Fängelse för man som lurade kvinna att ta med hackad webbkamera in i duschen

21-year-old Trevor Harwell, a "friendly" computer repairman from Fullerton, California, has been jailed today* after he installed spyware onto victims’ laptops, and displayed a bogus error message to increase the chances of capturing nude pictures and movies of his victims.

The error message read:

"You should fix your internal sensor soon. If unsure what to do, try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor."

He successfully tricked a number of young women into taking their laptops into their bathroom while taking a steamy shower. Thousands of secretly taken still images, videos and cellphone videos were found on Harwell’s computer.

"For a long time perverts and cyberstalkers have been getting kicks out of secretly snooping on female victims via webcams, and in past cases this has escalated to hackers blackmailing victims under the threat of distributing compromising photos," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consulatant at Sophos. "Most worryingly in this case, there was of course nothing to prevent a snooped-upon victim being a child."

"It’s particularly important for younger more vulnerable members of our community, to be taught how to behave safely online to avoid being exploited," concluded Cluley.

To find out more about how to protect children from online threats visit www.getsafeonline.org

More information about the conviction can be read on Sophos’s Naked Security site at: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/07/25/jail-hacked-webcams-shower/

Graham Cluley is available for comment at +44 (0)1235 544114 or +44(0)7990552181

Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gcluley

*Harwell was sentenced to one year in the Anaheim City Jail, five years of formal probation, and has been ordered to complete a Sex Offender Treatment programme.

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