Defense blocks sports apps on business phones after data breach

The Ministry of Defense has temporarily banned the use of certain sports and fitness apps on soldiers' phones and advises staff to disable phone work location data as standard and not to turn them on. only when necessary.

Defense Minister Bijleveld announced it in a letter to the House of Representatives today. The reason for this measure is that, thanks to the Polar sport and fitness app and the Polar smartwatch, personal information from military personnel, officials and national and foreign intelligence services has been recovered. At the beginning of this year, it was already known that it was possible to trace the location of the military bases via the Strava fitness app and the military defense indicated the danger of Strava and D & C. Similar applications.

It now appears that it is also possible to find all kinds of information about Polar smartwatch users via Polar, says the correspondent. With the Bellingcat research group, nearly 6,500 people from 69 different nationalities were found in over two hundred localities. This included MIVD employees. Polar allows you to request unlimited information, which automatically retrieves data from nearly 6500 users. This made it easier for researchers to find home addresses, for example

Measures

The Defense was informed before publication so that further action could be taken. "The staff was once again sensitized to the specific vulnerabilities of using these applications, both in their environment and in the work environment, and the use of certain sports applications and applications. On defense defenses, it is currently impossible, by default, to disable location data on Defense phones and only turn them on when necessary. "

The Minister says that Defense is continually increase security awareness, even when it is personal data "Defense employees are regularly alerted to the risks of sharing personal data in which a relationship with the defense can be established" , writes Bijleveld in the letter The Minister also said that creating and maintaining awareness is a process which requires constant attention and for this reason, the Defense has recently launched an awareness campaign to systematically signal to employees the possible risks of using social media.