This drone can steal what’s on your phone

The next threat to your privacy could be hovering over head while you walk down the street.

Here's some scary technology.

Hackers have developed a drone that can steal the contents of your smartphone -- from your location data to your Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) password -- and they've been testing it out in the skies of London. The research will be presented next week at the Black Hat Asia cybersecurity conference in Singapore.

The technology equipped on the drone, known as Snoopy, looks for mobile devices with Wi-Fi settings turned on.

Snoopy takes advantage of a feature built into all smartphones and tablets: When mobile devices try to connect to the Internet, they look for networks they've accessed in the past.

"Their phone will very noisily be shouting out the name of every network its ever connected to," Sensepost security researcher Glenn Wilkinson said. "They'll be shouting out, 'Starbucks, are you there?...McDonald's Free Wi-Fi, are you there?"

What are the odds that this tech is bought up by the NSA among other 3 letter agencies and the military? For both domestic and international uses?

I would say it's pretty damn high.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I don't know about the being bought up.

They have probably already have the data, therefore don't need this tech.

andr3w68
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

I don't know about the being bought up.

They have probably already have the data, therefore don't need this tech.

Yeah but they really on third party ISP's to provide access to the data. In this case, they can just do it real time, without the need to involve ANY kind of outside party.

That's what worries me. Just more power being handed to those we already don't trust.

~Tenth

A smart technology user avoids these pitfalls.

Having you phones wifi on all the time, looking for connection drains your battery anyway, and should be disabled to prolong the life in the first place.

Well,that is reason enough to turn off my wifi when I leave the house,if I take my phone with me,and I don't always. But ,my wifi is always on at home as I use it for internet. So we need to fear using our smart phones wifi no matter where we are? Aside from social media passwords and my family phone numbers plus a dozen photos of my grandbabies,there is nothing worth stealing off my phone. What exactly are they hoping to find?

reply to post by AccessDenied


Theres usually nothing worth stealing from mine either.

But examples could be, Bank Passwords used to log in with Mobile apps, pretty much anything that can access and use passwords could be exploited from the mobile device with enough work.

Really, The best "cyber" security, is minimize risk.

Monitor your accounts regularly, check credit, don't bank from mobile platforms, use Anti-virus, firewall, etc.

Any risk can be minimized, but anyone willing to take the time can bypass, so really, just be aware.

There is a cat laying on top of my phone at this time. It would save us some money in cat food and litter if the drone would come steal our cat. It better be a big drone, that cat weighs about eighteen pounds and feels like a chunk of lead.

reply to post by benrl


I never online bank. Have never trusted it. No online shopping either,so no credit card data,as I have never had one. For all rights and purposes,my phone has zero info of value to anyone but me. Unless they are mining for my net habits , which still,very boring.

That is scary stuff. Its all like a game of chess really. I'm interested too see what technology comes out to counter this new hack. Someone will find a way too counter it, and then someone else will find a way to counter the counter. Its a vicious technological strategic cycle based on loopholes, exploitation, and strategy. It'll be interesting to observe; sucks the majority of us are pawns in this game of cat and mouse.

i got a feeling it doesn't matter if you got your wifi on or not. the capability is there, it will be used. us turning off some setting isn't gonna save us no way. hell our phones can be off and still be used as a listening device. whats the range on this? 30 feet? 500 feet?

reply to post by tothetenthpower


THAT'S AWESOME! Anyway people should know by now that if you're gonna do a dirty then you gotta do it face to face.

Well they wont find anything on my phone except what the TSA find when they randomly search my phone......
Just 334 hi res pics of my JUNK!! hope they enjoy the close ups!!