Ouch – If You Value Privacy, Smartphones Can Smart

Smartphone users in the United Arab Emirates are outraged that when they installed an upgrade on their handsets last month after receiving a text message from their service provider, they were unknowingly installing software that allows third parties to read the private information on their phones.

In an article on CNN.com, Lara Farrar says the upgrade came from an Abu Dhabi-based mobile carrier that denies it was a spyware. The company, Etisalat, said in a statement that “service enhancements” made the upgrade necessary.

“When no one was paying attention, their phones turned into a computer,” cyber security expert Charlie Miller told Farrar. Miller warned that with the increasing popularity of smartphones and their applications, cybercriminals could soon find new and creative ways to hack into them.

While there have been other instances of privacy loopholes in smartphones, and commercially available software that allows individuals to remotely monitor the text messages of another (parents checking up on kids, or spouses checking up on each other) mobile security threats are “real but rare,” Jan Volkze of McAfee Mobile Security told CNN. Still, Volkze recommends that people “should apply the same level of paranoia on their cell phone that they would on their personal computer.”

To read the full article, click here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/cellphone.spy.software/