Nowadays we are defined by our phones. When you buy a smartphone, you automatically become a convert, defending the benefits of your particular brand over others. Some users become part of the Apple faithful, flocking to their exclusive stores to buy designer iPhones. Others are Google fanatics, with alerts set in their Nexus 5 to warn of the imminent arrival of Nexus 6. Compulsive Amazon shoppers click away on their Fire Phone cart, while traditionalists continue to trust in the numerous and much-lauded features of Samsung Galaxy.

Unless you are one of those who has joined the retro phone trend and have renounced WhatsApp forever, we are sorry to inform you that your smartphone -whatever the make- has a security flaw. Specifically, in the use of NFC (‘Near Field Communication’), a wireless communications system that lets you transfer data at high frequency over short distances, at a range of 10 centimeters. In fact, NFC is a subset of RFID (Radio-frequency identification) systems that have been used for years now to identify pets (microchips). So if dogs can be recognized through this system, why not phones?

In smartphones, NFC allows data to be exchanged between devices, although a more interesting use for this technology is that it allows our phones to be used as credit cards.

You can already use your NFC to pay for things thanks to Google and its PassWallet app. Apple, not wanting to be left behind, has introduced the Apple Pay system with iPhone 6. And now banks are getting on the mobile payment technology bandwagon. In the future, we will even be able to use phones as subway tickets or door keys. NFC offers the potential for all-in-one devices with myriad uses.

If you weren’t previously aware of this technology, then you must be marveling at the thought of not having to rummage around drawers looking for your wallet or keys. Well, it’s true, but don’t get too excited. Even though the system operates over very short distances, it still has security flaws. In the recent Pw20wn Mobile 2014 competition in Tokyo, where there was a reward of US$150,000 (€120,000) for the sharpest hackers on the planet, security flaws were detected in the NFC systems of many top-of-the-range phones.

Two separate groups of experts demonstrated during the competition different ways of compromising the NFC technology on Samsung Galaxy S5. These hackers are two-nil up on one of the most prestigious smartphones on the market.

Even the all-powerful Google has been unable to keep its precious Nexus 5 free from security problems. In the Pw20wn Mobile 2014 competition, a third NFC attack forced the pairing of devices thanks to a combination of two malicious programs.

And it’s not the first time that an NFC security hole has been uncovered in Google’s device. Charlie Miller, an ‘ethical hacker’, was able to communicate with a Nexus S through a chip placed near the device, as he demonstrated at Black Hat 2012 in Las Vegas. After this he forced the phone to enter a malicious website, from where he took complete control of the phone by exploiting the NFC vulnerability. The Nokia N9 was also subject to the same attack on this occasion.

Although there can be no doubt that the detection of these flaws improves the security of our smartphones, perhaps for the moment at least we all feel a little safer keeping our money and the keys to our houses in our pockets, handbags or under a pile of papers on our desks. Even the sharpest hacker would find it difficult to exploit a security hole there.

Nevertheless, your NFC could still be useful for many things. And no doubt it will gradually become more secure. For the moment, fans of Nexus 6 are looking forward to getting their hands on it, and plans are afoot to unlock the phone automatically with the help of an NFC ring on the user’s finger. Could the phone’s PIN also be hacked? Let’s see.

The post With NFC, even the most expensive smartphones are vulnerable appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.

You must start from a base: no voting system is 100% secure. Neither traditional nor electronic. Ballot stuffing is a practice as old as elections themselves and it refers to one of the multiple techniques used throughout history to tamper with election results: submitting multiple ballots per person.

There is also the personation technique, deceased voters who come back to life for one day to vote; and electoral registration fraud, voters registering illegally in a constituency that does not correspond to them. That is not to speak of the buses that pick up people from the villages to take them to the capital to vote, the party obviously covering the expense.

Electronic voting, the essence of so-called “cyber-democracy”, is not safe from fraud. In fact, there is a perception that it is even less secure, easier to tamper with than methacrylate ballot boxes.

For example, a recent study by researchers Dan Zimmerman and Joe Kiniry analyzes the risks of voting via email, one of the methods already being used in various countries, and advise against using it. And quite a few European countries have gone back on their decision to use online voting, due to the controversy that has arisen.

The Netherlands, pioneer in implementing electronic voting (a legal provision being put in place in 1965), decided to go back to using ballot papers in 2008, two years after the publication of a study that revealed a serious security problem in the system.

In 2009, following a long legal battle, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled electronic voting unconstitutional, as it considered that it did not allow citizens without technical knowledge to supervise the election process. In the same year, Ireland scrapped the online voting system. Finland halted its program in 2010, after invalidating the results of the first pilot test, which was carried out in 2008.

The United Kingdom carried out more than thirty pilot tests between 2002 and 2007, but none of them returned sufficient guarantees for authorities. The Electoral Commission suspended the implementation of electronic voting in 2008.

In Spain, the surprise political party that was successful in the European elections, Podemos, is using an electronic voting system to make internal decisions. It is called Agora Voting and involves three phases: One, the party’s responsibility is to make sure that the person voting is who they say they are; the second and third, registration and counting of the votes, are the shared responsibility of the so-called “voting authorities” (independent observers who certify that no personal interests contaminate the process). All of the software used is free software and after voting, each voter can check the integrity of the vote using an identifier.

In this case, the largest crack in the system is in the Podemos registration or membership system, which only asks for a national identity card number and phone number. Both of these things, as already proved, can be faked.

To sum up, as Eduardo Robles, cofounder of Agora Voting, said, there is not a big difference between the traditional voting system and the electronic. “Can ballot papers get lost? Of course, but it is very difficult because they are kept guarded. Can ballot boxes be tampered with? Yes.” And the same happens with the virtual ones.

Security mechanisms improve very quickly but so do the techniques used by the attacker. While there is interest in changing the results, ballot stuffing will continue to evolve.

The post Electronic voting may not be 100% secure (but neither is traditional voting) appeared first on MediaCenter Panda Security.