Smartwatches open to cyberattacks, says HP

Smartwatches are susceptible to online security crime, concluded a test conducted by software vendor HP Fortify.

The test used a combination of automated tools and manual testing to gauge the security of 10 smartwatches and their iOS cloud, mobile app and Android components.

HP did not say which smartphones have been tested.

The research found that all smartwatches that were tested were coupled with a mobile phone interface lacking two-factor authentication, along with a feature to lock accounts once five attempts at passwords were made. Two devices could be coupled with another phone easily if stolen.

Three watches were open to accounts being harvested, which means that a hacker could access the device, along with any stored data, by a poor effort to lock out accounts and an inefficient password policy.

Most (70%) of devices experienced issues with protecting firmware updates, which include transmitting the updates without any encryption.

HP said:

“All smartwatches collected some form of personal information, such as name, address, date of birth, weight, gender, heart rate and other health information. Given the account enumeration issues and use of weak passwords on some products, exposure of this personal information is a concern.”

Smartwatches are yet another device now open to cyberattacks, and while this may not appear to affect SMEs at face value, should any malware make its way on to the devices and the user transfer data to a work-based computer, it could potentially cause issues. This is why it is so important to open information security jobs to those in the know.