Spying on Smartphones

I was recently at an event for Law Enforcement where one of the discussion points was how critical it is to protect Smartphones – actually it was more about how easy to would be to claim that my Smartphone was hacked and how proof can be found.

That you should run Anti-Malware software on phones, is nothing new (even though just very, very, very few people I know are actually running it) but I was stunned what kind of software is offered to be run on Windows Mobile/Symbian/Black Berry. Let me give you an example: There is a software called FlexiSpy. The sub-title of the product is “Protect Your Children | Catch Cheating Spouses”. I wanted to try this product once but I will never ever try to run this software on any phone with business data on. There is a demo on the page, let me give you some screenshots, what the product (once installed) is able to grab:

This is the overview over all events

Let’s look at an SMS:

So, it’s not “only” the recipient of the text, it is the content as well. The same it true for mails (!) as well.

Unfortunately the demo does not show one other key feature, which is the location tracking either via the cell you are in or via the built-in GPS…

The worst thing is that you do not see the software anywhere – neither in the installed software nor in any process running. The only thing somebody needs is brief access to your phone. So make sure, that you ran AV-software and have a PIN at your phone

Roger