Yes, people can hear you through your computer if you have built-in microphones in it. Again, you can use headsets with your computer to let people hear your voice.
But in case if you don’t wanna be heard, people can still listen to you through bugging that built-in microphone or headset. You know, if this happens, you will be exposed to severe threats.
Read this article to know more!
How Can Someone Listen Through My Computer?
Listening to others’ conversations through the computer without their permission is against the law. Various ways are adapted by criminals spy on people and take their personal information to commit further crimes.
In most cases, for overhearing the conversations, the computer microphones are tapped. There are also some computer viruses that may turn your microphone on and let other people hack into it and spy on you.
Again there are people out there who can easily hack into your computer operating system through small bugs or break through the computer security and hear your conversations through your computer microphones and record your personal information. It may seem quite hard to you but trust me, they’re quite talented for this awful activity.
How Do You Know If Someone Is Listening Through Your Computer’s Microphone?
Currently, there is much software that lets you know if your computer’s microphone is being used. It generally shows a microphone sign on the right side of the taskbar. But as it is an application based the attacker may install some applications that may turn the screen notification off.
In this case, it will be hard for you to know if your microphone is on. For this, you can check the background running apps from the task manager and may find out which software is using your microphone and invading your privacy.
How to prevent this problem?
Listening to your conversations is a harsh way to invade your privacy. And you should be careful to prevent it. Preventing someone from listening to your conversations through hacking into your computer is not a big deal.
- For starters, you can just unplug the microphone from the CPU to stop them. You can surely plug it in again when you’ve to use it. This way they won’t be able to spy on your personal life through your computer.
- You can use different antivirus or Spyware to prevent your computer from being hacked or bugged. A little bug or virus in the system can be a great passway for hackers to hack into your computer microphone
- Again if you have a built-in microphone on your computer, you don’t have to worry. You can disable your microphone from the settings. Modern operating systems have made it even easier.
How To Disable Microphone Through Settings
To disable your microphone on Windows operating system, follow these step-by-step instructions:
- Open the Settings app.
- Select System from the menu.
- Click on Sound.
- Scroll down to the Input section.
- Click on Device Properties.
- Mark the checkbox next to Disable
If you are using macOS, the process is quite similar. That is,
- Open System Preferences.
- Select Sound.
- Click on the Input tab.
- Move the slider to the left.
Don’t forget to turn your microphone on when you need it again.
Verdict
The process of hearing other people’s conversation through their computers can be termed as hacking. Hacking is mostly used in an unethical way. That’s why you should be careful of it.
If you feel like you’re being watched through your computer you can get it checked by a technician for viruses or even seek shelter under the law.
But don’t be scared that much. The procedures that we have mentioned wil surely be useful to you. So, no worries!