How to hack a phone – Guide
Although mobile security often trumps that of PCs, people can still be tricked, and smartphones can be hacked. Here’s what you should watch out for. The smartphone revolution is designed to give the IT industry a second chance to develop a secure computing platform. Unlike unstable PCs and insecure servers, these new devices were closed and malware proof. However, phones they are still computers and their users are still people, which means that computers and people will always be weak connections. We spoke with a number of security experts to gain a better understanding of the most common methods attackers use to break into the powerful computers in users’ pockets. This should perhaps give you some insight into possible failures.
5 ways to hack a phone
- Social engineering The easiest way for any hacker to break into any device is for the user to open the door himself. Making this happen is easier said than done, of course, but it’s the goal of most forms of social engineering attacks. Smartphone operating systems often have stricter security regimes than PCs or servers, with application code running in a sandboxed mode that prevents it from escalating privileges and taking control of the device. But that much touted security model, in which mobile users need to take affirmative action for the code to access the protected areas of the phone operating system or storage, it has a downside: it results in an abundance of pop-up messages that many of us have learned to ignore. “Applications in mobile devices separate permissions to protect the user from rogue applications with free access to all their data,” says Catalino Vega III, security analyst at Kuma LLC. “The prompt becomes familiar: ‘Would you like to allow this app to access your photos?’” “It really only adds a single step between provisioning this application access,” he continues. “And because of the way the user experience has conditioned the acceptance of most prompts as a gateway to functionality, most users will only allow the app to access what they’re asking for. I think that might be something we’re all guilty of at some point. ”
- Malvertising A particularly important vector for these types of misleading dialogs is the so-called “malvertisements”, which piggyback on the infrastructure developed for the mobile advertising ecosystem, whether in a browser or in an app. “The goal is to get you to click on the ad,” says Chuck Everette, director of cybersecurity advocacy at Deep Instinct. “They’re trying to lure you in with something that will make you click before you think – an instinctual reaction or something that feels like an alert or warning.” The goal, he says, is “trying to scare him or tempt him to click the link.” One example he cites was a game called Durak, which tricked users into unlocking their Android phones tricking them into turning off security features and install other malicious apps. Far from being a dodgy off-label sideloaded app, Durak was available on the official Google Play marketplace. “67 percent of all malicious apps can be traced back to the Google Play Store download, while only 10 percent came from alternative third-party markets,” he explains. “Consumers on Google Play rely a lot on feedback from other users on whether the app is safe or not. That doesn’t work.” In contrast, he says, “Apple closely inspects every app in its app store, which decreases the number of apps available but greatly reduces apps that are reported as malicious.”
- Smishing
Another vector that attackers use to get that all-important touchable link in front of their victims is the SMS text message, with an entirely different set of social engineering tricks Playing; the practice is known as phishing or SMS smishing and appeals to both the gullible and the powerful.
“There are a number of ways cybercriminals can use SMS phishing, depending on their intent and purpose,” says Rasmus Holst, CRO of Wire. “If the objective is to install malware on a device, usually a file is attached, accompanied by a message that tries to persuade the user to click and download. For example, cybercriminals can impersonate someone they trust, such as an employer or manager, asking an employee to review the attached document, setting a trap for a busy and innocent victim. Two years ago, Jeff Bezos’ phone was hacked after downloading a single video file from a trusted contact. In some cases, hackers use zero-day exploits from mobile browsers can send a malicious file to a phone without the user’s consent as long as he clicks on the link. ” - Malware if a hacker can’t trick you click on a button and unknowingly lowering their phone security barriers, they may look for someone who has already deliberately done so by jailbreaking their phone. Jailbreaking is seen by many as allowing users to better customize their device and install apps of their choice from unofficial sources, but by its nature it relaxes the tight security sandbox that keeps smartphones locked down. “Hackers create apps that users would have a genuine interest in, such as a free VPN, with the intention of downloading malware onto unsuspecting users’ devices,” said David Schoenberger, founder and chief innovation officer at Eclypses. “Once these malicious apps are downloaded to a device, they detect whether the device has been rooted or unlocked – and if it is, they steal personally identifiable information and other sensitive data. Once a device is unlocked, the operating system is compromised, allowing easy access to passwords, chats or other input data such as banking or payment information. ”
- Pretexting Finally, if the user does not give up control your device voluntarily, an intruder can go over your head to your mobile provider. You may recall the mid-2000s British media scandal in which tabloids used what they call “blagging” techniques to access the mobile celebrity voicemail boxes and crime victims. This process, also known as pretexting, involves an attacker gathering enough personal information about their victim to plausibly impersonate them in communications with their victims. phone provider and thus gain access to the victim’s account. The tabloids were after scoops, but criminals can use the same techniques to do even more damage. “If successfully verified, the attacker convinces the phone carrier to transfer the victim phone number to a device they own, in what’s known as a SIM switch,” says Adam Kohnke, manager of information security at the Infosec Institute. “Calls, text messages and short codes – like the second factor authentication codes that your bank or financial providers send to your phone via SMS – now go to the attacker and not you. ”
Final note
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