OverSight For Mac

Even though the volume of malware developed for macOS is considerably lower when compared with other operating systems, you still need to be careful about who is accessing your device.

OverSight is a small utility that aims to alert you whenever a process is using either your microphone or your camera devices, via unobtrusive Notification Center messages.

By default, the built-in iSight camera comes with a LED device that automatically turns on whenever the camera is active, so you get to know that the equipment is being used.

However, this function can be turned off by certain malware components, so you won’t know when you are being watched or recorded. The same rule applies to the built-in microphone: in this case, there is no safety measure to let you know someone is listening.

OverSight tries to fix this issue with real-time monitoring, so it will let you know if either of the two devices is being used. The app places a small menulet in the status bar, but also integrates with the Notification Center to send alerts.

OverSight comes with an installer tool that deploys the app and configures the utility to launch automatically at login so that you will be protected at all times. Note that the installer also integrates uninstallation capabilities.

Worth mentioning is that OverSight can only send notification alerts as far as the microphone is concerned: it cannot identify the process that tries to use the device, and you cannot block the access.

On the other hand, OverSight can detect both primary and secondary access attempts when it comes to the camera. Moreover, you get to grant or deny access to the video feed via the Notification Center alert.

Bottom line, OverSight is a small utility that might prevent some malware components to get access to your Mac’s camera or microphone without your knowledge.

Nonetheless, even the OverSight protection measures can be bypassed by malware that integrates kernel or rootkit components, so make sure to have a more exhaustive security solution deployed on your system.