Whats Up With This App?

I had a discussion with a colleague of mine about Facebook privacy issues, his point in the discussion was that he has no secrets and the information that he publishes on Facebook is something he is willing to share even with the risk of this information being out there… I think that this way of thinking is common to many of the internet users, they think positive (don’t we all).  I on the other end know some of the internet mysteries and as a result think of the worst thing that can happen. In order to make my point, I asked this colleague “and what about your phone number, do you mind sharing your phone number with the rest of the world?” at that point I could see that I made him think.

Well the point here is that some of the information that we consider confidential is out their without our knowledge, take for example a very popular mobile application named WhatsApp. Each time you start working with the application your phone number is being sent in plain-text (this information is not new it was reported more than a year ago) and since using wifi networks in order to avoid using SMS messages is what this application is all about,  anyone that sniffs the wifi network I’m using can see my phone number!

Think of the following scenario, I’m at the airport using WhatsApp over the airport public wifi network, someone sniffs this traffic, sees my phone number, calls me and presents himself as the taxi driver that was sent to pick me up, well you can imagine where this story can end…

While mobile apps bring a lot of technological improvements to our life, answer some of our needs and may save us money. it may also bring risk to our privacy that can lead to the situation where all our personal information can be misused in so many ways. The mobile apps industry is in its early days and therefore security awareness is not the main concern for those  who develop those apps. Therefore it is our obligation as end users to be cautious and aware of the risks out there.