App Genome Reveals Breach of Privacy by iPhone Apps

‘You are being watched closely and you have no idea about it;’ do you have such experience?

Perhaps you are totally unaware, but if you are a Smartphone user, it may be happening with you silently.

Shocked? It is a shocking finding indeed by Lookout Inc., a mobile phone security firm.

Recently they have scanned nearly 300,000 free applications for iPhone and the other Smartphones using Google’s Android operating system. Out of these 300,000 free apps 100,000 have been deeply analyzed to result in a shocking finding that many of these apps can access and pull out the sensitive information stored in the handset, without even notifying the user. The data may include the contacts, pictures, text messages, Internet and search histories available in the user’s handset. The app can easily be used by the third parties for advertisements and to know more about the user for consumer studies.

The study has raised a major concern of privacy and information security as it may be used for hacking and in identity theft if it falls in wrong hands.

Lookout has recently started an elaborated study on the security issues related to Smartphone apps named App Genome Project, and the finding is a part of it. The company is working on an automated tool to locate such security flaws.

The project has revealed that Android OS is more secured against such apps than iOS. 29 percent of free apps on Android can access user’s location, compared to the 33 percent of similar applications on iPhone. When it comes to access people’s contacts stored in phone, 14% of the free applications on iPhone can get the data where as 8% of the Android apps can do the same job.

The App Genome Project has also found that a large number of applications contain third-party code which can interact with the sensitive data without the knowledge of either the users or the developers. The third-party code is normally used for advertising or analytics. The project has found that 47 percent of free apps for Android include such third-party code, where as the number is just 23 percent on iPhone. The report mentions, ‘third-party code is difficult to globally update and creates potential for a cross platform vulnerability.’

Recently Citigroup has spotted a security threat in their application and fixed the problem immediately. Citigroup has been appreciated for their prompt action by Mr. Kevin Mahaffey, one of the founders of Lookout Inc.

Lookout has reported its findings in association with the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas this week.