10-year-old girl hacker discovers smartphone security flaw

[Jazzy]

A 10-year-old girl has uncovered a security flaw in popular Android and iOS games after becoming “bored” at their slow pace.



The young hacker, whose real name has not been disclosed, presented her findings at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas as part of a competition to find the next generation of computer security experts.



Going by the hacker name “CyFi”, she found that she could manually advance the clock in unnamed games to avoid waiting for virtual crops to grow. Independent researchers have confirmed the vulnerability.



She told CNET: “It was hard to make progress in the game, because it took so long for things to grow. So I thought, 'Why don't I just change the time?’”



CyFi’s hack also involved circumventing measures within the games designed to catch such cheating. She found that disconnecting the device from WiFi and advancing the clock in small increments avoided detection.



It has not been revealed how much control the technique grants an attacker over a device or which games are vulnerable, to allow developers to patch the security flaw.



Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...acker-discovers-smartphone-security-flaw.html

 

[Evil Eye]

I read that... Awesome girl!

 

[Blake]

That girl is awesome.

 

[Jazzy]

Good grief, the hackers are getting younger and younger. Amazing that a 10 year old even thought to do this.