Know if Any Rogue App/Service is Spying on You with Micro Snitch

Try as we might, there’s always the risk for our devices to become infected or the target of a hacker’s attack. And what’s even worse, there are situations when we won’t even be aware of that happening. I am telling you from my experience, as my Gmail account has been hacked a couple of times.

Another common type of security breach is when your camera or monitor is being maneuvered into sending sensible information to the hacker. And while Windows users have at their disposal a couple of tools to use for protection, things are different for Mac owners. But not anymore, if we are to give credit to MicroSnitch, a new Mac app released by Austrian developer Objective Development.

The purpose of this new app is to notify you when your Mac’s build-in camera and microphone are activated, with or without your knowledge. The app stays in the menu bar, operating in the background to monitor any microphone and camera activity. And if it detects that a certain application start to record audio or video, Micro Snitch it will tell you about it and you will decide what needs to be done.


MicroSnitch comes with an on-screen overlay so that you won’t miss your microphone or camera usage while using full screen applications. Furthermore, it gets extensive logging to allow you to review any status changes later on if you’re busy with something when the notification pops up. Micro Snitch requires OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later to run, so make sure you update before getting the app.

The app is currently available for a introductory price of $1.99 on the Mac App Store, but after the promotion ends, it’ll go back ot its normal price of $3.99. Micro Snitch also offers a free, built-in demo mode that provides the same functionality as the full version but it only runs for three hours. We’ve reached out to Objective Development and asked them if they plan to bring their app to other platforms and we’ll update with more info on that.

Update – the guys from MicroSnitch have confirmed that they don’t have any plans at the moment to bring the app to other platforms, as well.