Mobile device security

National Science Foundation (Dec. 17) -- A National Science Foundation-funded push to make mobile devices used for medical technology and health records more secure includes experts in computer science, business, behavioral health, health policy and health care information technology from Illinois and five other universities. THaW researchers, led by Klara Nahrstedt at Illinois, conducted three studies of the mHealth apps in Google Play to determine how common apps handle medical data. They found a variety of vulnerabilities that a malicious party could exploit to gain access to sensitive data. Perhaps more significantly, they found that many apps send sensitive information over the Internet in ways that are fundamentally insecure. Also: Phys.Org (Isle of Man, Dec. 18).