Stealthy video capturer: a new video-based spyware in 3G smartphones

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate video-based vulnerabilities in 3G Smartphones. Particularly, we design a new video-based spyware, called Stealthy Video Capturer (SVC). SVC can secretly record video information for the third party, greatly compromising Smartphone users' privacy. We implement the spyware and conduct extensive experiments on real world 3G Smartphones. Our experimental results show that the spyware can capture private video information with unremarkable power consumption, CPU and memory occupancy, hence being stealthy to Smartphone users. Moreover, SVC can naturally be resistant to almost all commercial anti-virus tools, like McAfee, Kaspersky and F-Secure mobile version. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first one to address video-based vulnerabilities in 3G Smartphones. We expect our work will prompt serious attentions on this issue.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.0 General
          Subjects: Security and protection (e.g., firewalls)

General Terms:
Design, Security

Keywords:
3g smartphones, privacy, security, spyware