Privacy is a growing concern in today’s world. Follow along with all our coverage related to privacy, security, what Apple and other companies are doing to keep your information safe, and what steps you can take to keep your information private.
Laptop privacy features have become something of a trend at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show – including the capability to automatically blur the screen if a bystander looks at it.
Some features can extend battery life too …
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The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) has warned of the risks of smartphones and other devices being compromised by surveillance tools, and tweeted a link to NCSC tips on how to protect yourself from cyber attacks …
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We learned earlier this month that NSO’s Pegasus spyware was used to hack US State Department iPhones in Uganda, with no clue at the time who the attacker was.
A new report strongly suggests that the Ugandan government was behind the attacks, as the country – which has an appalling human rights record – is now known to have purchased the spyware. It also appears that this was, indirectly, the tipping point that led to NSO’s downfall…
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We don’t imagine many people actually read Apple’s terms & conditions before creating an Apple ID, but if you wanted to do so, it would take you a half-hour, according to an infographic from Statista.
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The degree to which mobile carriers sell your personal data to third-party companies, allowing targeted ads based on your data, is rather tricky to ascertain from their privacy policies.
If you want to play safe, however, all three of the largest US carriers offer opt-out options…
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On Wednesday, the US and Australia agreed to share digital data between law enforcement agencies in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks and child abuse.
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Pegasus spyware maker NSO Group is reportedly running out of cash following actions by both the US government and Apple. This has led the company to explore options to put itself up for sale.
Two US funds have expressed an interest, claiming that they would change the company’s mission from offensive to defensive, though skepticism has been expressed about this …
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With the launch of iOS 14.5 earlier this year, Apple rolled out its new App Tracking Transparency capability. This privacy feature is designed to give users the ability to opt out of being tracked across other apps and services, but a new report from the Financial Times today details how some companies are still sharing “user-level signals” from iPhone users.
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Facebook 2FA (two-factor authentication) will become mandatory for accounts likely to be targeted by hackers. The move is one of a range of protections offered to high-risk accounts in order to reduce the likelihood of interference in elections.
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Apple has been fined €10M ($11.3M) in Italy for what competition authorities say is the misuse of customer data. Google has been fined the same amount for the same thing.
It follows a $225M fine in the same country earlier this week for price fixing between Apple and Amazon …
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Journalists, lawyers, politicians, and human rights activists have all been targeted by NSO’s Pegasus software, and Apple has now said that it will send security alerts to customers whose devices may be been compromised. It has already done so for at least five Thai activists and researchers.
It follows Apple’s announcement yesterday that it is suing NSO for attacking iOS users …
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It’s no secret that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature, focused on giving users more control over their data, has had an impact on many companies. Now, Snap has been hit with a lawsuit from an investor alleging that the company downplayed how App Tracking Transparency would affect its revenue.
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The UK’s Supreme Court has thrown out a Google Safari workaround class action lawsuit in which iPhone owners could have received as much as £500 ($675) each.
The case alleged that Google breached the privacy of iPhone owners by secretly installing web cookies even after users had blocked them in Safari’s settings …
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Popular connected fitness company Peloton reported its earnings for fiscal Q1 2022 today. The company missed expectations across the board, and it’s blaming Apple for some of its challenges. Specifically, like many other companies recently, Peloton says that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency platform is impacting its ability to gain new subscribers…
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The NSO group, whose Pegasus spyware is used to hack iPhones and Android smartphones, has been officially named by the US government as a threat to national security.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has added the Israeli company to the Entity List, which bans the company’s products from being imported, exported or passed from one organization to another within the US.
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A new report estimates that Apple’s app privacy policy – aka App Tracking Transparency – will cost social media companies almost $10B in the second half of this year.
It says that’s because their unique selling point (USP) was the ability to target particular demographics and interest groups, and that now they can no longer offer that, advertisers are taking their business elsewhere …
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A New York Times journalist covering the Middle East has described the experience of his iPhone being hacked, and the security precautions he now takes as a result.
Ben Hubbard says there were four attempts to hack his iPhone, and that two of them succeeded, with all the signs pointing to the use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware.
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An FTC investigation found that major ISPs monetize private customer data in a variety of ways, all while telling users that their data is not sold …
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Governments were already discussing how to misuse CSAM scanning technology even before Apple announced its plans, say security researchers.
The biggest concern raised when Apple said it would scan iPhones for child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) is that there would be spec-creep, with governments insisting the company scan for other types of images, and there now seems good evidence for this …
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month announced that WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted backups were on the way for those who like to store backups on cloud services like iCloud and Google Drive. That privacy feature is now “slowly” rolling out for both iOS and Android users.
Actual WhatsApp chats are always end-to-end encrypted, but this new feature means that any backups you choose to make get the same level of protection …
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Cybersecurity Awareness Month is mostly geared toward businesses rather than individuals, encouraging them to ensure they carry out risk assessments and follow best practices to protect their IT systems. (There appear to be one or two companies who could use a little work there…)
But it’s also a worthwhile reminder to individuals to check their own cybersecurity, and for us to offer some advice to less-techie friends and family members.
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Both the Facebook and Twitch messes were caused by configuration errors, admit the companies. A mistake by Facebook led to a prolonged global outage of all the company’s services, while a similar error by Twitch left all its files exposed to a hacker …
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It appears that the entirety of Twitch.tv was hacked, so if you have an account there, you’ll probably want to change your password …
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is calling on carriers to implement better security protections against SIM-swap and port-out attacks.
These attacks are a common way for criminals to carry out identity theft, and take over anything from an Apple ID to a bank account …
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