[Ilugc] mobile security
- From: girishvenkatachalam@xxxxxxxxx (Girish Venkatachalam)
- Date: Sat Jun 14 22:00:48 2008
On 14:46:57 Jun 14, Deepan Chakravarthy wrote:
Hi, I am Arundhati Ramanathan, correspondent Chennai times, Times of India,
Im working on an article on mobile phone hacking.
Hello!
I have a couple of questions about moblie security and its abuse, which I
hope you could answer.
1. How easy is it breaking into a mobile phone. What are the requistes for
hacking a phone( both the hacker and the victim)
Since most mobile phones run a proprietary OS or mostly a bug ridden
mess that runs over Java or something, we are going to have
trouble with attackers for sure.
Though the question remains how long it will take for threats to become
real.
2. What steps can one take to prevent hacking private info especially
when mobile banking etc are popular
Most websites that provide mobile banking will work over SSL. If the
mobile browser supports SSL, then the risk is greatly reduced.
3. Is it easy to trace the hacker?
Good question. Most mobiles would have to have an IP address in order to
have Internet access, so I guess the case is not too different from that
of a computer hacker sitting somewhere on the Internet.
If it is a mobile phone of course it is quite easy to catch hold of the
attacker since mobiles announce their position every few milliseconds or
so to the base station.
4. What are the information usually hackers would like to access?
I would imagine mobile viruses and worms rather than stealing info to
begin with. But as I said before such problems have not yet become
common at least as far as I know.
5. What are the benifits of hacking?
Benefits of hacking? ;)
One can become a better engineer and a happier person. Life will have a
new meaning and so on. ;)
You should really be using the word "attacker" here.
Usually virus writers don't stand to gain much I think.
6. what are the most common softwares used to break into a phone?
I dunno. If mobile phones have an IP address you can use pretty much any
cracking software out there.
Once the mobile OS and its vulnerabilities are known the tools for
cracking will become popular. ;)
7. What are the 'anti' softwares one can use to prevent hacking?
Such line of thinking does not exist in the linux world.
We don't have antivirus here.
Instead we do smart engineering to prevent/protect us against attacks.
-Girish
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