2. Introduction
New York Times: JPMorgan Chase Hacking
Affects 76 Million Households (10 other financial
firms)
The Guardian: Eighth reporter convicted of phone
hacking (royal family and others were targeted)
Business standard: China 'hacking into' Hong
Kong protesters' phones in 2014
CNN: Celebrity Phones Hacked (apple, 100
celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence targeted)
Target – Home Depot – the list goes on !
3. The Bad Guys Are Out There!
Don’t make it easy for them
You don’t have control of all of your data
flow, but there are some things you can do!
Taking a few simple steps to protect your
phone and your data – makes it difficult for
the bad guys to - steal your data, steal your
identity, steal your money
4. Smartphones
A Smartphone is not just a phone?
Smartphones holds massive amounts of data –
with many inferences
Think about it – text messages, video, browser history, call
data, itunes content, location data, health data, financial data,
………
Theft of this data would be extremely invasive – to you and
many of the people that you communicate with
June Supreme court ruled 9-0 that to search a cell
phone requires a warrant
5. What Are Cell Phone Companies Doing?
Encrypting your phone – some by default (Apple)
Makes it nearly impossible for hackers & others (e.g. the NSA)
to crack - Would take ~ 5 ½ years to crack
Modestly Increasing security cloud sites – Cloud
data storage is not very legislated or governed, and
hence insecure
6. What Can You Do?
Use strong passwords/passcodes - don’t use ‘1111’,
change password --- brute force attacks
Don’t down load anything sent via suspicious text
message or email
Update apps – app updates often fix old security flaws,
only give apps need permissions does a simple flash light
app need your location?
Don’t sign into a non secure Bluetooth network –
turn Bluetooth off when you aren’t using it
Delete your browsing history every once in a while
If you are ambitious – go to the cell phones site and
look at their recommendations
7. Conclusion
Be aware – you are carrying on your person a hand
held computer that gives a detailed, fine grained
picture of who you are, what you do, where you have
been, who you talk to, how much money you have, ….
Every system can be hacked– it just takes time
the harder you make it for the bad guys – the more
likely they give up and move on to the next victim.
