Researchers find way to activate iSight cameras without alerting users
Security researchers at Johns Hopkins University have demonstrated a unique new attack that can force the iSight cameras in legacy MacBook and iMac models to capture images without turning on the camera's accompanying LED.
Researchers Matthew Brocker and Stephen Checkoway outline the attack, which targets the firmware inside the iSight camera's controller chip, in a paper entitled "iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED." The paper was first reported by the Washington Post.
Apple designed the iSight camera system with a "hardware interlock" between the camera sensor and the indicator LED that was intended to make it electrically impossible for one to be activated without the other. According to the paper, the LED is connected directly to the standby pin on the camera sensor — when the camera comes out of standby mode, the LED automatically turns on.
