We live in a age where everybody wants to check up and see what their neighbors, lovers, girlfriends and boyfriends do, but according to a survey released last month half of the Americans would use mobile devices to secretly spy on other people. We know that a series of news revealed that spy software can easily do that type of job. The snooper is using a smartphone camera or advanced camera like digital SLR that shoots HD video, which could read a screen up to sixty meters away so the software can capture what others are texting in their personal emails or text messages sent forth on their mobile devices.

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill assembled a team of researchers and used iSpy, to proof that typing a private email message or a simply text message from the conform of your couch or near from a near-empty train or staying on bench away from everyone else can be a risky business.
They were able to compromise the privacy of different users using iSpy, they said that this application can distinguish all the text typed on a handset display using video footage of the screen.

The research team discovered that sitting on a bus you could catch all the text messages or email sent by nearby passengers, or if you are located on the second floor of a building you can read someone’s smartphone message located on the first floor. The distance in which you can intercept a message or email depends on the spy device used, either that is a normal handset camera or a more advanced camera with powerful lenses.

The team has presented their work at the Chicago’s Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Practically iSpy uses the nice features in smartphones to catch and view images and identify the letters typed by a handset user based on the smartphones own unique and helpful feature. iSpy brutally exploits your own smartphone features to catch and identify letters in over %90 of the time as it magnifies keys and letters on the virtual keyboard rise up in bubbles so the program identifies the letters based on the bubble location.

This article is not meant for advertising smartphone email and message spying programs but to call attention over the existence of such programs that can violate your privacy, so special privacy measures may be needed. They have proved that they can reconstruct fluent translation of recorded data in the majority of test cases, so the researchers said that these results show the importance of adjusting privacy expectations in response to new technologies.

It is well known that tablets and handsets have achieved networking and computing capabilities which are comparable to regular PCs or desktop computers, the goal of this workshop on security and privacy said the team was to really understand various security and privacy issues regarding handsets on platform such as Android and iOS.

Source:http://www.geeksailor.com/spy-software-to-read-emails-and-text-messages-from-smartphones-in-realtime/

As marketing pitches you don’t get much lower: “Track every text, every call and every move your spouse makes…”

Yes, software manufacturers have harnessed the green-eyed monster.

“A cell phone plays a role in almost every affair,” said one producer of mobile phone spyware.

Another spelled it out: “When you begin to notice signs of a cheating spouse, the best way to catch that cheat is to spy on his or her cell phone using spy software.
“Such software is required because the cell phone has become the modern day keeper of secrets and its uses are as versatile and diverse as their makes and models.”
But it is not just for jealous partners.

There is no way that a victim would know his phone had been comprehensively hacked.

Jason Hart, cyber security expert

Software designed to completely mine every secret on a smartphone can track its users, record their calls, copy their emails, read their text messages and bug the rooms the phones are sitting in.

Jason Hart, a cyber security expert with Cryptocard, explained how easy it is to turn a mobile phone into a pocket spy.
It starts with a little ’social engineering’.

By hacking the phone of someone the victim might trust, and learning something about them from reading their Tweets and Facebook page, the attacker will send a personalised email from a known account.

The user opens an email and a document, a picture, letter or pdf file.

A programme can be embedded in the attached document which takes the hacked user’s phone off to a secret website site which covertly downloads spying software onto the smartphone.

Shortened weblinks are also a risk.

“Using Facebook and Twitter (and) getting an individual to click on a shortened link would actually take them to a website and automatically install malware,” said Mr Hart.

“There is no way that a victim would know his phone had been comprehensively hacked.”

Spyware ‘can covertly operate all of a smartphone’s functions from afar’

Attacks on smartphones shot up by 46% last year, and this year the percentage is likely to be in the thousands.

We loaded the commercial software onto my phone and very quickly Mr Hart was watching my emails come through.

The vendors of the software promised that he would be able to intercept and listen to my calls – we could not get that to work. But, as a bug, my phone was close to perfect.

The software meant Mr Hart could dial into my phone and it would secretly answer – broadcasting any conversation I was having near the handset back to him.
“Once a criminal or spy has got hold of software like this and loaded it onto your phone, there is very little indeed that you will be able to do either to detect or, or defend yourself. This is a total compromise,” Mr Hart said.

Spyware can covertly operate all of a smartphone’s functions from afar, turning it on and off, and stealing its secret contents.
Almost 500,000 new smartphones will be sold this year around the world.

Malware developers are running ahead of the industry’s ability to develop tools which, in any case, would inevitably restrict how useful smartphones can be to a customer.

But, as losses to intellectual property theft are estimated to cost the UK £17bn a year, it is clear companies will be demanding an air gap between smartphones used for business – and smartphones used for everything else.

So, for the skiving worker, the truant teenager and the faithless spouse, there can only be a few words of advice – that phone isn’t smart, it’s a sneak.

Source:http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16099260

KOREAN HARDWARE GIANT Samsung has firmly denied claims that two of its laptops were sold complete with pre-installed spy software, saying it is a case of mistaken identity.

Reports said two of its laptops – R525 and R540 models – were bought and discovered with a pre-installed keylogger. Called Starlogger, this software has the capability to log your keystrokes and take screenshots. There was also a claim that Samsung technical support admitted the company put the software on the laptop to monitor its performance.

Of course, this caused a major uproar, with some believing that Samsung had “done another Sony”. A few years ago the Japanese corporation installed malware on peoples’ computers to find out more about their audio CD listening habits.

But in an official statement, Samsung claimed that it was all due to a false positive scan. It said, “Our findings indicate that the person mentioned in the article used a security program called VIPRE that mistook a folder created by Microsoft’s Live Application for a key logging software, during a virus scan.”

“The confusion arose because VIPRE mistook Microsoft’s Live Application multi-language support folder, ‘SL’ folder, as StarLogger.”

There does seem to be some sort of misunderstanding, as it’s hard to believe that Samsung would have been stupid enough in 2011 to stick malware onto its computers in the name of market research.

Source: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2038997/samsung-denies-selling-laptops-spy-software