Most new smart phones are GPS enabled. It allows us to use multiple applications to find directions to our favorite locations. However along with the usefulness of GPS comes a security concern. Geotagging is when metadata is added to a picture or document taken with a smart phone that has GPS enabled. In that metadata are the longitude and latitude of the location of where the picture is taken. The information might be used by a criminal to track where you live or track your location. If you go into the options of your camera on your cell phone there most likely is an option to either turn on or off geotagging.
There is also a website trying to raise awareness of geotagging. http://icanstalku.com/
To show you an example of how this works, below is a picture I took with my camera with geotagging enabled on my Blackberry.
Next you can either use an add-on to Firefox like Exif (install the add-on and then, open the picture in Firefox, then right mouse click on the picture to see the Exif information at the bottom of the pop up window) or go to Jeff’s Exif Viewer and put the url of the picture into Jeff’s Exif Viewer to see the location of the picture.
Can you find the location of where the picture above was taken? Write back a comment if you find it.
Here is a link to an article on geotagging. http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=9734
- Tom Pruett, Cisco & Security Expert; MCT, CTT+, CISSP, CWNA, CEH, CHFI, CCSI, CCNA, MCSE LinkIn with Tom
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