New smartphone app exposes vulnerability to hackers

London, Mar 9 (ANI): Experts have developed a smartphone application called 'WeatherFistBadMonkey' to illustrate new threat 'botnet' that has hit the cyber world.

Derek Brown and Danny Tijerina at TippingPoint, a computer security firm in Austin, Texas, had first developed 'WeatherFist' to provide a weather forecasting service.

However, they then upgraded it to 'WeatherFistBadMonkey', which can be used to steal files from the phone, log keyboard entries or send emails.

The researchers' aim is to point at the possibility of smartphones- such as the iPhone and devices running the Android operating system- getting trapped in 'botnets'.

Basically, 'botnets' are networks of computers that have been broken into and brought under the control of a hacker.

Brown and Tijerina's software is available on ModMyi, an alternative app store that caters to iPhones that have been modified to accept software not on the official app store.

This modification, known as jailbreaking, is strongly discouraged by Apple.

However, almost 7800 users have downloaded WeatherFist onto their phones in the last few months.

"The average user is not tech-savvy enough to police the apps they put on their phone," New Scientist quoted Brown as saying. (ANI)