Think all those personal details you share on amateur young folks haved sex videoyour dating app profile are private? Think again.
Researchers at the Kaspersky Lab in Moscow found that many of the most popular dating apps are easily hacked. Not only could they get basic information like users’ names and locations, but in some instances they could also see people’s messages and which other users they’ve looked at. Yikes.
SEE ALSO: Google is offering $1000 to anyone who can hack Tinder, Snapchat, Dropbox, and moreThe investigation, which was led by Roman Unuchek, Mikhail Kuzin, and Sergey Zelensky, looked at a big chunk of common apps including Tinder, Bumble, OKCupid, WeChat, Badoo, and Zoosk. A few different levels of testing were done on both iOS and Android versions of these apps.
The simplest hacking test just pulled basic stuff like education or employer info from Tinder, Bumble, and Happn. The researchers then tried to match that info with other social media networks to identify people. They succeeded 60 percent of the time (the researchers didn't specify how many attempts they made to do so). And, of course, many people already do a low-tech version of this when they Tindstagram.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable It should be pointed out that for other apps where you only have access to first name, age, and photos, it proved very difficult to find people’s other social media profiles and pages -- even using Google image search.
A slightly more complex test was done that exploited the location feature that most dating apps use. You’re not supposed to be able to pinpoint someone’s exact location, but the researches got around this by giving the app fake coordinates and then seeing how their distance from a given user changed. That means someone could find you basically right in your apartment, instead of in a several block radius.
SEE ALSO: Dating app uses AR to make your search for love even weirderThe researchers also found that for a few of the apps transmission of certain information was not encrypted. So for Tinder, Bumble (only on Android), Paktor, and Badoo (only on iOS) it was possible to use uploaded photos to see the other accounts a user is viewing.
Also, if you’re using Mamba for iOS, put on the brakes. It’s not encrypted at all, so the researchers were able to get login info for people and then use it to access their accounts and even send messages. Urrrrrgh.
But there’s particularly bad news for Android users. There are two slightly more complex attacks that involve HTTPS certificates and getting superuser rights (more details here) that make it simple to get complete access to lots of personal information and any info the app has stored on your phone.
SEE ALSO: Here's what people actually say when they block you on a dating appThere are a few things the researchers recommend you do, should you wish to continue your quest to find love.
They advise you skip using public Wi-Fi. You should also use a VPN and malware detector on your phone. And it's also probably best to skip including anything deeply specific on your dating profile, since it can be used to help identify you.
Of course all of this assumes you haven’t already thrown your phone down the garbage disposal, crawled under your bed, never to venture out again.
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