Communications of the ACM
Samsung, LG Smartwatches Give p Personal Data to Researchers
Researchers at the University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group have extracted personal data from two smartwatches.
Credit: Josh Miller/Cnet
Researchers at the University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group (UNHCFREG) have shown they can extract personal information from two smartwatches because none of the data is encrypted.
From one watch, the researchers were able to retrieve email, calendar, contacts, and pedometer data. From the other watch, the researchers were able to retrieve health, email, messages, and contacts data.
The researchers noted the ease with which the smartwatches were hacked highlights the importance of data encryption. "It was not very difficult to get the data, but expertise and research was required," says UNHCFREG director Ibrahim Baggili.
The researchers will present a paper on their work at a digital forensics conference in August.
Last year, UNHCFREG researchers found that many smartphone communications apps were sending messages without using encryption. In addition, earlier this year the group released Datapp, a Windows program that enables people to check for unencrypted message data.
From CNet
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