Google bust out the data to prove doubters wrong about the quality of Android security. But, according to its second-ever yearly Android security report, issued Tuesday, as many as 420 million active devices are not supported by its patches, leaving a large number open to possible attack.
According to Google’s data, nearly 30 per cent of all active Android phones and tablets are on a version that do not receive patches. Anyone running an Android version below 4.4.4 does not currently receive security updates from the tech titan. Google, for obvious reasons, recommends users run the most up-to-date operating system.
Read moreNest is coming under fire following an announcement that Revolv, a smart home startup it acquired two years ago, would be permanently shutting off its product starting May 15th.
The decision, announced in a quiet note on Revolv's website in February, has gone largely unnoticed and is expected to impact a very small number of consumers. However, it does raise serious questions about the longevity of smart home gadgets. The devices are often costly pieces of hardware made by small startups that may drop support at any point after being scooped up by a larger technology company.
Read moreSecurity researchers have discovered 104 Android apps that exhibit a combination of adware and spyware features, collecting information on users in order to deliver malware to infected victims. The malware family is distributed to its victims as Android apps directly from Google's official Play Store.
Most of these applications are blatant clones of more popular apps and games, and some of them don't even exhibit the functionality with which they were advertised. The apps range from image editing software to live wallpaper apps, and from simplistic games to instant messaging services.
Read moreEric Schmidt will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.
Carter unveiled the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, saying it would give the Pentagon access to "the brightest technical minds focused on innovation." Schmidt, now the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, said the board would help bridge what he called a clear gap between how the U.S. military and the technology industry operate.
Read moreOver 60 Android games hosted on Google Play had Trojan-like functionality that allowed them to download and execute malicious code hidden inside images. The rogue apps were discovered by researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web and were reported to Google last week.
Malicious Android apps were a common occurrence on Google Play until a few years ago when Google implemented more rigorous checks. This included an automated scanner called Bouncer that used emulation and behavior-based detection. Bypassing Bouncer detection is not impossible, but is hard enough to keep most malware creators away.
Read moreThe popular Google Chrome browser has some of the best security tools baked in with features such as Safebrowsing which protects users from malicious websites. By extension, ChromeOS which powers the affordable Chromebooks is indeed one of the safest systems one can get these days.
Even though the surface of attack is smaller than that of a typical Windows PC, online crooks will always find a way to abuse the system. One of the main points of entry is via rogue browser extensions which are increasingly becoming a problem and are being leveraged in various types of attacks ranging from data theft, spying, pop up ads and more.
Read moreIt's basically the company's plot to kill the password in cold blood, by replacing it with smartphone user authentication via an uncrackable collection of biometric readings.
Abacus would lock or unlock devices and apps based on a cumulative "trust score" -- as your phone continually monitors and recognizes your location patterns, voice and speech patterns, how you walk and type, and your face. Like many things Google, it sounds miraculous. Your phone will just know it's you. And infosec pundits who believe we're stuck in password-hell Groundhog Day because "regular" people won't do security if it's inconvenient, will rejoice.
Read moreAnyone who likes to use their computer as a release, pay attention because your secret browsing might not be quite so secret. A bug has been discovered meaning that users of Google Chrome with Nvidia graphics chips don't always get Incognito Mode, even when the machine says it's on.
The rub of the story came from blogger charliehorse55 who explained that after a furious session of present buying, he decided to play Diablo III and was confronted, not with the loading screen, but an unloading screen showing all of the presents. It turns out this is just the tip. Nvidia GPUs don't flush the memory buffer at the end of a browsing session, and neither does Google Chrome.
Read moreThirteen more malicious apps were struck from Google's Play Store at the end of 2015 after having been discovered to be stricken with the Brain Test malware.
Named for an app discovered on the Play Store by Check Point, the Brain Test malware gains root privilege to Android devices and downloads application packages to the infected phone, allowing the adversary a free ride with the unlucky victim's device. Brain Test was discovered by cyber-security researchers at Check Point in September. They noticed that not only did the malware cling remora-like to Play Store apps but basically made the infected device its own once the malware was securely in place.
Read moreMost of today's top mobile payment apps are not protected enough to handle the amount of scrutiny and effort cyber-criminals are normally willing to put into compromising payment systems.
The company studied ten of the most popular mobile payment apps, ranging from mobile wallet apps to one-click payment merchants, and from peer-to-peer payment apps to regular apps that link themselves to banking accounts. According to Bluebox, three big issues were identified. The first is related to improperly protected communication channels that would allow attackers to redirect payments to an attacker's desired location.
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