Nasty Safari bugs let hackers take over your Mac and iPhone’s mic and camera

You know how some people have a sticker over their MacBook’s webcam? Well, those people might be onto something. 

Wired reports that Apple recently patched a nasty Safari bug, which allowed hackers to take over the victim’s webcam and microphone and spy on them. 

The bugs (there were several of them) were found by security researcher Ryan Pickren. He says that, by combining several of the bugs together, an attacker was able to create a web link which would trick Safari into handing over control to the computer’s webcam and microphone. 

Wired claims that an attacker perusing these bugs would be able to “quietly” launch the victim’s webcam and microphone and use them to record video and audio as well as take photos. Worse, the bugs worked on iPhones, iPads, and Macs as well. 

Pickren says some of these bugs are quite old, dating from “years ago,” and that they probably weren’t as dangerous then as they are now. 

Fortunately, Pickren had disclosed the bugs to Apple (and received a $75,000 bounty for doing so), which fixed them in its January and March updates. This means that your Apple device is safe if you’ve updated its software to the latest versions. 

Still, it’s discomforting to learn that losing control of your MacBook’s web camera and microphone was as easy as clicking on a single malicious link.