are a few of the voice assistants that are always listening to you. A good thing is that they don’t send the conversation of the user to the server for storage until you have called them to action. However, you have to be careful so it is better to mute these devices when you are not using them.
- Security cameras
Security cameras at homes watch out for intruders just like an app to monitor cheating spouse. As useful as they are, they can also be violated by attackers. Sophos, a security company, released a video showing a program that can easily guess the CCTV password in a few seconds and it can send that video stream to a hacker’s computer, giving him full control over the camera points. This happens when you don’t change the password to your CCTV time after time. Otherwise, you could become a victim of a cyber-attack by the hands of a security device.
Frankly speaking, there are countless objects we use every day that are connected to the web. Most of them are vulnerable to hackers. If we are not careful with what devices we use and what information we give to those devices, it’s easy to become a victim of a cyber-invasion.