Fears about the safety of mobile dating apps have been raised following concerns that they could be hacked to identify the exact location of their users. Security experts are worried that the vulnerability could lead to stalking, harassment or even persecution. Researchers were able to track the movements of people as they went about the day during recent experiments after spoofing requests to servers.
Whilst some loopholes have been closed, it’s thought that the vast majority of users remain at risk. Vulnerabilities in dating apps were identified by security company Synack. The team were able to exploit a feature in gay dating app grinder that allows users to find out approximately how far away they are from other users. They sent a series of requests to Grindr’s servers, telling them that they had come from different locations. They found that they were able to find out the exact location of users via triangulation.
Colby Moore showed that he could discover the exact identity of a Grindr user by correlating it with data from social media sites. The researchers said that loopholes were being used to harass people in places where homosexuality isn’t tolerated freely. Grindr has said that it has no plans to change its location finding system, describing it as a “core function” of its service. Synack suggested that Grindr could help its users by blocking requests that were clearly spoofed as well as making location data less accurate to avoid revealing the precise locations of its users.
Are you worried about the precision of location-reporting services? Have you been harassed by people exploiting technological advances? Tell us about your experiences below.
