Why the FBI wants you to cover up your webcam, now

The Director of the FBI, James Comey, has revealed he covers up his webcam with a piece of tape and has urged others to do the same in order to fight hackers. "Heck yeah" was Comey's answer when he was asked whether he blocked the webcam on his personal computer at a recent conference in Washington.

The head of one of the world's biggest security agencies also revealed how employees at the Bureau all use contraptions to cover the cameras on their work computers in the name of security.

"You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen," Comey said. "You do that so that people who don't have authority don't look at you. I think that's a good thing," he explained.

Comey said that such simple security was common sense that everyone should take and likened it to being as routine as locking your car or the doors of your house.

Hackers taking control of users' webcams is becoming an increasing threat as malware attacks are on the rise. Those who have had their camera compromised could find themselves at the end of an extortion or blackmail attempt as malicious actors pry into your personal life and threaten to post it online.

It was revealed back in April that Comey used tape as a low-budget counter-surveillance measure and was widely criticised for hypocrisy as, at the time, the San Bernardino iPhone unlocking saga was unfurling where he voiced his opinion that companies should not make products that authorities cannot break into.

"It's not crazy that the FBI director cares about personal security as well," he was quoted as saying. "So I think people ought to take responsibility for their own safety and security."

However, he is not the only high-profile person to tape over their webcam. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was caught out in an Instagram photo sitting at a computer that appeared to belong to him with tape covering the camera and the audio port.

The internet had plenty of fun with this after conspiracy theorists had been accusing Facebook for years of spying on users through smartphone microphones.

This claim was disproved by the social network which said it only asks for access to the microphone when recording videos.