Skip to main content

A Location Sharing App Exposed 1.7 Million Passwords And Some Users' Nude Photos


Mobile apps on your smartphone can range from most useful and secure to social media and games that help you pass your time. There are also quite a few apps that are plain redundant on the Play Store or App Store. Though, regardless of the type, smartphone apps are the backbone of our smartphone existence.
Apps act as the gateway for the data that we consume as well as feed the system, and most users trust what the apps ask them to do. Considering smartphone apps are critical for the complete smartphone experience, one would believe that the developers making these apps would be careful in making these apps.
Even though most developers put in efforts to ensure that their apps are secure, and act responsibly by protecting user data while handling them. There are some exceptions where developers try to push malicious apps that want to mine user data, steal user data or even mine bitcoin in the recent past. But, there is a third type of developers who accidentally or out of sheer carelessness end up leaving the user data insecure.
According to Fobes, 18 Android tracking apps were installed as part of the investigation that has already been downloaded by millions of users via the Google Play Store. One of these apps, “Couple Vow” that allows couples to share location with each other exposed about 1.7 million user passwords in plain text format without any encryption.
These exposed passwords would allow anyone to have access to all the location, call, text data in addition to anything sent using the messaging feature of the app. A separate issue with the app database allowed researchers to access all the user data of 1.7 million users including nude images in “some cases”. As pointed out by the report, researchers from Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany presented these flaws at hacking convention DEF CON in Las Vegas last week. The presentation was titled “All Your Family Secrets Belong To Us- Worrisome Security Issues In Tracker Apps.”
The report pointed out that the developers of the app did not respond to the request for a comment. The report stated that the rest of the apps also had weaknesses that could allow hackersaccess to accounts by bypassing the login or unsecured communication. What was surprising was the fact that Google was not swift in its response when the researchers disclosed these issues to the company. Instead, the company was slow in its response removing only “handful of the apps” while leaving “some” up on the Play Store.

Comments

Post a Comment

Jarring comments...

Popular posts from this blog

Subtle ways to change your life - Nudge theory.

The nudge theory The theory states that small changes when subtly encouraged can lead to big results . The nudge theory enables us to focus on the minuscule aspects of our life that makes up the big goal or the main objective we desire. The subtle tasks could include setting your alarm 5minutes earlier to encourage you to be prompt. This is a typical example of you nudging yourself to becoming a major partaker in your life’s goals. Hence, there are 7 main steps to encourage you to nudge yourself to task completion: 1. Pursue a single goal that contributes to your well-being, set targets and deadlines: As humans, we tend to fixate on goals we think makes us happy. Say for example, your goal may be to buy a sport car which you think makes you happy, the irony is that it isn’t realistic. Even according to research, the 5 top factors that improves well-being are: social relationship, health and activity, generosity, learning new things and building curiosity. So, it is very impor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spotify announces new partnership with Samsung - Finally Spotify will pose like Apple Music

Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek There's a new collaboration in the works. Early Friday morning, Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek (pictured) revealed through an online Q&A session that the music streaming service is partnering with smart-phone makers Samsung to "create a seamless music listening experience together for the user that would be hard for either of us to build alone". The streaming service will now be integrated into future Samsung phones, and will be the brand's main music player app. Another feature that will be available will be the synchronizing of Spotify accounts across multiple Samsung devices, from phones to TVs, tablets, speakers and watches. Ek commented on the feature, saying, "As you move from room to room, your devices will be aware of your location and prompt you to effortlessly transition your listening between them". Ek further went on to comment on Spotify's integration with Samsung, revealing that the partn...
Post a Comment
Read more

4 Best Personal Finance Apps of 2018

Managing money, sticking to a budget and even handling investment decisions are easier than even before with today's crop of personal finance apps. But not every tool out there is actually worth downloading and learning to use. You can take some of the guesswork out of moving your finances to mobile with this list of the best personal finance apps for 2018. 1. Mint: Best app for managing your money. Hands down, the free Mint app from Intuit Inc. (INTU) – the name behind QuickBooks and TurboTax – is an effective all-in-one resource for creating a budget, tracking your spending and getting smart about your money. You can connect all your bank and credit card accounts, as well as all your monthly bills, so all your finances are in one convenient place – no more logging in to multiple sites. Mint lets you know when bills are due, what you owe and what you can pay. The app can also send you payment reminders so you can avoid late fees. Based on your spending habits, Mint even gi...
Post a Comment
Read more