With all that hullabaloo regarding the government’s PRISM program, it seems that the FBI could soon be getting their fair share of the flack as well thanks to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, in which the publication alleges that the FBI has been secretly turning our smartphones into microphones in which they can listen in to.
The report has revealed via leaked court documents that agencies like the FBI have been secretly delivering spyware onto Android phones through email and web links. The spyware essentially has the ability to activate the microphone on your device, from which the FBI could potentially listen to what’s going on around you or your conversation.
While this exploit could technically target computers too, it seems that the issue here is how it has affected our smartphones, especially Android which currently has the biggest slice of the market share as far as smartphones are concerned.
This hacking is not as nefarious and as big brotherly as you might think, as sources who are familiar with the program claim that the FBI uses these tools to keep up with their suspects who have grown more hi-tech, although we’re guessing this probably won’t stop the conspiracy theorists, especially with the NSA’s PRISM program having been exposed.
In any case for the most part if you’re just a regular person going about their daily business, then we suppose you don’t have much to worry about, except for the potential invasion of privacy.