90 percent of Android devices vulnerable to Godless malware
When we take a look at the Android distribution updates that Google posts every month one thing seems to never change, and that is the overwhelming number of devices that run an outdated version of the operating system. As of early-June 2016, nearly 90 percent of the handsets with Google Play access are rocking Lollipop, Jelly Bean or another old distribution. Meanwhile, Marshmallow powers only 10.1 percent of Android devices.
And, as Trend Micro security researchers point out, that can be a serious problem in terms of security as there is a new family of malware, known as Godless, that affects "virtually any Android device running on Android 5.1 (Lollipop) or earlier". Using Google's figures, that's 89.9 percent of the Android handsets in use. What's really worrying is that this malware is actually linked to apps available in major app stores, like Google's Play, and it has already made 850,000 victims across the globe.
Why can't 'no' just mean 'no' when it comes to free software?
As we’ve reported numerous times before, and with increasing levels of frustration, Microsoft won’t ever seem to take no for an answer when it comes to Windows 10. When the Get Windows 10 app appears to users of Windows 7 or 8.1 they might reasonably expect to have the choice of saying "yes" or "no" to the free upgrade offer. Except while "yes" means "yes", "no" apparently means "yes, but you’ll need to trick me into installing it".
It’s not just Microsoft which pulls this kind of stunt either. This is a recent experience I had when installing Auslogics Disk Defrag.
How mobile device management could be invading your privacy
Many companies now turn to mobile device management (MDM) to control and monitor their employees' mobile use. But a new study from data protection company Bitglass reveals that MDM itself represents a threat to privacy.
Bitglass researchers configured MDM software to route mobile data traffic through a corporate proxy and installed corporate-issued certificates on employee devices to decrypt SSL traffic. This, a common configuration in enterprise MDM deployments for inspecting traffic for malware, enabled researchers to see the contents of employees' personal email inboxes, social networking accounts and even banking information.
Edit and analyze written content with Word Doctor
Word Doctor’s developer says it’s a word editor and writer’s aid, "designed to analyze both writing content and style". At first glance, that seems hard to believe, because the editor looks only marginally more powerful than Notepad. But start exploring and you’ll begin to change your mind.
Type or click a word, for instance, and an instant definition appears in the status bar ("word -- noun -- a unit of language"). Select a word, right-click, and there’s a synonym finder, a more detailed definition, even an audio pronunciation guide.
Docker Engine will get built-in container orchestration
During its developer conference in Seattle this week, Docker announced that container orchestration will now be built right into its Docker Engine, making the process of building, deploying and orchestrating containers far easier for its users.
The company has basically taken the core features of Docker Swarm and Compose and has added them to its core Engine to simplify the process of using containers in production. Both of these standalone products only recently exited their beta phases last November and it is impressive that Docker has been able to add them to Docker Engine in such a short period of time.
Capture, upload and share screenshots and text with Image DeCap
There are hundreds of screen capture tools for Windows, covering just about every possible need and situation. Do we really need any more? Well, maybe not, but Image DeCap has just enough interesting and unusual features to deserve a closer look.
Captures can be quick and easy. Press a customizable hotkey, hit Enter, and you can save the current screen or window locally, copy it to the clipboard, upload it to Imgur or your own FTP site.
Crypto-ransomware attacks increase five fold
Ransomware has become a big problem in recent years, particularly crypto-ransomware, which encrypts data on users' systems. New research by Kaspersky Lab looking at how it’s evolved over the last two years points to just how big.
Among the findings are that the number of users attacked with crypto-ransomware rose 5.5 times, from 131,111 in 2014-2015 to 718,536 in 2015-2016. The total number of users encountering any type of ransomware between April 2015 and March 2016 also increased by 17.7 percent compared to the period April 2014 to March 2015.
Check your privacy settings -- Facebook is (probably) sharing your employment history
Somewhat out of the blue, Facebook has decided to change the way it displays certain information on your profile. Not content with showing your current place of work -- whether this is real, or some clever pun you've engineered -- it now also shows your employment history.
