AT&T (T), as well as at least 47 other carriers, were recently identified as having vulnerabilities that leave them open to hijacking.

The vulnerability that has been identified by computer scientists allows “attackers to surreptitiously hijack the Internet connections of smartphone users and inject malicious content into the traffic passing between them and trusted websites.” This is not what we want form a mobile data carrier. We want to know that we are surfing the web on our phones easily and without any interference from an outside entity at all. The vulnerability is caused by a certain firewall that mobile carriers use. Essentially the weakness lies in the very method used by the carriers to protect your data.

If you are a victim of this form of sabotage, you could suddenly find that you have done things on Facebook or Twitter that you did not actually do. In addition, this can be used more seriously to direct you to a banking website that is not genuine. If this happens, the hacker may be able to gain access to your funds. The hijacker could also use this to send fake messages in apps such as Window Live Messenger from your account. The possibilities seem endless, and are certainly frightening.

This does not make me feel very safe about using AT&T’s network on my mobile device. If a hacker can gain access to my activities and take control of them so easily, I may choose to switch to someone else.To continue reading, click here.