We’re being told to be afraid of hackers again, only now they’re targeting our cellphones. But we use our cellphones!
Security experts at Georgia Tech said that hackers, those faceless but utterly contemptible malcontents, could soon turn their attention toward creating botnets out of cellphones. These botnets wouldn’t then be used to send e-mail and so forth, but rather would be used to buy ringtones from third-party services. So, if ToneCompany works in conjunction with Evil Hackers, Inc., the hackers could buy ToneCompany’s tones without your knowledge. Then the world economy collapses.
What this more of a problem is that cellphones are really only secure insofar as the phrase “security through obscurity” means anything. Once the bad guys figure out how to penetrate a Verizon Wireless or AT&T, what recourse do we have? Install battery-draining anti-virus software on our phones?
Theoretically, I guess, it’s a huge problem, or at least has the potential to become a huge problem. But will hackers abandon their current cash cow, attacking Windows machines, for theoretical gain?
And no, I’m not implying that Mr. Beckham is a hacker or anything; I just needed a photo of someone holding a phone, and Goldenballs does the trick quite nicely.