Australians should be 'more concerned' about connecting phones to Chinese apps

Cyber security analyst Robert Potter says when it comes to their private information, Australians should be more concerned about connecting their mobile phones back into the telecommunications and application norms of China. Sky News host Sharri Markson said Trump’s deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger warned the smart phones we use all day were as “plain to cyber spooks as the plumes of exhaust from a vintage double decker bus”. “The supply chain of applications is just as important as the supply chains of telecommunications hardware,” Mr Potter told Ms Markson. “Just as we have concerns around placing Huawei in the backbone of telecommunications equipment, our mobile phone equipment, we also have the same concerns around the applications we install on our phones because they have access to some of our most private information – they keyboards of our phones, applications often share access with cameras. “Exploiting those apps is a really fertile way for a malicious actor to obtain data it otherwise wouldn’t have. “Some of those applications like WeChat and TikTok have reasonable questions to answer around their own supply chains back into mainland china. “And connecting all of our mobile phones back into the telecommunications and application norms of China is something we should all be a bit more concerned about when it comes to our private information.”