Wearables are vulnerable to phishing scams: McAfee
Bluetooth-enabled wearable devices may become more vulnerable to sophisticated phishing scams as a result of poorly written code, according to a paper by McAfee. Among several potential vulnerabilities that have been identified, the report finds that the most common cause of backdoors and data breaches was sloppy code. The security software company warns that GPS data collected from these devices will be compromised and that bluetooth continues to provide a "weak link" in security.

Hackers will be able to collect GPS data from wearable devices and use it to launch sophisticated phishing scams, according to a report by McAfee.

The report identifies a number of vulnerabilities hackers could use to exploit wearable devices. One of the largest weaknesses is poorly written code, which could enable hackers to create a backdoor to data that is stored on smartphones.

However, Brue Snell, technical director of Intel Security Japan believes that handsets will not entirely be at risk: “We doubt that a smartphone will be completely compromised by an attack through a device.

“We expect to see the control apps for these devices compromised in the next 12 to 18 months, in a way that will provide valuable data for spear-phishing attacks.”

In the report, Snell also states that Bluetooth is the ‘weak link’, making reference to a series of whitepapers written by Mike Ryan about the implications of Bluetooth technology.

There will be 780 million wearable devices by 2019, according to research conducted by ABI Research. This research highlights how attacks from hackers on wearables could increase.