KuwaitHackers.com founder discusses ‘mobile hacking’
AUK holds interactive seminar
By Ahmed Al-Naqeeb
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 19: In an interactive seminar held at AUK last week, the subject of mobile hacking was tackled by Basel Al-Othman, founder of KuwaitHackers.com and an information security doctoral candidate at De Monfort University in Leicester, UK.
Al-Othman firstly asserted his appreciation to the new Electronic Crimes Law, recently passed by Parliament and will be implemented by the beginning of the new year. He said that this law is something that is overdue and that it should have been implemented a long time ago, considering the technological and interconnected age we are currently in.
He explained that there are 3 types of hackers, Black-Hats, White-Hats and Grey-Hats. Black-Hats are the most popular due to media attention, as they are the ones who violate computer security for personal gain and malicious reasons while white-hat hackers are the opposite. They’re the “ethical hackers,” experts in compromising computer security systems who use their abilities for good, ethical, and legal purposes rather than bad, unethical, and criminal purposes.
Like most things in life there is a grey area, and that is where the Grey-Hat hacker fall in. They do not work for their own personal gain or to cause damage, but they may technically commit crimes and do arguably unethical things.
Basel Al-Othman went on to explain why and how smart phone users may be vulnerable to malicious hacking and provided vital information on types and techniques that hackers might use such as malware hacks, where a hacker will have to physically obtain your phone only for a few minutes in order to download the malware, which will enable him to fully control it via a remote control panel, leaving the data in your phone and its functions completely open for misuse.
Furthermore, Al-Othman demonstrated a live hack on his personal smart phone which has been installed with a malware prior to the seminar. He handed the phone to one of the audience and asked him to change the pin code which no one else would know, a couple of clicks later, Basel was able to remove the pin code as if it was never there. He also demonstrated how he was able to access the onboard camera to take a picture and the malware sent it to his personal e-mail.
Although amusing to see it happen in a presentation, Basel asserted that this is not a matter that would be amusing if your personal pictures and other data is being taken and used for unknown reasons.
Therefore, he strongly advised that smart phone users should stay on top of things when it comes to the security of their personal data, things like jail breaking a phone or placing an easy to predict passwords are simple things factors, but will effectively help you secure your phone, as computers nowadays can run thousands of variations in minutes, which also demands the periodic change of personal passwords and pin codes.