PossibleThreat Articles

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Mobile

ComputerWorld Independent 

Apple wants privacy laws to protect its users

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Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2020 06:54:00 -0800

Your iPhone (like most smartphones) knows when it is picked up, what you do with it, who you call, where you go, who you know – and a bunch more personal information, too.

The snag with your device knowing all this information is that once the data is understood, that information can be shared or even used against you.

Information is power

Jane Horvath, Apple’s senior director for global privacy, appeared at CES 2020 this week to discuss the company’s approach to smartphone security. She stressed the company’s opposition to the creation of software backdoors into devices, and also said:

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ComputerWorld Independent 

Apple’s wants privacy laws to protect its users

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Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2020 06:54:00 -0800

Your iPhone (like most smartphones) knows when it is picked up, what you do with it, who you call, where you go, who you know – and a bunch more personal information, too.

Information is power

The snag with your device knowing all this information is that once the data is understood than that information can be shared or even used against you.

Jane Horvath, Apple’s senior director for global privacy, appeared at CES 2012 to discuss the company’s approach to smartphone security.

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Security Sophos 

US military branches ban TikTok following Pentagon’s warning

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Credit to Author: Lisa Vaas| Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:11:55 +0000

The latest attempt to prove it’s not under China’s thumb: TikTok’s first transparency report.<img src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nakedsecurity/~4/-aP1_y68iB8″ height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=””/>

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ComputerWorld Independent 

Ultra Wideband (UWB) explained (and why it’s in the iPhone 11)

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Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2019 03:00:00 -0800

One of the new chips in this year’s crop of iPhones is the U1; it provides Ultra Wideband (UWB) connectivity that, in conjunction with Internet of Things (IoT) technology, could offer a myriad of new services for enterprises and consumers.

As Apple puts it, UWB technology offers “spatial awareness” – the ability for your phone to recognize its surroundings and the objects in it. Essentially, one iPhone 11 user can point his or her phone at another and transfer a file or photo.

While the technology isn’t new, Apple’s implementation marks the first time UWB has been used in a modern smartphone.

What is Ultra Wideband?

UWB is a short-range, wireless communication protocol that – like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi – uses radio waves. But it differs substantially in that IT operates at a very high frequency. As its name denotes, it also uses a wide spectrum of several GHz. One way to think of it is as a radar that can continuously scan an entire room and precisely lock onto an object like a laser beam to discover its location and communicate data.

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ComputerWorld Independent 

How bad can text security be? One company just showed us.

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Credit to Author: Evan Schuman| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 05:46:00 -0800

There is nothing more quintessentially mobile than text messages, the most commonly used communication method today. That’s why it was very unsettling that a security research house found — and the vendor at issue essentially confirmed — that a massive number of text messages were stored in plaintext, with no security at all. In short, the texts from what the security research firm estimated were “hundreds of millions of people” were open to any thief or stalker who wanted to look.

The company involved, an Austin-based business called TrueDialog, would likely be unknown to almost all of those users. TrueDialog is a marketing firm offering SMS products and services to other companies — a lot of companies. That will make it hard for consumers to even know if their texts were victimized. Text message users were able to text back, giving the impression of having two-way conversations with businesses.

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Security Sophos 

Police get “unprecedented” data haul from Google with geofence warrants

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Credit to Author: Lisa Vaas| Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2019 11:14:20 +0000

Investigators are using geofence warrants to get anybody and everybody who’s near a crime at a given time.<img src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nakedsecurity/~4/uI3cDCVNbEk” height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=””/>

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Security Sophos 

Google adds Verified SMS and anti-spam feature to Messages app

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Credit to Author: John E Dunn| Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2019 10:50:02 +0000

If webmail, WhatsApp and IM are killing SMS, someone might want to tell Google – as it continues to add new features to its Messages app.<img src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nakedsecurity/~4/bOkj5uWtjPM” height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=””/>

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