Researching Cybercrime of the Future, Thieves Turning Smartphones into Spies

A new app, named PlaiceRaider, has been created by US military experts at Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, which uses Android smartphone cameras to silently take pictures and send them back to a remote server. Each image contains data on the time, location, and orientation in space. This added information allows the software to generate 3D models of any room in which images were captured.

The app was created to illustrate how cybercriminals might operate in the future. PlaiceRaider’s creators demonstrated how, with this technology, they can now read the numbers of a checkbook, see sensitive information on a computer monitor, and steal personal identification information such as social security numbers or credit card information.

This app can run in the background of any smartphone using the Android 2.3 operating system. It is expected that this type of malware could very easily be made to run on iOS or Windows Phones as well. The team offered ways in which manufactures could secure this type of vulnerability such as making it impossible to silence the camera shutter sound. Even so, the sound can still be disabled on many models.

Original article by Eddie Wrenn.
Read the full story here.