How can someone hack a cellphone?

Operating system flaws

Despite the best intentions of smartphone manufacturers, vulnerabilities are found which could let attackers in.

"We see that the average ratio is that more than one vulnerability being publicly disclosed every day, and 10 percent of those are critical vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities that allow someone remotely to gain access to your device and control it," Sharabani said.

Device manufacturers release operating system updates frequently to protect users.

"All of those updates have really important security fixes in them and people are worried well maybe this is going to impact how I use my phone or maybe my phone isn't compatible. They need to apply those updates as soon as they come out," said McGeorge.

Experts advise you install operating system updates as soon as they are available. Once updates are released, hackers know about vulnerabilities and attempt to breach out-of-dates device.

Malicious apps

Applications add functionality to smartphone, but also increase the risk of a data breach, especially if they are downloaded from websites or messages, instead of an app store. Hidden inside applications, even ones that work, could be malicious code that lets hackers steal data.

"The app ecosystem of mobile phones is enormous. Neither Apple nor Google can possibly look through every single app on their store and determine if it's malicious or not," said McGeorge.

To protect yourself, McGeorge advises you limit the number of apps you install.

"The more apps you have increases what we call the attack surface on your phone. What that means is there is more lines of code and therefore there is higher incidence there is going to be a security critical bug in that amount of code," he said.

McGeorge also suggests you think about who the app developer is and if you really need the app.

Skycure's Sharabani suggests you look at the warning messages when installing applications.

"Read those messages that are being prompted to us that sometimes say, 'This app will have access to your email. Would you agree?'" He said.

Bottom line, according to Sharibani , there is no such thing as being 100 percent secure. But there are many ways to reduce the risk and make it harder for hackers to invade your smartphone.

Comments

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