Cellphone security is a growing concern.
Barry Gooden likes to experiment with cellphones, so when a friend showed him a program that could sneak like a thief into his wife's iPhone, he thought he'd give it a try.
Her Bluetooth, the wireless connection that allows people to use earpieces and other devices with their phone, was on. The program on his phone did the rest.
"It made all the contacts start jumping over to this phone," said Gooden, who lives in Viera, Fla.
People blithely use their phones and iPad-like devices to download applications, communicate wirelessly and surf the Internet. Threats to cellphones and iPad-like devices are uncommon now but are expected to increase, experts say.
"What I do is I make your phone (dial) a few premium-rate numbers at 'X' dollars a minute," said Richard Ford, director of Florida Tech's Harris Institute for Assured Information, "and I immediately make the money from that."
It's not just a theory. Security software company Kaspersky Lab recently pointed out a malicious program that targets Google's Android operating system for phones. A link on adult sites prompts users to download a media player that requests permission to send text messages. Then it begins sending those messages at $6 a pop to a premium number.
"A lot of people who get hit don't really know or don't really care or only work it out when the bill comes," Ford said of such exploits. "I think it's still pretty rare, but it's coming."
Phones are more like computers than ever, with similar vulnerabilities, many of which rely on user actions. And all of those bad things on the Web now have a new target as these mobile devices surf the Internet.
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-10-31-cellphone-security_N.htm