In an amazing yet terrifying new research, we learn that iPhone spy software not just limited to the domains of activity within the smartphone itself, but also to electronic devices nearby it. A group of researchers at Georgia Tech have shown how they have been able to use the accelerometer of an iPhone to pick up what is being typed on a pc keyboard within the range of the iPhone. So in actuality, the cell phone spyware can also work as a keystroke logger if so wished to.
This sounds much like an espionage movie where the hero or heroine uses their special training to rewire ordinary electronic devices nearby and turn them into special spy weapons. But this time the movie is your ordinary life and the spying tools are there for the taking by anyone who knows how.
Possible but probable
So now we know that things like these don’t just happen in movies but there is a very real possibility that they can happen in our own lives. Just like malware developers can infiltrate our iOS systems and plant secret microphones in our homes to catch our conversations, smartphones can be used to monitor what we are typing on our computers. The possibility has been established but exactly how easy is this to do?
Well yes, a research team at Georgia Tech did it but does that mean its child’s play and anyone can do it? Not yet at least. The researchers say that it isn’t as reliable as it should be. But also depends on the phone being used. The more advanced the cell phone (for instance in this case an iPhone 4 is better than an iPhone 3GS) the better quality feedback one would get. However, most new cell phones are sophisticated enough to be able to perform this kind of surveillance with a good 80% accuracy.
Real World Application
When it comes to spying and hacking in the real world, an 80% accuracy rate is not much to go by. Especially since we know that the Georgia Tech researchers based their keyboard typing assessment on lexical probability matching. This means that whatever may not be present in a dictionary format would be unreadable for the iPhone spyware to conceive. And since most users have passwords which are strings of letters and number (at least that is what is strongly preached by every anti-spyware and security organization), a users password is unlikely to be picked up by this sort of a spyware app. If your password is safe chances are that a lot of your personal information is safe as well as that is the main target of hackers.
Plus with this kind of a word match technique there is a lot of room for interference and misinformation to be spread. One wrong word can change the entire scenario. Moreover, the key is that the iPhone be kept near the keyboard. By simply introducing distance between the device and your computer, users would be safe from any real harm. So currently, this is an application which still has to have its glitches worked out before it can leave the world of the cell phone and enter the computer.
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