Tag: security
How secure is Samsung Pay?
Mashable raised questions about the security of Samsung Pay. Samsung copied Apple Pay but needed a differentiating factor. Samsung Pay incorporates LoopPay technology to allow its phones to work at magstrip readers. These are the types of credit card readers seen at most U.S. retailers — but Apple Pay doesn’t work with them. Apple’s mobile…
CEOs of Facebook, Google and Yahoo to skip Obama’s cybersecurity summit
Bloomberg reported on three of tech’s top CEOs planning to skip President Obama’s cybersecurity summit. Facebook Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt all were invited but won’t attend the public conference at Stanford University, according to the companies. Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook…
Android password manager vulnerability unpatched after almost two years
Ars Technica reported on Android password managers being wide open to sniffing attacks. Almost two years later, the threat remains viable in at least some, if not all, of the apps originally analyzed. An app recently made available on Google Play, for instance, has no trouble divining the passwords managed by LastPass, one of the…
Malicious software said to spread on Android phones
NYTimes reported on the malicious software spreading on Android phones. A particularly nasty mobile malware campaign targeting Android users has hit between four million and 4.5 million Americans since January of 2013, according to an estimate by Lookout, a San Francisco mobile security company that has been tracking the malware for about two years. How…
Is Uber’s rider database a sitting duck for hackers?
Craig Timberg wrote for The Washington Post about Uber’s vulnerable database. Imagine further that there existed a database that collected daily travel information on such people with GPS-quality precision– where they went, when they went there and who else went to those same places at the same times. Now add that all this location data…
How secure is your messaging app?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation rates the security of messaging apps. I’d like to see WeChat and LINE on the chart.
FBI is wrong about Apple’s encryption
Ken Gude wrote on WIRED about Apple’s encryption of data on iOS 8. Apple’s new operating system, iOS 8, makes two changes to the encryption of data on the device that dramatically increases the security of those data. First, it now encrypts and passcode protects virtually all data on the device—such as text messages, photos,…
Android L will have built-in encryption, just like iOS
Digital Trends reported on built-in encryption for Andriod L. The next major version of Android is going to come with one feature that will please the security-conscious: built-in encryption. It means anyone who grabs hold of your mobile device—from petty thief to law enforcement officer—will find it much more difficult to extract data from it.…
Google’s Doubleclick ad servers exposed millions to malware
The Verge reported on Google’s Doubleclick serving malware. The first impressions came in late August, and by now millions of computers have likely been exposed to Zemot, although only those with outdated antivirus protection were actually infected. That means that millions of computers are on outdated antivirus. And using an ad-blocker proves to be more…
Significance of iCloud
John Gruber wrote an excellent piece on the importance and impact of iCloud. David Auerbach on Slate suggested that we should not trust iCloud with our data: Whether or not this particular vulnerability was used to gather some of the photos — Apple is not commenting, as usual, but the ubiquity and popularity of Apple’s…