The following is an excerpt from the July 11 issue of The Wichita Eagle. Murtuza Jadliwala, assistant professor in the Wichita State University College of Engineering, and Anindya Maiti, a WSU student, contributed to the article. (Subscription may be required to view full story.)
Murtuza Jadliwala researches ethics, trust, privacy, security and computer technology at WSU’s College of Engineering.
He just completed a semester of testing involving a dozen students at WSU wearing smartwatches.
He found that the sensors in smartwatches could be used by hackers to steal information about bank accounts and passcodes.
“We think that in using very simple tricks, some hackers can be able to infer what numbers some smartwatch users are typing on their numeric keypads, including PIN codes and other numbers,” he said.
“It’s a little bit scary.”
He will present his findings at the 19th International Symposium on Wearable Computers in September in Osaka, Japan.