iMacs and MacBooks come with a built-in camera and microphone that might end up being a serious security risk if they fall into the wrong hands. Camera Guard Pro helps you take a proactive approach by automatically blocking all processes that try to use the devices.
The Apple-vetted operating system has not been left out by malware developers, even though the amount of malicious software created for the Mac is considerably lower when compared to other platforms.
Most recently, after infecting a Mac, the Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor malware installed a backdoor that granted full access to the machine to a third party, and that included the webcam device. Naturally, this raises serious concerns over one’s privacy.
By default, OS X comes with safety measures in place that automatically activate the camera LED whenever an app operates the webcam. Still, the camera chip can be reprogrammed to disable this function, which means that the user does not even know if or when they are recorded without their consent.
As far as the microphone is concerned, there isn’t any safety system in place at all, so conversations that you might want to keep private can be heard or even recorded without you knowing just as easily.
Many have resorted to covering tape or specially designed gadgets that can be attached to the screen in the camera area to deal with this issues. Nonetheless, Camera Guard Pro proposes a less intrusive solution: the app monitors all the services that want to use the devices and automatically withholds access.
Block access to the camera or microphone devices to protect your privacy
Camera Guard Pro is designed to be used on MacBooks or iMac computers that come with built-in video and audio recording devices. Via the associated status bar panel, you are provided with control buttons for each of the two devices separately and can view a log with all the recent events.
To keep you informed, Camera Guard Pro integrates with the Notification Center and displays alerts whenever it detects a status update, or the utility grants or blocks the access of an app to the respective devices. By default, the warnings remain on the screen until closed by the user.
Camera Guard Pro displays notification alerts whenever an application tries to access the camera or the microphone
Worth mentioning is that Camera Guard Pro does not update its behavior depending on your settings in real time: if an app accesses the camera before Camera Guard Pro launches, it will be able to continue using it even if the utility marks the webcam as protected.
To bypass any issues related to this, you can configure Camera Guard Pro to launch at login and enable the auto protection function by default via the Settings window.
Manually grant access to the applications that legitimately try to use the camera or the microphone
The Camera Guard Pro capabilities revolve around the Deep Detective function that can both recognize known threats and use heuristic algorithms to deal with unknown malware. In this respect, Camera Guard Pro acts as a firewall or antimalware solution.
In contrast with other firewall utilities, Camera Guard Pro focuses only on your Mac’s communication devices. Moreover, the alerts do not include the possibility of interacting with the app’s behavior in any way: you just receive alarms stating the current situation, and there is no option to make changes on the spot.
To be able to use the devices, you need to stop the webcam and microphone protection features from Camera Guard Pro’s status bar, launch the apps you want to use with your camera and microphone, make sure that they can reach the devices, and then enable Camera Guard Pro’s protection engine all over again.
The Camera Guard Pro status bar menu where you can quickly activate the camera and microphone protection functions
Unfortunately, this might leave you with small windows of time when you are unprotected from attacks, but if the Deep Detective is enabled, you will still receive notifications if somebody tries to get through.
Keep track of everyone who secretly uses your Mac’s microphone and webcam and protect your configuration with a passkey
To make sure that no one can tamper with the Camera Guard Pro protection system without your knowledge, the utility offers you the option to protect both its interface and the Preferences window with a four-character passkey.
The password will also be required if anyone tries to quit or uninstall the Camera Guard Pro app (the utility comes with a built-in uninstallation solution that completely removes all associated resource files from your system).
Nonetheless, during our tests, we have noticed that the Settings window remains unlocked indefinitely without user intervention, so make sure to close the panel manually when you complete the adjustments.
Camera Guard Pro allows you to protect your configuration by using an interface passkey
Camera Guard Pro’s customization options also include the possibility of changing the default location for the log file, toggling the visual and audio notifications, or setting the app to automatically dismiss the announcements after a user-defined period (1, 5, 10, 30, or 60 minutes).
The Good
The Camera Guard Pro app monitors both hardware devices and either blocks access or lets you know whenever any of them is employed, regardless of whether the access is legitimate or not.
The best part is that you get to control these things via the status bar, and you are not required to get covering tape or other gadgets.
On a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 6 GB RAM, Camera Guard Pro used up to 3% of the CPU power and 30 MB of RAM, so you can keep the utility running at all times without decreasing your system’s performance.
The Bad
Thus, you do not have the option to quickly grant access to an app that you genuinely want to use in combination with the camera or microphone.
Another downside is that Camera Guard Pro does not come with real-time protection capabilities: once an app starts using either device, it can continue doing so after activating the safeguard functions.
The Truth
Nonetheless, managing to still use the communication devices legitimately might need some maneuvering, so some improvements in that area would surely be quite welcome.
Softpedia Giveaway
In collaboration with ProtectStar Inc, Softpedia is giving away 20 Camera Guard Pro licenses.
To get one, all you have to do is post a comment below in the next 3 weeks and tell us what you like or don’t like about Camera Guard Pro, or what feature you would like to see implemented in future versions.
We will then pick the 20 best comments and send you an email with a Camera Guard Pro license code. Make sure to enter a valid email address to be considered for the giveaway. Please note that only comments left on this page will be eligible for the giveaway promotion.
