iPhone X gets facial authentication, is the enterprise next?
This week, Apple debuted the iPhone X which kills the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in favor of a 3D facial scanning technology called FaceID. Soon, iPhone users will depend on face recognition in order to check email, send a text or call a friend. Here’s an excerpt from The Verge’s initial iPhone X review:
Hacking smartphones with malicious replacement parts
Smartphone users can now add a new entry to the list of things they need to worry about: their phones being compromised via replacement parts. A group of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has demonstrated that hardware replacements – e.g. touchscreens, NFC readers, wireless charging controllers, and so on – can be equipped…
How to spot malicious mobile apps
The pervasiveness of smartphones has resulted in an onslaught of mobile apps, and it’s pretty safe to say that, by now, there is an app for every imaginable purpose. Unfortunately, among the many helpful ones are also many malicious apps – no app market is safe from them. Fortunately, there are ways to spot such…
Cyberattack Leaves Millions Without Mobile Phone Service in Venezuela
A massive cyberattack that took down government websites in Venezuela earlier this week also has left seven million mobile phone users without service, the government said Thursday. A group that calls itself The Binary Guardians claimed responsibility for attacks that targeted the websites of the government, the supreme court and the National Assembly. “These terrorist…
Five new threats to your mobile device security
A decade ago, mobile malware was considered a new and unlikely threat. Many mobile device users even considered themselves immune from such threats. Fast forward to 2017, and more than 1.5 million new incidents of mobile malware have been detected by McAfee Labs in the first quarter of the year alone – for a total…
‘AVPass’ Sneaks Malware Past Android Antivirus Apps
Researchers at Black Hat USA will release a toolset that studies and then cheats specific Android AV apps. A team of researchers from Georgia Tech built an Android hacking tool that snuck past nearly all of 58 Android AV antivirus programs in tests conducted via VirusTotal. Their AVPass toolkit includes a query function that vets…
Apple iOS Malware Growth Outpaces that of Android
Number of iOS devices running malicious apps more than tripled in three consecutive quarters, while infected Android devices remained largely flat, report shows. iPhones and other devices running Apple’s iOS have seen a jump in malicious apps attacking them while Android malware infections have remained largely stable, according to a report released today by mobile…
Google Patches Critical Vulnerabilities in Android
Google on Wednesday announced that a total of 138 vulnerabilities were addressed in the Android platform with the release of this month’s set of security patches. The July 2017 Android Security Bulletin was split in two partial security patch level strings: the 2017-07-01 security patch level that addresses issues in the platform itself, and the 2017-07-05 security patch…
UK Parliament Cuts Email Access After Cyberattack
Britain’s parliament shut down external access to e-mail accounts on Saturday following a cyberattack. Parliamentary authorities described the attack as “sustained and determined”, in an email sent to lawmakers and published by the Daily Telegraph. “Earlier this morning we discovered unusual activity and evidence of an attempted cyberattack on our computer network,” it read. “Closer…
Five Tips to Stay Safe on Social Media While Traveling
Oversharing your travel plans can put you, your colleagues, your corporate data systems, your property and even your loved ones at risk. Similarly, announcing to the world that your home is vacant obviously increases the odds of a break-in, so what happens to your corporate laptop or personal devices containing corporate data that you leave…