Privacy warning: Pokémon Go has full access to your Google account data
Pokémon Go may be proving jaw-droppingly popular, but in the rush to catch 'em all, it seems that users have overlooked something of a privacy issue with the game. It's not unusual for apps and games to request, or require, access to your Google account but there are usually limits in place.
Not so with Pokémon Go. As reported by Search Engine Journal, iOS users have discovered that the game not only requires access to users' Google accounts, it requires full access. This is the highest level of access available to any app and if it is revoked, the game won't work.
Our private data is worth less than we think
Brits think their personal data is really, really valuable. There is nothing wrong with that, and private data should be valued highly, and guarded as such. However, once criminals get a hold of such data, they’ll sell it for such a low price you simply won't believe.
According to a new TotallyMoney.com report, based on a poll of 1,000 consumers, we value an email address at £983. In reality, it is being sold for five pence. A similar thing is with the browsing history. Its actual price on the black market is a ridiculous £0.0014. On average, we value it at £934.
Court papers show Silent Circle's privacy-boosting Blackphone was an unmitigated sales disaster
With so much focus now placed on privacy and security, you would have thought that the Blackphone from Silent Circle would have been a roaring success. But documents from a court case with former partner Geeksphone reveal that there have been just a handful of sales, and revenue is hundreds of millions of dollars lower than expected.
Silent Circle found itself in court after Geeksphone complained that it had not received a $5 million payment agreed as part of a buyout. Geeksphone had helped to build the original Blackphone, and Silent Circle went on to buy the Spanish company's share before launching the Blackphone 2. But sales were much, much lower than expected, leading the company to describe its hardware business to "be a significant financial drain".
Facebook malware infects 10,000 users in two days
A new malware was spotted by security researchers at Kaspersky Lab, targeting Facebook users. According to the researchers’ new report, there have been 10,000 victims in two days.
The malware has two stages: firstly, an unsuspecting victim gets a message from a Facebook friend, saying they had mentioned them in a comment. But when the victim clicks to see the comment, they instead download a bunch of malware, including a Chrome add-on which can take over the victim’s Facebook account, once they log back in.
Identity fraud in UK targets under 30s
New figures reveal a 52 percent rise in young identity fraud victims in the UK. In 2015, just under 24,000 people aged 30 and under were victims of identity fraud. This is up from 15,766 in 2014, and more than double the 11,000 victims in this age bracket in 2010.
The figures from fraud prevention service Cifas -- which is calling for better education about fraud and financial crime -- are released alongside a new short video designed to raise awareness of ID fraud among younger age groups.
Google's creepy My Activity page reveals the terrifying amount of data collected about you
That Google gathers data about you is not news. If you use Google products, it's something you've decided to put up with -- either that, or you live in blissful ignorance of. Whether you're using Gmail and YouTube online, Google keyboard on your Android smartphone, Chrome across platforms, or whatever, being a Google user means handing over an awful lot of personal information.
But just how much does Google know about you? If you use the voice-activated "OK, Google" feature of your phone, there are probably lots of recordings of you stored online; what about everything else? Google has now launched My Activity, a portal which reveals everything the company knows about you. Every search you’ve made, the apps you've used, the videos you've watched, and everything in between.
Ad personalization from Google -- giving power to the people, or a privacy nightmare?
Online ads aren’t going away anytime soon, and that'll keep the likes of Adblock Plus in business for the foreseeable future. But if you choose not to use an ad blocker and are therefore going to be bombarded with ads, they might as well be ads that are relevant to you, right?
Google is rolling out a new feature that enables users to choose the topics they are interested in so the ads they see will be more appropriate to them. But as well as improving the ad experience for users, the new scheme means that advertisers are handed even more information about people that can be exploited for financial gain. It also enables Google to use information it gathers about users to tailor ads.
EU-US Privacy Shield: White House promises not to spy on European data
The replacement for data protection arrangement Safe Harbour, the EU-US Privacy Shield, has undergone final amendments. Safe Harbour has already been deemed invalid, and frantic talks have been underway to finalize its successor.
Despite gaining the backing of Microsoft, EU-US Privacy Shield has faced a great deal of criticism. In the wake of the Brexit vote in the UK referendum on EU membership, the UK may be forced to comply with the rules even though it is in the process of exiting the Union. One of the most significant changes to come about -- and one that will be welcomed by privacy advocates -- is a promise from the White House not to engage in indiscriminate bulk data collection of European data.
Apple is leaving the iOS 10 kernel unencrypted... to increase security
Each new version of iOS is eagerly awaited, and at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) Apple unveiled a preview of iOS 10. Much has been made of the new features, but developers probing the operating system are making a surprising discovery. The kernel of iOS 10 is unencrypted.
In the current climate of security-awareness, this might seem like something of an unusual decision. But Apple says that the change has been made to improve performance, and it could even help to increase security.
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.
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.
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.
Mark Zuckerberg is so concerned about his privacy that he tapes over his webcam and microphone
Facebook and privacy are not words usually associated with one another, and it seems this holds true even for the man at the top. Only recently we learned that Mark Zuckerberg uses terrible passwords, making it easy to hack his accounts, but now it turns out he's also quite paranoid.
As Instagram popped champagne corks for reaching the milestone of half a billion users, Zuckerberg posted a celebratory picture. Eagle-eyed people soon pointed out that both the mic and camera of his laptop were taped over.
Most UK workers don't want company-issued wearables
Despite the fact that three million Britons bought wearables during 2015, the majority of UK office workers are unwilling to wear them at work. After conducting a survey of 2,000 workers across the UK, PwC found that only 46 percent of respondents would accept a free wearable device from their company if their employer had access to the data it recorded.
In the past few years, wearables from companies like Fitbit and Jawbone have taken the consumer market by storm as a means of tracking one’s health and fitness. PwC’s survey found that two-thirds of those surveyed want their employer to take a more active role in their health and well being, and a company-issued wearable would be a good first step at doing just that.
Apple: Developers must use App Transport Security by 2017
Apple has announced that the deadline by which app developers must enable App Transport Security (ATS) in all apps is 1 January 2017. ATS is not a new feature of iOS 10, having been introduced in iOS 9 and it increases the security of data transferred over the web by apps.
With ATS enabled, apps are forced to use the far more secure HTTPS rather than HTTP, and this is something we've become accustomed to looking out for when browsing the web. At the moment, developers are able to disable ATS, but from the end of the year this will no longer be possible.
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