An Orange (News - Alert) County Mac technician is in some serious trouble for installing spyware on a few computers. Of course, the kind of spyware isn’t that of the phishing kind, but of the actual spying variety.
Macintosh specialist Trevor Harwell was found to have betrayed the trust of his female clients when he installed spyware on their machines to take candid photos of the owners. Tech site Computerworld reported on Thursday that police arrested Harwell after an Apple Genius (News - Alert) Bar technician stumbled onto his handiwork.
Harwell worked with Los Angeles-area home computer repair company Rezitech. Police reported that he allegedly installed the spy software “Camcapture” on clients' computers.
“While working on repair assignments, the 20-year-old technician secretly set up a complex system that could notify him whenever it was ready to snap a shot using the computer's webcam,” the story quoted Sergeant Andrew Goodrich, a spokesman with the Fullerton Police Department in California, as saying. Goodrich said the software would let Harwell's server know that the victim's machine was on. “The server would then notify his smartphone and then the images were recorded on his home computer,” he said.
“Thousands” of images were discovered on Harwell's computers and have been how dozens of victims were identified, all of them women in Los Angeles and Orange County.
The scam was discovered after a Fullerton resident took her computer in for servicing. The strange messages that looked like a Mac OS warning but were really part of the software are what led the client to taking it in the first place.
“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,” the “weird” message read. Goodrich said that the Genius Bar technician then found the Camcapture software on this victim's computer and said, “You need to call police.”
Meanwhile, PC Magazine said that Rezitech has taken “immediate and aggressive action” to cut off Harwell's access to all customer systems and data.
“Upon learning of the alleged actions of Mr. Harwell, Rezitech took immediate and aggressive action to ensure that Mr. Harwell's access to all customer systems and data was eliminated. Rezitech has fully cooperated and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement in an effort to assist them in their investigation of this matter,” it quoted Rezitech spokesman Travis Austin as saying.
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Michelle Amodio is a TMCnet contributor. She has helped promote companies and groups in all industries, from technology to banking to professional roller derby. She holds a bachelor's degree in Writing from Endicott College and currently works in marketing, journalism, and public relations as a freelancer.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
