They’re Watching – What Your Phone Applications Don’t Say
One thing your phone application doesn’t say is that it’s watching. Yes that’s right, your smartphone applications watch you and much closer than you’d likely care for.
A mobile phone security firm called Lookout Inc did a scan of almost three-hundred thousand of Apple’s free mobile phone applications for the iPhone along with the phones that were built around the Android software from Google, Inc. It found that a majority of them actually secretly pull sensitive data off of the user’s phone and then it ships that information to third parties without giving any notification.
This is a major concern that’s been boiling in the security and privacy circles and should be for you too. This data is something that can include the complete details about the users:
• Contacts
• Pictures
• Text messages
• Internet history
• Search history
The third parties that get this information can include companies that analyze user data, and other advertising companies.
So you’re likely wondering how this information is used by the companies it’s given to. It’s used in order to both learn about the users and target ads specifically to those users. Although it doesn’t seem that dangerous the danger comes from the fact that the data is very vulnerable to hacking and this is information that can be used in identity theft if the third party isn’t vigilant about their securing of information.
The company Lookout just reported their findings this week. This was done in combination with the security conference of Black Hat’s which is held in Las Vegas. Lookout had found that almost ¼ of the iPhone applications and almost ½ of the Android applications contained code in their software that contained these capabilities.
The code that contained this was code that was written by 3rd parties and then inserted into the applications by the developers, usually always done with a specific purpose in mind, such as, allowing the applications to be able to run advertisements. What happens though is that the code ends up forcing the application to collect additional data on the users than the developers might actually realize.
Lookout’s CEO had stated that they found that not just the users but also the developers actually don’t know what’s really going on with their applications, even in their own personal applications. The CEO, Hering, stated that this is utterly “fascinating” to him and I must agree.
The big part of the problem is that the smartphones don’t alert their users to all of the different data types that the applications that they download and then run on their phones are actually collecting. The iPhone, for example, only alerts the user when the application wants to have their actual physical location. As with the Android, even though they offer the robust warnings when a user first installs their application, many people will browse through that in warp drive in order to get to the applications quickly.
When Lookout sent a request to Apple and Google for comment they had no response on the research that Lookout found.
Related posts:
- Researches Locate 80 Separate Android Wallpaper Applications Skimming Sensitive User Data
- Advanced Trojan Could Turn Your Android Device into a Zombie
- The Android Market Reaches 100,000 Applications
- Be Smart When It Comes To Your Smartphone
- Android Applications, Installing and Uninstalling Is a Breeze
- Are Mobile Applications Insecure?
- Google Releases a Creation Tool For Do It Yourself Applications
- Install and Manage Your Applications in the Android Marketplace
- Android Applications Double In Just 2 Months To 200,000
- Smartphone Applications Benchmark, the First Three Years
Tags: Android, apps, cell phone safety, iphone, spy ware