Google wallet has been hacked, not once, but twice in two days. Yesterday, the wallet was hacked when people figured out you could exploit a flaw in rooted phones where a user could reset the PIN number for your virtual wallet. Today, another video came out of the wild. The Smartphone Champ, a technology blogger, discovered that you can do the same hack in normal non rooted phones.
Maybe it’s time to realize that phones should be phones and wallets should stay wallets, the Google Wallet is just as secure as a regular wallet. The reason I say that is because the “hack” is not even a hack, it’s more of a “click here to open the wallet” option that is installed on the phone. The video above shows you how simple someone can crack your “wallet.”
The hack from yesterday required you to do a whole bunch of different things before actually pulling the PIN reset trick. This one however, is as simple as going into the applications menu, selecting Google Wallet, and then clearing the data in the app. After the data has been cleared, it forces Google Wallet to reset itself and ask for a new PIN Number. Once you type in a new PIN, you basically have access to the Google Pre-Paid Account and voila – The thief has access to all of your funds.
At first I thought this was a fake story, but Google released a statement regarding the new method and gave out the following tip:
We strongly encourage anyone who loses or wants to sell their phone to call Google Wallet support toll-free at 855-492-5538 to disable the prepaid card. We are currently working on an automated fix as well that will be available soon. We also advise all Wallet users to set up a screen lock as an additional layer of protection for their phone.
Maybe it’s not such a great Idea to keep on putting all of our data into our phones. If you want to prevent people from accessing your information, install an App that allows you to track your phone, or even better a cellphone wiping application to erase all data. You could also keep up with your stuff and not lose the phone to begin with… just saying. [Gizmodo via Electronista]
