Iphones and other wireless gadgets under attack by Security Agencies in China

Posted by admin

August 12, 2008

According to a recent story from the Agence France-Presse, a US intelligence office has warned Americans traveling to other countries to be prepared for attacks by cyber snoops targeting their notebook computers, mobile phones and other wireless gadgets and devices.

While the advisory from the National Counterintelligence Executive did not specifically mention China, the agency’s top honcho said so on national television, with Americans intending to attend the Beijing Olympics as his agency’s primary concern.

The intelligence officer said, the AFP story added, that public security agencies in China can activate any person’s mobile phone and use it as an instant microphone-cum-eavesdropping device.

The concept of an unknown party taking control of one’s personal property for sinister motives, such as eavesdropping or espionage, is not new. But it still is a frightening idea. Imagine a hacker or a high-tech spy hijacking your mobile phone and using it to hear you babbling all day about your company’s secret products or marketing plans.

Or that hacker can wirelessly send malware to your mobile phone, and when you synch your phone’s data with your home PC or your company computers, those malware get in to your networks. The rest, I leave to your imagination.

This type of surveillance activities used to be the exclusive domain of the CIA, KGB and other similarly big-budgeted snooping agencies. But thanks to advances in technologies and the simultaneous drop in prices of espionage tools based on these technologies, even the lowly everyday, average criminals can afford them now.

iPhone Spy

Take for example the world-famous iPhone, today’s hottest IT toy. An Associated Press story revealed that a couple of IT security analysts have conducted an experiment. The duo did some mutating on the iPhone. They then had the smart phone shipped to one of their client companies. The phone had been programmed to wirelessly log on to the client’s network, and once logged on, a previously loaded program allowed the phone to search the network for security weaknesses.

Almost all the other portable devices in the market could be transformed into wireless tools for spies. After all, some of today’s wireless devices have more processing powers than yesterday’s state-of-the-art computers.

These gadgets’ ubiquitous presence makes them the ideal low-cost, low-maintenance, and low profile undercover agents. Also, they somehow democratize the art of espionage, making it affordable and accessible to even the poorest countries on Earth.

All these, while bringing about a worst nightmare for ordinary consumers in the process.

Security