Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his laptop’s webcam and microphone jack – a move typically used to thwart potential snooping hackers.

He shared a photo of himself celebrating the success of Facebook-owned Instagram, which now has 500 million users.

But people quickly noticed that the MacBook sitting on his desk in the background had been crudely modified with tape.

Light-coloured tape covers the webcam that sits just above the display, and it appears that black tape has been used to cover the microphone jack on the left-hand side of the device.
The idea of a hacker taking control of a laptop and watching the user via their webcam is not far-fetched: the director of the FBI uses a similar tactic to thwart prying eyes.

James Comey gave a speech in April in which he said: “I put a piece of tape – I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop – I put a piece of tape over the camera. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera.”

Security is understandably important to the tech mogul, who is worth an estimated $35.7bn (£24.3bn) and is therefore the fourth-richest person in the world.
A team of around 16 people are tasked with protecting him, costing Facebook more than $16m (£10.9m) over the past five years.

In February he was pictured in Berlin, jogging through the streets with a trainer and several bodyguards in tow.

The Palo Alto, California, home he shares with wife Priscilla and daughter Maxima is understood to be fitted with panic alarms and other security features.