Half of my office has camera covers, honestly at this point I'd have a lot of respect for any maker who had a physical mechanism to their camera... Sort of like the original iSight https://www.coolsmartphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/is...
Any malware that can take pictures can record keystrokes. I want no cover so I can see the activity light because knowing the webcam is on is more important than it being on.
The (pennsylvania?) school district webcam spying scandal got kicked off because a boy noticed his webcam light coming on. If it had been covered would he have noticed?
No, the school district wouldn't have had pictures of him, but they still would have screengrabs, audio, and keystrokes and he likely never would have noticed.
Take all of the pictures of my double chin that you want.
I want to know that my webcam is coming on without my authorization so I can root out the spyware that is keylogging.
Passwords > Pics
If you're the type whose life will be ruined by pictures taken by your webcam, by all means cover it up. I'm too old and hairy to be blackmailed with nudie pics.
Having my passwords leak would seriously cramp my style, though.
And no, nobody is going to waste a zero-day that can reprogram a webcam controller to disable the light (if possible and often it is not) on a nudie-pics malware. They are going to use it to make actual money.
The worst that would happen is I'd look kinda unprofessional slurping up some noodles, but having the camera covered allows me to be confident I'm not presenting unless I intend to.
We've been 100% Microsoft Teams since March so I'd say that in several hundred calls and conferences since then I've never activated the webcam without intent.
There's been a few times that my camera has activated in a meeting, and shown a black screen because of the cover.
My Lenovo Ubuntu machine has cover built into the casing, which seems ideal. For my Macbook, I use a thin (<.1mm) plastic sliding cover.
This is what you sound like. The things can be used in conjunction with one another. It is not an or scenario, you can have both. You can also have covers which don't cover the indicator. You use different deterrent mechanisms for different threats. It is as simple as that.