Apple recently awarded a cybersecurity student $100,500 for discovering a vulnerability in the Mac’s webcam.
Ryan Pickren showed Apple how the Mac could be hacked through its webcam and leave it open for exploits and malware. Pickren receives the biggest bounty on record on Apple’s bug bounty program for this particular bug.
He explained how an issue with iCloud and Safari could lead to access on the user’s webcam. Before this was patched by Apple, websites could potentially attack and gain entry to affected Mac computers. Once done, the entity could then access all web-based accounts, including PayPal and iCloud and the computer’s camera, mic and screen sharing capabilities. The camera would then glow green every time it’s used.
Pickren is the same individual who discovered the iPhone camera vulnerability. Apple has not released a statement regarding the exploit and could have paid more than $100K for being alerted to the webcam hack.
