How much of a mobile app user are you? Better yet, how often do you take the risk of downloading apps (regardless if this would be Android, iOS or Windows) without taking into consideration the dire consequences that come with it?
Many of you may have already heard by now that there are risks that come by downloading apps, especially the ones that are untrusted. And if you think that all of that was a fluke, this new discovery by a team of security researchers from the University of California, Riverside and University of Michigan could be a wakeup call.
The new hack has been termed as a user interface state interference attack, something which could essentially run via the background of mobile devices and dastardly steal pertinent personal information such as a person’s social security number or even his credit card numbers.
Now for most, this may be old news. But when you hear of communicating apps such as Gmail and popular apps in the mix, such should be alarming. The researchers have shown how such a hack could happen, something they claim is successful between 82 to 92 percent of the time when they tested it on seven popular apps.
How it works? Well it all starts after successfully downloading the app, practically giving hackers or cybercriminals open access to your device. From there they are able to get into your device’s operating system and exploit the shared memory as the app continues to run in the background.
http://www.thehoopsnews.com/2014/08/21/805/apple-iphone-6-photos-leaked-purported-launch-september-9/
With that open gateway, they can hop from one app to another, collecting normally restricted data which could lead to dire consequences for the unsuspecting user. And with so many apps available in the market these days, the issue of ample security to make sure you are not putting yourself in a spot becomes a real cause for concern.
http://www.thehoopsnews.com/2014/08/20/800/googles-upcoming-music-service-will-called-youtube-music-key/
The discovery and research is set to be presented at the Usenix Security Symposium to be held in San Diego, an interesting topic that can hopefully provide innocent mobile phone users more protection. For the time being however, the best way to avoid unwanted intrusions is to stay away from untrusted apps.
