Experts have exposed the secret web of connections between apps which lets them snoop on intimate details of your life
This data could include your bank details, allowing cyber-thieves to empty your bank account.
Apps could also expose details of people’s movements using information gathered by their smartphone’s location tracker.
This data lets firms bombard you with adverts based upon where you’ve been and what you’ve searched for.
But it would also be useful to cyber-criminals who want to steal your identity or scam you out of money.
The information could include passwords, for instance, which lets crook get access to your phone and run riot.
“The apps we regularly use on our phones to organise lunch dates, make convenient online purchases, and communicate the most intimate details of our existence have
secretly been colluding to mine our information,” the university wrote in a statement.
Experts from Virginia Tech University analysed more than 100,000 pieces of Android software and found “thousands of pairs of apps” which talk to each other to share private information.
