Shh… Your Devices May Be Listening To You

By Yvonne Taunton

We have become accustomed to carrying our mobile phones and tablets everywhere we go. The mobile phone has essentially become an integral part of our everyday lives, helping us to communicate, make payments and socialize. Unfortunately, the smart devices of today are equipped with many different types of sensors that may be listening in on our conversations.

Ragib Hasan, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says these sensors include accelerometers, GPS, gyroscopes and more.

“In reality, we have threats from two directions – malicious apps that hijack the phone sensors to spy on us, and otherwise benign apps secretly listening to or sensing our activities, and then sending the data ‘home’ for advertising and other activities,” Hasan said.

Please CLICK HERE to finish reading the article on the Alabama NewsCenter website.

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