Who’s Hacking Your Smartphone Microphone?

By jacob Evans

You’re strolling around the mall while pleasant music plays in the background. Sounds harmless, right? Well, the tunes might contain a high frequency message that only your cell phone can hear. This isn’t subliminal advertising; instead, it’s a real risk to any organization that issues phones to its employees.

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Harmless Apps? Hardly

It all starts with the user installing a seemingly harmless chat app. We might love to send voice messages, but we trade this for microphone access. This can easily mean permission for complete microphone control – even when you don’t activate the app. So a third party could easily turn on your cell phone’s mic… and listen.

They’re Listening To Millions

This technology is already used by advertisers that transmit ultrasonic signals from radio, TV and Internet ads or any other place that transmits sound – maybe even from a mall sound beacon. The chat app turns the microphone on to receive signals which activate browser cookies. Now your phone freely shares info about what ads you prefer and how long you watch or hear them. It can even track your behavior in response to such ads.

As the IoT continues …read more

Source:: Private Eye2