Does your smartphone spy on you?

Telescope According to a study of a team of researchers from the Northeast University, it is possible that some of the famous applications of your phone may take screenshots for your activities and send them to third parties.

This is particularly disturbing as these clips, video clips and all your activities on the screen may include user names, pbadwords, credit card numbers and others. important personal information. "We have found that thousands of famous apps have the ability to record what's on your phone's screen and what you're writing," said David Chavens, a professor of music and music. computer who oversaw the study.

"This includes your username and your access code because the characters you write can be saved before they become these little black dots."

This study – conducted by graduate student Ellen Penn and future PhD student Jingjing Ren – was based on a widely shared argument that phones record our conversations in secret and then sell this information to businesses for that purpose. they target you with annoying ads.

The researchers found no evidence of recorded conversations, but they found evidence of the activity record, which in turn is more serious.

Chovnice said, "We knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack."

"But we were surprised to find many of these needles."

What they found was that some companies were sending screenshots and videos of all the user's phone activities to third parties.

Although these privacy breaches seem benign and not so serious, I've made it clear how easy it is to use the privacy window of the phone to make a profit. "This gap is likely to be used for malicious purposes," said Christo Wilson, another computer professor at the research team. "It is easy to install and collect this information.

The most disturbing thing is that it happens without informing or taking permission from users."

"In the event that our eyes fell on , the information sent to the third party was postcodes, but it was also easy to get credit card numbers. "

Study:

Researchers badyzed over 17,000 of the most famous applications on the Android operating system, using an automated program programmer tested by students.

Although the study was conducted only on Android phones, Wilson and Schofnis both stated that there was no reason to believe that other systems of Phones would be less vulnerable to penetration.

Ellen Penn began the project as a research project in the fall of 2017 and continued working on it until she graduated in May.

The paper will be presented in Barcelona later this month at a round table on improving privacy technology.

"I did not think much about the privacy of the phone and even my friends did not do it," said Ban, the newspaper's first author.

This definitely aroused my interest in research, and I will think about going back to the university from where I graduated.

But for now, Ban is getting ready for the Barcelona conference and starts working in August as a software engineer at Squire, a mobile payment company.

During the search, Wilson stated that the team was rather surprised by the results: "There was no leakage from his – there was not even an application making the microphone

Then we started to see things we did not expect.

Applications automatically take screenshots and send them to others. "

In total, 9,000 of 17,000 apps could take screenshots.

"But we found a different case: an app records a video of the user's activities on the screen and sends that information to third parties," says Wesel.

This app is GoPuff, a fast food delivery service, which sends screenshots to Appsee, a company that badyzes data from mobile devices.

All this was done without the user knowing the application.

Wilson and Chovannes both pointed out that neither company had a malicious intent.

They said that web developers generally use this type of information to correct errors in their applications and improve the user experience.

But that does not mean that malicious companies can not use this privacy window to steal personal information for profit.

"It could be a lot worse than having the camera take pictures of the ceiling or record unnecessary microphone conversations," Chovnice said.

There is no easy way to close this privacy vulnerability.

GoPuff has modified the Terms of Use Agreement to warn users that the company may take screenshots for use.

Google has issued a statement confirming that its policy requires developers to disclose to users how to collect their information.

But Wilson said that it protects companies from prosecution while doing little to protect the privacy of users who rarely read these long-standing legal agreements.

two said that the privacy window would not be closed until the phone companies redesigned their operating systems, which should not happen any time soon.

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• Hossam Safa.
• Verification: Razan Hamida
• Publisher: Issa Hazeem
• Source