According to Anton Averin, Deputy Director of the Institute of Information Technologies of the Synergy University, if you wish and need, you can track almost any smartphone, both using standard utilities preinstalled on devices, and with the connection of specialized programs and other vulnerabilities. The most popular surveillance targets are Android devices.
"According to world statistics for 2020, the share of devices running Android OS is 70-71% and this indicator remains almost unchanged since almost all mobile device manufacturers use this operating system in their smartphones. Android devices are in demand among cybercriminals because of the great demand, as well as the availability vulnerabilities,” noted the expert.
With iOS devices, too, not everything is as good as it may seem. Although Apple positions its products as one of the most secure, they also have accidents. For example, there are periodic leaks of user data from the “Cloud".
Mr. Averin added that the more "holes" on the software and hardware, the more vulnerable the device is to attackers.
In addition, recently the head of the IT Department of the software developer Reksoft, Yevgeny Chertok, called a way to disable surveillance on a smartphone. According to him, if you delete a number of applications, you will be able to disable surveillance by those who collect user information by default for advertising purposes. At the same time, the expert stressed that it will not be possible to completely exclude the possibility of surveillance by the special services.
