Stop hackers eavesdropping on your PC’S microphone

What you need: Soundvolumeview; Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 Time required: 30 minutes

Most computers offer a shortcut button that lets you quickly mute your speakers. However, PCS rarely include one to mute your built-in microphone, which would actually be more useful. In this Workshop, we show you how to create a quick-access shortcut that temporarily disables your microphone. This lets you temporarily mute yourself on a video call, for example, and can stop hackers accessing your microphone.

STEP 1 Download Nirsoft’s free Soundvolumeview tool from www.snipca.com/35088. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select either the 32bit or 64bit version 1 (if you’re unsure which one you need, the 32bit option will work on all versions of Windows). Once the ZIP file has downloaded, open it, then click ‘Extract all’ 2 . In the File Explorer window that appears, click Browse, then choose where to extract the files to. Here, we’ve created a new SystemVolumeView folder within ‘C:\program Files’ 3 . Leave the ‘Show extracted files when complete’ option ticked , then click Extract.

STEP 2 A new File Explorer window will open, displaying your extracted files. Double-click ‘Soundvolumeview.exe’ 1 to run the tool. You’ll see all sound devices installed on your PC (including any programs that act as audio devices). The one we’re looking for is the microphone. Look in the Direction column for the entry listed as Capture 2 , then note the name of this entry (in most cases, this will be Microphone 3 ). Now return to the File Explorer window, right-click the ‘Soundvolumeview.exe’ file, select ‘Send to’, then ‘Desktop (create shortcut)’. Now repeat this process to create a second shortcut. You should now have two new shortcuts on your desktop 4 .

STEP 3 Close the File Explorer window, then click the first of the two Soundvolumeview desktop shortcuts 1 and press F2 to rename it. We’ll use this shortcut to disable the microphone, so call it something similar to Mic Off. Now right-click this shortcut and select Properties. Click at the very end of the Target box, then add a space, followed by /Disable “Microphone” 2 (if the entry you located in Step 2 was called something other than Microphone, change the text in the quote marks to match that). Next, click in the ‘Shortcut key’ box, then type the keyboard shortcut you want to use for this command – we chose Ctrl+shift+d 3 .

STEP 4 You’ll notice your new desktop shortcuts have the same icon. To change this, click ‘Change Icon…’ 1 . You’ll see four generic icons to choose from. For a wider selection, delete the text in the ‘Look for icons in this file:’ box 2 , then press Enter. Now use the scroll bar to browse the icons and choose one for your Mic Off shortcut - we’ve chosen a red cross 3 . Click OK to save the icon, then click OK in the Properties window to close it. You should now see the Mic On shortcut on your desktop with the icon you selected.

STEP 5 Now repeat Steps 3 and 4, but this time selecting the second shortcut icon on your desktop. This shortcut will be used to turn on the Mic, so call it something like Mic On. When you come to editing the Target section of the shortcut, switch ‘/Disable’ to ‘/Enable’, so it reads /Enable “Microphone” 1 . We chose Ctrl+shift+e as our keyboard shortcut 2 and a tick for the shortcut’s icon 3 .

STEP 6 To make sure the shortcuts are working, press Windows+r, type control mmsys.cpl 1 , then press Enter. In the Sound window that appears, select the Recording tab 2 . You’ll see your microphone listed here, with Enabled next to it, indicating your microphone is available for use by programs on your PC. Now use the keyboard shortcut you chose to disable the microphone (we chose Ctrl+shift+d). Shortly after pressing this, you should see the Enabled change to Disabled 3 , which means no program (malicious or otherwise) will be able to see your microphone, let alone use it.

STEP 7 As well as using your chosen keyboard shortcuts to switch your microphone on and off, you can also double-click the relevant icons on your desktop. Additionally, you can pin these to the Windows taskbar - to do this, simply drag the two shortcut icons 1 on to your taskbar 2 . If the SoundVolumeView window appears when you try using one of your new shortcuts, it’s probably because you made a mistake in the Target section of the shortcut (such as using a backslash instead of a forward slash). Go back to Step 3 to check - you can always delete the shortcuts and recreate them from scratch if needed.