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Hacking 101
- Thread starter General Grievous
- Start date
Secret spyware found in smartphones
June 18, 2014, 2:00 pm Raphael Satter and Frank Jordans, AP Yahoo7 Finance
Spy software has been reportedly found on smartphones that could allow a hacker to steal personal data, make calls or turn on the phone's camera.
A cheap brand of Chinese-made smartphones carried by major online retailers comes pre-installed with espionage software, a German security firm said Tuesday.
G Data Software said it found malicious code hidden deep in the propriety software of the Star N9500 when it ordered the handset from a website late last month. The find is the latest in a series of incidents where smartphones have appeared preloaded with malicious software.
G Data spokesman Thorsten Urbanski said his firm bought the phone after getting complaints about it from several customers. He said his team spent more than a week trying to trace the handset's maker without success.
"The manufacturer is not mentioned," he said. "Not in the phone, not in the documentation, nothing else."
The Associated Press found the phone for sale on several major retail websites, offered by an array of companies listed in Shenzhen, in southern China. It could not immediately find a reference to the phone's manufacturer.
G Data said the spyware it found on the N9500 could allow a hacker to steal personal data, place rogue calls, or turn on the phone's camera and microphone. G Data said the stolen information was sent to a server in China.
Bjoern Rupp, chief executive of the Berlin-based mobile security consultancy firm GSMK, said such cases are more common than people think. Last fall, German cellphone service provider E-Plus found malicious software on some handsets delivered to customers of its Base brand.
"We have to assume that such incidents will increasingly occur, for different commercial and other reasons," said Rupp.
Users of Line messaging app urged to change passwords after hack
Police investigating hundreds of breached accounts
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 19 June, 2014, 1:11pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 19 June, 2014, 1:11pm
Agence France-Presse in Tokyo
Line boasts some 400 million users, mostly in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. Photo: Bloomberg
Smartphone messaging application Line, which has hundreds of millions of users across Asia, was urging people to change their passwords Thursday as Japanese police investigated the hacking of hundreds of accounts.
At least 303 cases of unauthorised access were confirmed between late May and June 14, including three that involved cash trades resulting in financial loss, a Line spokesman told AFP, without providing further details.
“We are cooperating with police in investigating the cases, and we are calling for users to change passwords,” the spokesman said.
The accounts were hacked “presumably after shared passwords with other online services were leaked somewhere else,” he said, adding that to the company’s knowledge, all of the breaches occurred in Japan.
A police spokesman said the case was under investigation.
Set up in 2011, Line now has more than 400 million users, mainly in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, and is growing fast.
The service lets users make free calls, send instant messages and post funny photos or short videos, combining attributes from Facebook, Skype and messaging application WhatsApp.
Line has forged heavyweight partnerships with football clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, brands such as Coca-Cola and tennis star Rafael Nadal.
FC Barcelona, for instance, has a home page on the app which has millions of “friends”.
One of Line’s main selling points is its “stickers” – funny, cartoon-like figures that users can post to friends.
