From: Justin C on
On 2010-08-10, Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote:
> Justin C <justin.1007(a)purestblue.com> wrote:
>> R4 Today programme mentioned apps for smartphones that were snaffling
>> user data and passwords and sending them off to naughty people... or
>> at
>> least to the authors who must be a bit dodgy. Author of the peice said
>> that in x number of days he'd written his own snaffling program, and
>> that he doesn't know how to write software.
>>
>> What I'm curious about is whether any of these have been found on iOS,
>> have they been found in the app store? Or is it just other OS phones
>> that are seeing these due to weakness in the OS?
>
> They have been found on android. The thing is not really anything to do
> with any weakness in the OS, it is perfectly legitimate for an
> application to want to get this data under certain circumstances, it is
> a question of how much data it gets and what it does with it.
>
> Reading back you said passwords, I hadn't heard of that, and that would
> be a flaw, the android thing was just getting names and numbers.

I was referring to someone storing bank login info in plain text,
nothing like hacking keychain.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.
From: Rowland McDonnell on
Justin C <justin.1007(a)purestblue.com> wrote:

> R4 Today programme mentioned apps for smartphones that were snaffling
> user data and passwords and sending them off to naughty people... or at
> least to the authors who must be a bit dodgy.

Have a look at this one:

"Smartphone security put on test
By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News"

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10912376>

"BBC News has shown how straightforward it is to create a malicious
application for a smartphone.

Over a few weeks, the BBC put together a crude game for a smartphone
that also spied on the owner of the handset."

> Author of the peice said
> that in x number of days he'd written his own snaffling program, and
> that he doesn't know how to write software.

[snip]

See above for more details...

Rowland.

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