CNN Money: this drone can hack your phone

[Winehole23]

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?"
Related: Get your do ents by drone in Dubai



That's when Snoopy can swoop into action (and be its most devious, even more than the cartoon dog): the drone can send back a signal pretending to be networks you've connected to in the past. Devices two feet apart could both make connections with the quadcopter, each thinking it is a different, trusted Wi-Fi network. When the phones connect to the drone, Snoopy will intercept everything they send and receive.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/20/tech...=og.recommends

[pgardn]

Data sent via EM waves is essentially naked.

Wire tapping is so dated...