Mobile users from all walks of life, from the average citizen to business bigwigs to movie stars and politicians, are getting their phones and voicemail hacked these days. Most of the perpetrators aren't even skilled hackers; they're regular Joes,
candan, Canada (
prHWY.com) July 12, 2012 - Mobile users from all walks of life, from the average citizen to business bigwigs to movie stars and politicians, are getting their phones and voicemail hacked these days. Most of the perpetrators aren't even skilled hackers; they're regular Joes, spurned suitors, or even -- hold your nose --reporters. End users certainly deserve part of the blame here, but phone vendors and mobile carriers alike could be doing more. It's not as if attacks targeting phones are especially new. It's a strange paradox: We know what we need to do to stop hacking. We have two decades of experience in putting down malware and hackers in the PC-based, network world. But we seem to be ignoring all those lessons as we move our CPUs and storage to new form factors. First off, every phone today offers users the ability to require a password, a PIN, or a finger swipe to gain access. Most users forgo these features unless forced. But it's not as though those security mechanisms provide much protection anyway -- they don't require any complexity. PINs tend to be four numbers long. Swipes can be as uninteresting as possible. But cell phone makers, networks, and carriers can do more to deter malicious hacking. For starters, how about enabling phones to track failed logon attempts, leading to a temporary lockout -- or at least slower responses to each additional bad logon attempt? It seems as if every popular cell model has a sneaky way around the PIN logon page. Usually it involves hitting the emergency dial button, choosing Contacts, and punching a few other keys. When was the last time your PC allowed you to bypass the password logon screen? There are plenty of other holes. In general, cellphone code isn't as secure as other code. We don't want to say that all vendors are getting it wrong, but in general, most vendors have at least a few weak areas that could stand improvement. It would be nice if we could expend the effort to try to minimize how many duplicate lessons we all have to live through.
Company: Toronto pcs
Phone: 647-693-5036
Email: info@torontopcs.com
Web site http://www.torontopcs.com
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