Security issues with Smartwatches

Security issues with Smartwatches

by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 2 août 2015

Smartwatches are the latest technology trends with even players like Apple foraying into the smartwatch market. Apple Watch was launched earlier this year and Samsung Gear poses a tough challenge to Apple. Wearable from other smartphone manufacturers such as LG are already in the market. The smartwatch market is hot and is only growing exponentially. However, the rising popularity of the smartwatches also make them vulnerable to several security threats from hackers.

Smartwatches mean new doorways for hackers to access personal and professional information of the users wearing these watches. A study conducted by Hewlett-Packard has confirmed it and has proven that the security measures used by smartwatches are inadequate and they are highly prone to hacking and other security breaches.

All of these watches use TLS and SSL encryptions but many of them still use SSL v2 and can be hacked using POODLE attack. Also, these watches have poor user interface and 30 percent of them have web applications that have cloud enabled interface. This means that they can be attacked using account harvesting methods and hackers can make unlimited attempts to guess the passwords. Another major security issue is that 30 percent of these watches do not have two factor authentication and do not get locked even after 5 failed login attempts.

70 percent of these smartwatches do not receive timely firmware updates and that makes them vulnerable to hacking attacks. Apart from regular username and password information and other confidential data, smartwatches store even very personal user data such as health records and heart pulse rate. With the easy manner in which they can be hacked, means that these are vulnerable to several security threats and even the most basic of the data of the individuals are prone to risks of being compromised by hackers who can gain easy access to such information.