Your most intimate companion may be betraying you. Smartphones are lucrative targets for cybercriminals and keeping them true might not be as easy as we hoped
IT'S 2 am. Do you know what your smartphone is up to? It may not be sleeping faithfully beside you. Seduced by a server far away, it springs to life and betrays your trust, giving away your secrets and running up quite a tab.
For many, the nightmare is a reality. In 2011, for example, a cybercriminal in China gained control of hundreds of thousands of phones, remotely directing them to send premium-rate text messages, call premium toll numbers and play pay-per-view videos while their owners slept on obliviously.
Other phones develop late-night gambling habits. In 2012, journalist Elise Ackerman wrote about her friend, Mike, who caught his phone playing online poker. It then used his credit card ...
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