What’s up with WhatsApp’s privacy policy?
WhatsApp has been in the news recently after changes to its privacy policy caused a surge of interest in rival messaging app Signal. Initial reports may have worried a lot of folks, leading to inevitable clarifications and corrections. But what, you may ask, actually happened? Is there a problem? Are you at risk? Or should…
Facebook Takes Legal Action Against Data Scrapers
In a lawsuit filed in Portugal, Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland seek permanent injunction against the two for violation of the social media platform’s terms of service and Portugal’s Database Protection Law. The social media giant says that the two created browser extensions that they made available for download through the Chrome Web Store. The…
Apple to Press Ahead on Mobile Privacy, Despite Facebook Protests
The iPhone maker said it was moving ahead with updates to its mobile operating system to give users more information and control on tracking by apps on Apple devices. Apple earlier this year delayed the changes to give online advertisers time to adapt. But in a letter to the nonprofit group Ranking Digital Rights, Apple…
Holiday gifts getting smarter, but creepier when it comes to privacy and security
A Hamilton Beach Smart Coffee Maker that could eavesdrop, an Amazon Halo fitness tracker that measures the tone of your voice, and a robot-building kit that puts your kid’s privacy at risk are among the 37 creepiest holiday gifts of 2020 according to Mozilla. Researchers reviewed 136 popular connected gifts available for purchase in the…
Three API security risks in the wake of the Facebook breach
Facebook recently pledged to improve its security following a lawsuit that resulted from a 2018 data breach. The breach, which was left open for more than 20 months, resulted in the theft of 30 million authentication tokens and almost as much personally identifiable information. A “View As” feature that enabled developers to render user pages…
Officials Push Facebook for Way to Peek at Encrypted Messages
The request was made in a letter signed by US Attorney General William Barr, British home secretary Priti Patel and Australian minister for home affairs Peter Dutton. “We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services… without including a means for lawful access…
Apple iOS 13 will better protect user privacy, but more could be done
Last week, Apple introduced several new privacy features to its latest mobile operating system, iOS 13. The Internet, predictably, expressed doubt, questioning Apple’s oversized influence, its exclusive pricing model that puts privacy out of reach for anyone who can’t drop hundreds of dollars on a mobile phone, and its continued, near-dictatorial control of the App…
Cybercriminals targeting social media: Facebook and Instagram are becoming phishers’ favorites
Social media phishing, primarily Facebook and Instagram, saw the highest quarter- over-quarter growth of any industry with a 74.7 percent increase, according to the Vade Secure Phishers’ Favorites report for Q1 2019. While Facebook has been in the top 10 since report’s inception, Instagram cracked the top 25 for the first time, taking the #24…
Most adults are concerned about malware and phishing on social media
More than eighty percent of adults believe that they’re at risk when it comes to security on social media. Most American adults are using at least one social media platform daily, and three-quarters are interested in protecting themselves and their privacy, according to the 2019 Study on Social Media Privacy and Security Concerns released by…
How the Google and Facebook outages could impact application security
With major outages impacting Gmail, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram recently, consumers are right to be concerned over the security of their private data. While details of these outages haven’t yet been published – a situation I sincerely hope Alphabet and Facebook correct – the implications of these outages are something we should be looking closely…