Parental control apps prove easy to beat by kids and crims
Parental control apps may do more harm than good, according to researchers who found 18 bugs in eight Android apps with more than 20 million total downloads that could be exploited to, among many nefarious acts, control other devices on the parents' network.
In addition to being"easily bypassed" by the children they aim to protect, the buggy apps also make it fairly easy for miscreants to access both parents' and kids' data and devices, the researchers said in a report published on Tuesday. After those patches are rolled out, the duo said they'll release more technical details about the vulnerabilities. But in the meantime, here's what we know about the bugs. Oh, and"nearly all" of the apps analyzed"use some sort of tracking services," the researchers noted.
Some of the apps could be backed up using Android Debug Bridge , a command-line tool that allows developers to communicate with an Android device to create backups, debug apps, and change device settings. However, it could also be misused to allow attackers to access a backup, and then steal sensitive configuration files or private data stored on the device, according to the researchers.
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