Vratislav Holub Apple's MacBooks are equipped with their own FaceTime HD webcam, which in recent years has faced considerable criticism for its poor quality. After all, there is nothing to be surprised about. Most laptops still offer 720p resolution, which is clearly insufficient by today's standards. The only exceptions are the 24″ iMac (2021) and the 14″/16″ MacBook Pro (2021), for which Apple has finally come with a Full HD camera (1080p). However, we will not talk about quality now and instead focus on safety.
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Adam Kos It's no secret that Apple likes and often presents itself as a company that cares about the privacy and security of users of their products. That is why Apple relies on hardware and software security, and in the systems themselves we can find a number of interesting functions that certainly deserve attention. So whether it is a secure one Private transfer (Private Relay), service Find, biometric authentication Face/Touch ID, possibility of registration and login through Sign in with Apple, hiding the email address and the like. But the question is, how is the webcam just mentioned in terms of security?
Can the FaceTime HD webcam be abused?
Of course, Apple emphasizes the level of security even in the case of its own FaceTime HD camera. In this regard, it presents itself with two properties - every time it is switched on, the green LEDs next to the lens itself light up, while a green dot also appears in the upper menu bar, namely next to the control center icon (an orange dot means that the system is currently using a microphone ). But can these elements be trusted at all? So the question remains, whether it is not possible to abuse the webcam and use it even without the knowledge of the user himself, for example when infecting a Mac.
Fortunately, according to the available information, we can be without any worries. All MacBooks manufactured since 2008 solve this problem at the hardware level, which makes it impossible to break the security through software (for example, malware). In this case, the diode is on the same circuit as the camera itself. As a result, one cannot be used without the other - as soon as the camera is turned on, for example, the familiar green light must also light up. The system also immediately learns about the activated camera and therefore projects the aforementioned green dot into the upper menu bar.
Macbook Pro (2021)
We don't have to be afraid of the camera
So it can be said unequivocally that the security of Apple's FaceTime HD camera is not taken lightly. In addition to the aforementioned single-circuit connection, apple products also rely on a number of other security features that aim to prevent similar cases of abuse.
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Pavel Jelic 