Hackers can use smartphones to track movements, steal info

NEW BRUNSWICK — Researchers at Rutgers University say in a study that mobile devices, especially smartphones, are vulnerable to hackers who can track people’s movements, steal personal information and eavesdrop on conversations, a report in the Press of Atlantic City said.

Professors and graduate students studied a kind of attack called a rootkit, which aims at a phone’s operating system and can go undetected to the point of fooling a cell phone’s anti-virus software, according to the report.

Author Jeffrey Bickford said that the study highlights that the increased complexity of smart phones makes them susceptible to the same kind of attacks as computers, the report said.

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