Defect in the Samsung Galaxy allows hackers to spy on you through your camera phone

Hackers can break into Samsung Galaxy phones and spy on their users through a camera phone - thanks to a frightening security flaw that can affect half a billion users of the phone. 

High security vulnerability can affect up to 600 million phones worldwide, including the latest Samsung Galaxy S6 phone from Samsung and the S5 recently.

They can also listen to them through the phone's microphone and read all incoming and outgoing text. 

The breakthrough was presented by researcher Ryan Wilton . 

The vulnerability exploits the Swiftkey IME keyboard software built into the Galaxy phones - and ensures phones load malicious code instead of a language pack for their phones. Hackers will need to be on an insecure Wi-Fi network with their victims to withdraw the so-called "middle-man" attack.

Hackers can trick the keyboard application into downloading malicious code in the form of an update to the keyboard software.

To do this, they need to be in a position where they can intercept phone communications - such as on a dodgy Wi-Fi network.

Once loaded, hackers can run riots - looking through a phone camera, reading texts and even downloading applications.
At this time, there is no fix for weakness, Samsung has not issued an official statement.

 

Users can reduce their chances of infection by turning off their Wi-Fi phone.