This is not a direct change to privacy settings as it does not make public anything that had been previously set to be private. It does, however, broadcast your previous places of work to people looking at your profile. You might not like this. You might want to do something about it.
Millennials would trust tech companies with money transactions
There’s a new report suggesting that banks need to seriously consider innovating, if they don’t want to hand over their business to tech companies.
The report, entitled "Are Banks Losing The Innovation Game?", was released by financial regulatory framework compliance experts, Neopay. It is based on a poll of 2,000 UK adults on their experience with high street banks and tech companies.
A win for privacy: Senate blocks FBI from gaining warrantless access to browsing histories
A Senate amendment brought forward by John McCain that would have given the FBI the right to browse suspects' phone and internet records without a warrant has been narrowly defeated.
The vote very nearly went the other way -- there were just two votes in it when the counting was over. McCain had hoped that pushing the amendment as a counter-terrorism tool (particularly against "non-U.S. citizen 'lone wolf' attackers") would be enough to get the required 60 votes. But it seems that the Orlando shooting that McCain cited as an incentive for the changes was not enough to convince others.
Mozilla MOSS 'Mission Partners' makes it rain $385,000 on open source project developers
Open source is very important nowadays, especially from a privacy and security standpoint. Look, closed source ideology is not inherently bad -- it is a good way to protect a company's code. The problem, however, is that users are increasingly suspicious of software since Edward Snowden's leaks. There is no telling what kind of back doors or other malicious things are hiding in the code.
Mozilla is a longtime open source champion, not only with words, but resources too. Besides producing the wonderful Firefox web browser, the company is increasingly donating money to the cause. Today, the company announces that it is making it rain $385,000 on open source project developers through the Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) 'Mission Partners' program.
Businesses want to spend more money on making apps
Businesses want to increase their spend on mobile app development, but we’re still a long way to go before that spending becomes more relevant, a new study by Gartner has shown. According to the market analysts’ report, overall app development budget allocated to mobile is 10 percent, a two percent decrease compared to the year before.
However, almost half (42 percent) of organizations plan to increase their mobile app development spend by an average of 31 percent this year. "Demand for mobile apps in the enterprise is growing, but the urgency to scale up mobile app development doesn’t yet appear to be a priority for most organizations", says Adrian Leow, principal research analyst at Gartner.
Opera says Microsoft's claims about Edge battery life are wrong -- but all's not as it seems
The other day, Microsoft made some bold claims about the power consumption of Edge. The company claimed that its latest web browser is the most battery-friendly when compared to Chrome, Opera and Firefox. Having been beaten into third place behind Chrome, but ahead of Firefox, Opera has hit back.
The company says that its own tests show -- surprise, surprise -- that it is Opera which is the most efficient battery sipper. Opera says that its own battery saving feature boosts battery life by up to 50 percent when compared to Chrome. The company criticizes Microsoft for failing to reveal its methodology, accusing it of a lack of transparency. But Opera is guilty of being disingenuous, as it fails to compare like with like.
VLC for Android 2.0 merges Android TV and mobile builds together, offers network disk browsing and performance improvements
VideoLAN has unveiled VLC for Android 2.0, a major new version of its mobile video and audio player. The app is renowned for being able to play most multimedia files as well as many streaming video protocols.
Version 2.0 merges the Android TV version with the main Android build, plus introduces a slew of useful new features including the ability to access content over the network and internet as well as support for downloadable subtitles.
Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14371 arrives on the Fast ring
Microsoft is rolling out new Windows 10 Insider builds on a very regular basis in preparation for the big Anniversary Update at the end of July. Last week we had not one, but two new PC builds gracing the Fast ring, and today we get yet another -- Build 14371.
As you might expect there are lots of improvements and bug fixes in this new build, but there are also some new additions too.
Most Commented Stories
Windows 12.1 is everything Windows 11 should be -- and the Microsoft operating system we need!
Apple Intelligence will launch in beta and that’s unacceptable for a trillion-dollar company
© 1998-2024 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy.