Is Your Smartphone Spying On You?

Do you suspect that your smartphone is secretly leaking your private conversations?

16:10 03 March 2016

Have you ever experienced talking about something over a cup of coffee with friends and then the same topic mysteriously came up in the suggested text on your search box when you use your smartphone or your computer?

 

Well, you are not alone. Several people have experienced the same. One reported that she complained to her boyfriend about a migraine and the next day, she was being followed on Twitter by a migraine support group. Another had an in-depth chat with her sister about a tax issue and the very next day, he saw a Facebook advert from tax experts offering advice on the same issue.

 

A cybersecurity expert, Ken Muno and his colleague David Lodge from Pen Test Partners, conducted a test to determine if it is physically possible for an app to snoop in this way. The test found that the answer to the question was a resounding yet.

 

"I wasn't convinced at first, it all seemed a bit anecdotal," admitted Mr Munro.

 

"All we did was use the existing functionality of Google Android - we chose it because it was a little easier for us to develop in," said Mr Munro.

 

"We gave ourselves permission to use the microphone on the phone, set up a listening server on the internet, and everything that microphone heard on that phone, wherever it was in the world, came to us and we could then have sent back customised ads."

 

"We re-used a lot of code that's already out there," added David Lodge.

 

"Certainly the user wouldn't realise what was happening. As for Apple and Google - they could see it, they could find it and they could stop it. But it is pretty easy to create."

 

"I'm not so cynical now," said Ken Munro.

 

"We have proved it can be done, it works, we've done it. Does it happen? Probably."