Can You Trust That App?

You’re on your smartphone, browsing through Facebook. In a fit of productivity, you search for, say, a project management app to help you use your non-Instagram and cat video time more effectively. You download and install the first one you come across … only to find that it doesn’t do anything. No reminders, no calendar, no clock, nothing.

Oh, well. You exit the app and go back to Facebook.

Sounds innocuous enough, right? What you might actually have done, however, is give a hacker access to your phone and all the important pieces of information it contains about you, your friends and family. And while the thief’s initial take can be relatively small compared to the kind of money he or she can make from hacking into your computer, over time, you could be leaking a lot of money without knowing it.

Click here for the full story from The UC Santa Barbara Current.