Samsung, LG Smartwatches Give Up Personal Data To Researchers

An anonymous reader sends word that security researchers have been able to extract personal information from a pair of smartwatches: the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear 2 Neo. The G Watch gave up calendar information, pedometer data, and the user's email address, while the Gear 2 Neo gave up health data, emails, messages, and contact information. The researchers said it wasn't very difficult to get the data, in part because it wasn't encrypted. "The Gear 2 Neo uses Samsung's Tizen operating system, while the LG G Watch is one of several models that uses Google's Android Wear operating system. The researchers obtained the data both by poking through the watches' files and finding traces of watch activity on the Samsung Android smartphone to which they were linked. The researchers also have begun testing the Apple Watch."

Comments

Was this a remote attack? Did the have the watch?

[kcitren]

The researchers obtained the data both by poking through the watches' files and finding traces of watch activity on the Samsung Android smartphone to which they were linked.

So, they had both the watch and the connected phone. I'm not really concerned about this. If this was a remote access thing, I'd be a little worried.

Re:Redundant technology

[Minupla]

I've been wearing one since Christmas (thanks Santa!) and I have to say I don't think I'd wanna give it up now. It's a nice to have definitely, rather then a necessity, but so is my smart phone.

I have the type of job with double and triple stacked meetings 8 hrs a day and it's REALLY nice to be able to glance at my watch and find out where I need to be next, what the dial in for the conference bridge is etc without having to pull my phone out of my pocket, unlock it, etc. Means I'm late for fewer meetings.

It's also a lot more socially acceptable in my office at least to glance at a watch and check to see if that new email your phone is buzzing about is important enough to excuse yourself from the meeting or not. Also being able to screen a call without the fuss of pulling out a phone. Glance at the watch, see it's important, excuse myself from the meeting and pull my phone out on the way is a lot less disruptive.

So ya, it's a nice to have, but it's quickly becoming a high priority nice to have. I miss it when I forget to put it on in the morning (like today) because I have too little caffeine in my blood.

Like every other early adopter device, it's got bugs but it's over the "more trouble then it's worth" hurdle for me at least.

Min