NEW: Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report 2022 - Read the Findings of Our Annual Report Read Now

  • Partners
  • Support
  • Careers
  • English
    • Deutsch
    • français
    • español
    • 한국어
    • português
BeyondTrust
  • Products

    Privileged Password Management

    Discover, manage, audit, and monitor privileged accounts and credentials.

    • Password Safe
    • DevOps Secrets Safe
    • Privileged Access Discovery Application

    Endpoint Privilege Management

    Enforce least privilege across Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix endpoints.

    • Windows and Mac
    • Unix and Linux
    • Active Directory Bridge

    Secure Remote Access

    Centrally manage remote access for service desks, vendors, and operators.

    • Remote Support
    • Privileged Remote Access
    • Privileged Access Discovery Application

    Cloud Security Management

    Automate the management of identities and assets across your multicloud footprint.

    • Cloud Privilege Broker

    BeyondInsight

    Experience the industry’s most innovative, comprehensive platform for privileged access management.

  • Solutions

    Use Cases

    • Cloud Security
    • Compliance
    • Cyber Insurance
    • Digital Transformation
    • Endpoint Security
    • Operational Technology
    • Ransomware
    • Service Desk Efficiency
    • Zero Trust

    Industry Applications

    • Financial Services
    • Government Agencies
    • Healthcare
    • Law Enforcement
    • Manufacturing
    • Schools & Universities

    Solutions

    The BeyondTrust Privileged Access Management portfolio is an integrated solution that provides visibility and control over all privileged accounts and users.

  • Resources

    Learn

    • Blog
    • Customer Stories
    • Competitor Comparisons
    • Datasheets
    • Demos
    • Glossary
    • Podcast
    • Whitepapers

    Attend

    • Events
    • Go Beyond
    • Training
    • Webinars

    Support

    • Changelog
    • Professional Services
    • Technical Documentation

    Universal Privilege Management

    Our innovative Universal Privilege Management approach secures every user, asset, and session across your entire enterprise.

  • Company
    • About
    • Leadership
    • Core Values
    • Partners
    • Careers
  • Watch Demo
  • Contact Sales

Pokémon Go Exposes What’s Wrong with Using the Same Google Account for Business and Pleasure

July 12, 2016

  • Blog
  • Archive

Pokemon Go and Google

If you have not heard of Pokémon Go, you might as well be in living in the Stone Age. In merely seven days, the volume of users on this game has exceeded Twitter and generated millions of dollars for Nintendo. The augmented reality game is addictive and has sparked several crimes, including robbery and muggings. In addition, it poses a massive security risk for any user that logs into Google+ to create an account.

What’s the risk?

Pokémon Go requests Full Access to your Google account, which includes everything from access to your emails (read, write, send and delete) to your Google Wallet. While Nintendo has issued a statement saying that they are not harvesting this information, and will change the permissions to the application soon, the simple fact is that the application has unrestricted access to everything in your Google account. And I mean everything!

Now, if you use your Google account for business, and decided to play the game with the same Google account, you have potentially exposed everything in your business to Nintendo. While the risk is realistically low that something will happen, the unintentional consequences of unknowingly allowing a third party potential access to your business is quite high.

Think of it this way. If you have a brick and mortar business, would you leave the backdoor of the building unlocked and let someone know it was unlocked? Of course not. Well, Pokémon Go does exactly that for cybersecurity. It leverages social media login capabilities of Google+ to create an account and exposes everything in Google+ to them. You have effectively given permissions to a third party for everything you store in Google – from your calendar to text messages.

How to reduce the risk of allowing a third-party to access your account?

Unfortunately, you are now aware of the risk and must remove Pokémon Go privileges from Google Security until this can be properly fixed. Until Nintendo patches the application’s permissions, you best bet is to:

  • Remove Full Access and avoid playing the game. Simply click on Pokémon Go and Remove access. See below for a screenshot on how to disable this.
  • Create a secondary Google account with minimal information in order to play the game.
  • If you have an MDM deployment, prohibit employees from loading the game.
  • Do not use the “Lore” feature in the game. This has been associated with physical robbery crimes and exposes the user’s information to other Pokémon Go players.

Remove Pokemon from Google

Most people do not have multiple Google accounts, and if it is being used for business too, your risks are unjustifiable to use this application. In addition, if you remove permissions, every time you now launch the game, it will reinstate privileges.

While this game has taken adults and children by storm, it also leaves a striking message regarding cybersecurity. A simple game can expose too much information, have too much access to our accounts, and create an unnecessary risk if users chose to use the same accounts for business and pleasure. As a security professional, we all need to be aware of these risks and the potential harm they can cause.

We’ve built a business around helping customers understand the consequences of misused enterprise passwords. For guidance on how we can help you eliminate the sharing of accounts, contact us today!

Photograph of Morey J. Haber

Morey J. Haber, Chief Security Officer, BeyondTrust

Morey J. Haber is the Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored three books: Privileged Attack Vectors, Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. He is a founding member of the industry group Transparency in Cyber, and in 2020 was elected to the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) Executive Advisory Board. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust security and governance for corporate and cloud based solutions and regularly consults for global periodicals and media. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition where he served as a Product Owner and Solutions Engineer since 2004. Prior to eEye, he was Beta Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Stay Up To Date

Get the latest news, ideas, and tactics from BeyondTrust. You may unsubscribe at any time.

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

You May Also Be Interested In:

Whitepapers

Microsoft Vulnerabilities Report 2022

Whitepapers

Cybersecurity Insurance Checklist

Whitepapers

Privileged Access Management: PAM Checklist

Keep up with BeyondTrust

I agree to receive product related communications from BeyondTrust as detailed in the Privacy Policy, and I may manage my preferences or withdraw my consent at any time.

Customer Support
Contact Sales

Products

  • Endpoint Privilege Management
  • Password Management
  • Privileged Remote Access
  • DevOps Secrets Safe
  • Remote Support
  • Cloud Privilege Broker

Resources

  • Blog
  • Case Studies
  • Competitor Comparisons
  • Datasheets
  • Glossary
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Webcasts
  • Whitepapers

About

  • Company
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Events
  • Leadership Team
  • Partner Program
  • Press
BeyondTrust Logo
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Manage Cookies
  • WEEE Compliance

Copyright © 1999 — 2022 BeyondTrust Corporation. All rights reserved. Other trademarks identified on this page are owned by their respective owners. BeyondTrust Corporation is not a chartered bank or trust company, or depository institution. It is not authorized to accept deposits or trust accounts and is not licensed or regulated by any state or federal banking authority.