» Is the cellphone in your pocket public or private? Google Wallet vulnerable to brute forcing the PIN. Rubin is a security researcher with zveloLABS.
His discovery centers around how the PIN is stored on Google Wallet – as a salted hash, but not within the secure hardware part of the phone known as the Secure Element. “It dawned on us,” he writes, “that a brute-force attack would only require calculating, at most, 10,000 SHA256 hashes. This is trivial even on a platform as limited as a smartphone. Proving this hypothesis took little time.”
Data on second hand mobile phones. Your smartphone could be your most dangerous possession - Jan. 11. By Blake Ellis, staff reporterJanuary 11, 2011: 10:44 AM ET NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Forget what's in your wallet -- beware your smartphone.
It's becoming one of your most dangerous possessions. If your phone was stolen a few years ago, the thief could make prank calls and read your text messages.