The permissions of an application may include having access to a phone ’s camera, or a laptop ’s contact list, and so on. Granting these permissions may not be a mistake in itself, and generally, responsible developers will not request anything they don’t need the application to run. For example, some chatting programs require access to your microphone not because it wants to eavesdrop on you, but because it has voice memo capabilities. However, the existence of this feature is likely to give attackers a great opportunity to eavesdrop on it. However, if blocking that contact’s access does not break the basic functionality, then we must advise you to turn off this permission.
What’s more, do you know your apps can even know everything on your clipboard? The researchers demonstrated how applications can get detailed information about users through the clipboard. This is a way for any installed application to get detailed information about the user. Users can inadvertently display their precise location to the app by simply copying photos taken with the built-in Camera app to clipboard. With the GPS coordinates contained in the embedded image properties, any application that the user uses after copying such applications can paste the photos onto the pasteboard to read the location information stored in the image properties and accurately infer the precise location of the user.
Sometimes, these permissions may endanger not only one’s personal privacy but also the cybersecurity of a company. Therefore, Cyber Awareness Training is an efficient measure to make your employees the strongest cyber defenders.