A child monitoring phone app funded by the South Korean government has major security flaws, a new report says.
The popular Smart Sheriff app has vulnerabilities that could leak children’s personal details or allow the phone to be hacked, the study says.
The app’s developer says it has since addressed some of the issues raised in the report, although this has not been independently verified.
South Korea mandated in April that all children’s phones must be monitored.
Anyone under 19 who buys a smartphone must install an app that can filter and block harmful content.
The University of Toronto report is based on two separate security audits, one conducted by researchers at the Citizen Lab with the university’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and the other by auditing firm Cure53.
‘Greater risk’
Smart Sheriff was developed by a consortium of telecommunications companies known as the Korean Mobile Internet Business Association (Moiba). It has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users in South Korea.
The app allows parents to control the apps on their child’s mobile phone, as well as schedule when the phone can be used. It can also alert parents when it detects trigger words such as “kill”, “rape”, and “suicide”, according to earlier news reports.
Source: BBC
