Security in the Android ecosystem is awful. There's just no other word to describe it. In large part, the blame for that can be placed at the feet of Google. Although they have succeeded in creating a wildly successful platform, their management of OEM devices (in particular, security updates for them) have been virtually nonexistent. This has led to a situation where many device manufacturers don't bother to push critical updates at all. It costs money to do so, and until now, there … Read more
Uninstall Fake App Called “The Album by Google Photos”
If you take a lot of photos with your Android device, you're probably constantly on the lookout for a better way to organize them and access them. That's exactly what the authors of the malicious app called "The Album, by Google Photos" are hoping for. The app put in a brief appearance on the Microsoft store, where it claimed to be from Google but it's clearly not. Unfortunately, the authors have gone to great lengths to make it appear legitimate, and as such, it has been downloaded and … Read more
New Encryption Will Help Secure Your Android Device
Google is taking additional steps to bolster user privacy and better secure the data of the company's legions of Android device owners. The company recently announced a change to the Android Backup Service that will encrypt all user backup data stored on its cloud servers, such that even Google itself can't read it. Google has long allowed Android users to back up their app data and phone settings to their Google account so when they upgrade their phones, the process of getting the new … Read more
Some iOS Users Report Call Issues After Latest Update
This hasn't been a great month for two of the titans of tech. Both Apple and Microsoft have been plagued with bug-riddled updates to their operating systems. In Apple's case, their new iOS 12 had to be patched just three weeks after its release because of all the bugs the company's burgeoning user base discovered almost immediately after updating. Unfortunately, the 12.0.1 patch seems to have created almost as many issues as it solved for some users. In particular, some users are reporting … Read more
Major Facebook Breach May Have Affected Your Account
Facebook got hit hard by a currently unknown group of hackers. If you recently found yourself inexplicably logged out of the social media site, Facebook did it in response to the breach. The breach resulted in the theft of data pertaining to more than fifty million of the site's users. Here's what we know so far about the attack: The hackers pulled off their heist by taking advantage of three different vulnerabilities. Facebook detected the breach after spotting an unusual spike in … Read more
Apple IOS12 Users’ Photos And Contacts May Be Vulnerable
Jose Rodriguez, a Spanish Apple enthusiast, has discovered a new security flaw to be aware of. He posted a Proof of Concept video showing the exploit in action. We'll say upfront that this is a highly convoluted attack involving more than two dozen discrete steps. A hacker would need to be in possession of the phone to pull it off, so it's not something that's likely to become a major threat. Even so, we'll provide the details below. Apple has built in security measures that are … Read more
Payment Pages Are Being Compromised To Steal Data
Symantec's most recent statistics have revealed a disturbing trend. Malware designed to compromise checkout pages is seeing a big spike in use, with the company reporting a staggering 248,000 attempts since August 13th of this year, with more than a third of them (36 percent) between September 13th through September 20th. As disturbing as those numbers are, that's just the tip of the iceberg. As Symantec notes on their website: "If we compare the week of September 13 to 20 to the same … Read more
Windows 10 Adoption Continues To Grow
Windows 10 is far and away the fastest growing version of the OS in the company's history. It recently hit an installation base of a staggering 700 million devices after about three years on the market. Note that these installation figures include installs not just on PCs, but also on Surface Hubs, Xbox, HoloLenses and smartphones. Unfortunately, as impressive as that number is, it falls well short of Microsoft's original estimate of a billion installs in three years. The smaller than … Read more
Google’s Emergency Location Service Improves 911 Response
Google is making a small but pivotal change as it relates to calls placed to 911 operators. Having recently finalized a complex partnership with RapidSOS and West (two emergency technology companies) and T-Mobile, Google will now send location data from its "Emergency Location Service" when an Android user places a 911 call. If the caller is a T-Mobile customer, the information will be passed along via the carrier. Where 911 call centers use RapidSOS, Google will send the location data via … Read more
Android May Be Coming To More New Cars Soon
Google scored a major coup in the auto industry. They just inked a deal that will put the Android OS in every car made by the global auto alliance Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. It sold a staggering 10.6 million vehicles around the world last year. The tech giant has struggled to get its foot in the door, primarily because auto makers have been hesitating on handing over the keys to their Infotainment and other computerized systems, in fear of being shut out of the data collected by those … Read more
