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Ever wonder how your social media, coffee shop finder, or weather app seems to magically know you are away from home or on vacation? Or when you post to social media, it tells the world you are posting from Miami, Florida instead of your home in Virginia? The weather app now tells you the current conditions and forecast for Miami, and when you launch that coffee finder app, it knows your precise location and how far away you are from that double latte with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle. You might ask: How do these services put my employees and organization at risk?
All of this is due to location services. These services come in handy for many things, but how does it work? How do your apps know where you are? Is it a good thing that your phone seems to know your location at all times? Well, that depends.
Many apps use and are even dependent on location services, and some won’t work at all without it being turned on and allowing them access to it. Some of us might find it alarming that apps have access to your location, because some apps use this information to track your movements even when you’re not using them. Many apps will typically say in their Terms of Service which features of your digital device they have access to, along with what they do with that tracked data, such as sell it to third parties for marketing purposes. But this can also open us up to issues in our personal and business lives.
Learn more about how hackers take advantage of location services and use these social media best practices when traveling.
How Location Services Work
Location services use a combination of other services to pinpoint your exact location, including cellular data, cell tower location information, and sometimes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. GPS alone does not always give an exact location, because you may not be in a direct line of sight of a GPS satellite. But if you are, it will be quite accurate because GPS receivers, such as the one in your smartphone can calculate their position by determining the length of time it takes for radio signals to be transmitted from various satellites to the receiver.
Today’s smartphones also use WI-FI and Bluetooth radio transmitters. Both transmit using low power and can usually only be received within a short distance. However, there are ways that using external antennas and other devices can extend their range of transmission.
The danger with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is that both transmit a MAC address, which includes a unique number that can be seen by anyone receiving the signal. So even if you are not connected to Bluetooth or a WI-FI network, it is possible to determine a MAC address if these services are turned on. Both of these services can be turned off easily in the settings on your smartphone.
Android Settings -> Bluetooth/Settings
-> Wi-Fi
iOS Settings -> Bluetooth/Wi-Fi
It may not seem like a big deal if you or your employees are using apps that use location services, have location services turned on at all times, or post photos to social media with EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data. However, it is important to educate yourself and your employees about the potential risks associated with using these tools (check out our security awareness best practices training course). Hackers are increasingly using personal identifying information to target people and organizations, and the less information that they have access to about you and your employees, the less the chances are of being targeted. It is also possible that a competitor might be able to use information gleaned from EXIF data in posted photos or location services to determine where your employees are and who they are meeting with.
In terms of personal protection, many predators or people who mean you or your family harm can use this information to determine a pattern of life to help gauge when and where to physically target a person or when they might be on vacation leaving their home vulnerable. It is critical to weigh the risks versus the benefits of using location services and apps that rely on them.
Turning off Location Services
A simple way to protect yourself from unauthorized access to your digital device is to turn off location services. Android and iOS allow you to do this in a similar way, as seen below:
Android Settings -> Location -> Locating Method
iOS Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services
Android offers several options for location services. You can choose High Accuracy, Power Saving, or GPS only. Depending on the version, iOS only allows you to turn off location services entirely. Both the latest version of Android and the latest versions of iOS allow you to choose which apps have access to location data.
Turning off EXIF Data
Another way to protect yourself is to turn off EXIF data on your device. EXIF data is metadata embedded in every photo taken by a digital camera, like the one on your smartphone. EXIF data contains information, such as the brand and type of camera, the date and time that a photo was taken, and—unless you’ve turned off location services—the exact GPS coordinates of where you were when you took a photo. EXIF data is turned on and off in the camera feature on your device. Again, Android and iOS handle it a bit differently. Also, keep in mind that to make these changes it may be different for different versions of IOS and Android.
Android
Camera -> Settings
IOS Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> Camera -> Make Selection
You can turn Android location tags off using the Location Tags button in the camera settings. In iOS, location services are turned off in the Location Services settings under settings -> privacy. EXIF data is not considered location services per se, but it can still give away your location.
Now that you understand the risks and benefits associated with using location services, it is up to each person and organization to determine if they want to use location services. And even if you do use location services, it’s a best practice to disable it when you don’t need it. Again, a good deal of apps we use rely on this service to work. But being educated on how location services work and what the potential risks are, you can now make informed decisions on what is right for you and your organization. Learn all about security awareness with Inspired eLearning.
So you’ve turned off location services and EXIF data—can you still be tracked? Read Part 2 of this blog to find out!
Learn more about how hackers take advantage of location services in our free video.
By Tyler Cohen Wood
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