I can spy on your mobile and read your SMSes

Yesterday, Oct 29th Google announced that a controversial application called Secret SMS replicator was pulled off the Android Market. The application secretly forwarded a copy of the SMSes received by the phone to another user. The company which developed the application marketed it as a spying tool and even gave the example of how it could be used to spy on a boyfriend. Today, there are over 500,000 applications available to mobile users. In the near future, there will be an increase in local applications providing services in the areas of social networking, sports, health, business, news, games, travel and education. Smart phones today, have become a handy tool to access mail, store contacts & documents and take pictures. They are a repository of corporate and personal data, any compromise of which may adversely affect the reputation of the user or cause financial loss. Today, the major threats are from spyware and viruses. Spyware accounts for 70% of the threat. This is set to increase as most mobile users are not security aware.

I ran a quick search and found that spying application were freely available since 2009! I inserted a copy of the spyware functionality as advertised online into my blog.

	INTERCEPT SMS (TEXT) MESSAGES            Read incoming & outgoing SMS messages sent & received from the target's iphone. This gives you the secret ability to spy on the iPhone user's entire SMS activity.
	SECRETLY READ CALL LOGS Spy on the Android phone's call history. You'll know the name (linked to the phone's address book) and number of all incoming & outgoing calls.
	LOCATION TRACKING This will enable you to spy on the Android phone's location by tracking the cell phone's ID location. This is definitely not as accurate as GPS tracking, but it will give you an approximate location.

My advice in bold letters, not rudely though is “THINK OF THE SECURITY RISK WHEN YOU DOWNLOAD. THERE IS A REASON WHY WE CALL THESE APPLICATIONS TROJANS. WHAT THE TROJAN HORSE DID TO TROY, IS WHAT THESE TROJANS DO TO YOUR MOBILE DATA AND REPUTATION”