Apps are hack prone

Tens of thousands of mobile phone applications expose their users to attacks by hackers looking for passwords, addresses, location data and even door codes.

While a team of German scientists would not name the vulnerable apps, they said that staff of Facebook and Apple are now working with software developers to double check their security settings.

Lead scientist Eric Bodden warned that the affected apps included games, social networks, messaging, medical and bank transfer programs.

In a report by Reuters, Bodden said the problem is in the way developers authenticate users when storing their data in online databases like Amazon’s Web Services or Facebook’s Parse.

Even though said databases offer ways for developers to protect the data, most app creators choose the default option “based on a string of letters and numbers embedded in the software’s code called a “token.”

Bodden said hackers can easily extract and tweak those tokens in the app to get access to the private data of all users of that app stored in the server. -end-

Image by Telegraph UK