The Drone that Hacked Your Phone

Is that drone spying on you? The security hazard of the future is already here! A new quadcopter drone has the ability to connect with smart phones and steal personal personal data. Snoopy, as the drone has been aptly named, is able to exploit smartphone handsets that are looking for available wi-fi signals.

Snoopy was developed by a security company based in UK and South Africa. Essentially it impersonates the previously used networks that a smart phone has connected to. Once the user logs on to the impersonated network, the rogue operator can gain access to all the information stored on the phone.

This includes the entire phone book, saved passwords for Facebook, email, other social networking site and worst of all any banking details still in the history of the phone.  Needless to say the loss of data could cause significant problems for the smart phone owner. The software that steals the data has been available for sometime, however the technology of the drone used to implement it is new.

Snoopy was revealed in the recent Black Hat security conference in Singapore. Needless to say it has given smart phone manufacturers a great deal to think about. Now they will need a massive science project aimed at protecting their smartphones from Snoopy and its ilk.