Your Apps Are Watching You
Statistics say 1 in 2 Americans will have a smart-phone by December 2011. Many people keep their address, bank account numbers, passwords, PIN numbers and more stored in their phone. The mounds of information kept in smart-phones is more than enough to steal one’s identity with ease.
What most people don’t consider are the applications that they are using on a daily basis. What information is stored there? According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, more than you think.
After examining over 100 popular apps, they found that 56 transmit the phone’s unique device ID to companies without the user’s knowledge. Forty-seven of the applications transmitted the phone’s actual location, while five sent other personal information such as age and gender. This shows how many times your privacy is potentially compromised without your knowledge, just by playing music on Pandora.
Here are a few of the culprits:
- Textplus 4 is a popular text messaging app. It sent the unique phone ID to over 7 different ad companies.
- Pandora, a popular music application for both smart-phones and computers sends age, gender, location and phone ID to many advertisers.
- Paper Toss sends your phone ID to 5 different advertisers.
Cellphone Security: Can You Hack into a Smart Phone?
Hack into a smart phone? It’s easy, security experts find.
In a new LA Times article security researchers Nick DePetrillo and Don Bailey have discovered a seven-digit numerical code that can unlock all kinds of secrets about you.
It’s your phone number.
Using relatively simple and some old-school techniques almost anyone can hack into your smart phone. With the new wave of cellphone applications and a lack in cell phone security, you are leaving your mobile device vulnerable to identity spies and thieves. Anyone, trustworthy or not, can create an iPhone application and with over 250,000 apps people are doing just that. How do you know that the application you are downloading and allowing to access your cellphone is legitimate? In most cases – you don’t.
Apple says they do certify the security of every application they offer in their app store, but acknowledges that malicious applications have snuck through. The Android Marketplace and Blackberry App World place users in charge of their own security. Some of these malicious apps can track your location, read your text messages, listen to your voicemail and one was able to turn on your microphone to eavesdrop on the user.
Tapping Cell Phones
Last week at an identity theft speech for the Department of Defense, I met two soldiers who alerted me to the new security risk of Cell Phone Tapping. SigInt (or signal interception) has long been a part of warfare and espionage. But the possibilities erupt with the advent of cell phone tapping. Imagine the conversation of a soldier being overheard by the enemy – deployment details, troop locations, command structure, strategic and tactical information. The prospect is terrifying for our national security.
This week, I was asked to help with a case of domestic abuse: the husband had installed Cell Phone Tapping Software (like computer spyware or keyloggers) on his wife’s phone prior to their divorce. During the divorce proceedings, he listened to every conversation, read every email and text sent from her phone, and could even control her calendar and applications (thanks to iPhone Tapping Software). Because of GPS tracking, he always knew where she was. When she switched to a new phone number and iPhone, iTunes must have synced the malicious software to the new phone along with all of the legitimate programs – allowing the abusive husband access to the new phone and continue stalking her. Cell phone tapping software allows the user to perform all of these tasks without your ever knowing it:
Sileo In the Media
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