Is your mobile phone a blabbermouth?
Yesterday, we told you about computer hackers from all over gathering in Las Vegas at the Black Hat conference to talk about security. Turns out there is A LOT of vulnerability being exposed at this conference. On Wednesday, a hacker named Barnaby Jack was on stage recalling his favorite scene from the movie Terminator 2 where a character was able to hack an ATM and have money come pouring out. Jack then proceeded to do the same thing with a real ATM, hack in, get all the money. And it wasn’t even very hard (not that we’re going to tell you how to do it).
Less theatrical but perhaps more urgent were a host of vulnerabilities related to mobile computing. Today’s smart phones are pretty much more computer than phone but it’s such a rapidly evolving platform that security issues are popping up all over. In one case, an Android-based app to give your phone new wallpaper was found to be capturing personal data and shipping it to China.
We talk to Venture Beat’s Dean Takahashi from the conference. We also speak with John Hering, the CEO of mobile security company Lookout.
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