Android Phone Hacking Scare Alert

A flaw on a number of HTC smartphones available in Australia means a hacker can find out where you are, who you have called and sent text messages to and disable your phone remotely, security experts say.

To be exploited the flaw requires a rogue app to be granted access to the internet, which most apps require. Once granted access the app can then gain access to data that has been shown to be exposed.

Fairfax Media reported in May on a 400 per cent increase in malware since the middle of last year on Google Android, the mobile operating system installed on the HTC smartphones affected. Google regularly sweeps clean its Marketplace of malicious apps but doesn't always find the bad ones.

An Australian security expert has labelled the reported security flaw in HTC Android smartphones as "far more serious" than Apple's iPhone location tracking scandal and Facebook's tracking of users across the web.

Data exposed includes not only the phone's last known network and GPS locations and a limited previous history of locations (as was seen in the Apple iPhone location tracking scandal) but SMS and phone number data too, as well as a phone's list of user accounts, including email addresses and sync status for each.