How New Alerts Can Help Secure Your Phone

August 31, 2015 at 1:39 pm By

Unfortunately we live in a world where everything in technology is game for cyber hackers looking to steal your information or just plain accomplish the goal of hacking devices. A new company is trying to help mobile users figure out when apps might be malicious simply through a processing chip and alert system.

“That little voice — most likely it’s your common sense — might just get some answers in new smartphones in 2016,” says Laura Hautala of CNET.

“If they contain a SnapDragon 820 processing chip made by Qualcomm, they’ll have a built-in capacity to track your apps and tell you when they’re acting strange. The company calls it Smart Protect. That’s good news in a marketplace full of apps that could be trouble in disguise, and might restore some trust in many apps when news of their dangers is mounting.”

Hautala puts things into perspective by using SnoopWall as her example of mobile cyber security. The company was able to discover 10 apps that can use your phones camera to take photos and record videos. You’re cellphone camera is now becoming a target just as much as webcams on computers have been in the past and continue to be today. While SnoopWall suggests deleting your flashlight apps and covering up your phones cameras when not in use, Hautala says that Qualcomm is working on a different solution.

“Qualcomm is hoping there’s a better way. If you were using your flashlight app, for example, and then closed it, a phone with the company’s new processor could watch to see what happens next,” according to the report.

“If the app started sending out your location and silently taking photos, an alert would flash across your screen. Then it would be up to you to decide what to do next. The phone could also alert you that installing an app would trigger something really bad, like ransomware. That app would lock you out of all your files, jumble them up, and refuse to give them back unless you paid some money.”

Almost any app has the potential of being hacked which could turn your mobile device into a video broadcasting device without you ever being aware of it. Qualcomm might be on to something but 2016 mobile consumers will be the judge of that.

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