Running App Polar Flow is found to be disclosing the location and personal details of spies working for GCHQ, White House, and MI6. Although the data revelation of the fitness app was unintentional, the security lapse could lead to serious consequences if state-funded actors and terrorist organizations such as ISIS get hold of such info.
The Finnish software firm has made a note of its app’s data breach very recently and has suspended the app’s function to all its users until an investigation on this issue gets completed.
Note- The revelation comes just after few months after a similar app, Strava, accidentally revealed the running routes of the British and American soldiers posted in the Middle East and Africa. What if the local militants get hold of such data and lay a booby-trap to kill the soldiers?
Sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders say that the leaked info from Power Flow stretches as far back as 2014 and includes names of spies working for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), MI6 and Mi5 in London as well as the intelligence services of Cuba.
Information related to spies working for Russian Intelligence Directorate and France’s Directorate- general for external security was also found to be exposed.
Note- The location was exposed when employees of these firms started using the said app after switching on their phone’s GPS fitness tracking feature and setting their profile’s as ‘Public’. As soon as the revealed names and photos were cross-checked by researchers investigating this cyber incident with LinkedIn marketing apps, the information that the leaked data was related to government spies were discovered.
“Maybe its time to educate them on what is and could happen in the sophistication filled cyber world”.
Fitness tracking app Polar Flow admitted that the details of more than 6,400 spies and military personnel working for more than 69 nationalities was leaked in this incident.
A Dutch news site De Correspondent and Bellingcat reveal that information related to spies working for Crimea, North Korea, China, Mali, Jordan, and Iraq, was also compromised by the app.
More details on the issue will be updated shortly!
