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.
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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…
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
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 …
Expand Expanding Close
Despite widespread support for a federal privacy law across US citizens, businesses, civil rights groups, and even politicians, efforts to create one appear to have stalled.
Congress now appears to be placing its hopes in FTC regulation instead …
Expand Expanding Close
Some popular iPhone apps are using some sneaky techniques to uniquely identify you, even if you refused permission for app tracking. The data they are gathering includes everything from your iPhone’s Last Restart Time to your screen brightness setting measured to 15 significant digits.
A former iCloud engineer says that this type of privacy workaround makes Apple’s App Tracking Transparency rules a “dud” …
Expand Expanding Close
Apple giving into Russia twice this week on key civil liberties issues proves that the company’s CSAM misuse assurances cannot be trusted, argues a high-profile security expert.
Apple today pulled from the App Store an opposition tactical voting app after the Russian government threatened specific local company employees with “punishment” if they refused. It turns out that Apple also turned off its Private Relay service in Russia just yesterday, likely also in response to government pressure…
Expand Expanding Close
An iPhone exploit sold to the United Arab Emirates for $1.3M was developed by a US company that used American mercenaries to facilitate the sale, according to the Department of Justice …
Expand Expanding Close
London police chief Cressida Dick has used the 20th anniversary of 9/11 to attack companies like Apple, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal for offering end-to-end encrypted message services.
It follows the British Home Secretary – in charge of policing for the UK – seeking tech companies to find some way to break end-to-end encryption …
Expand Expanding Close
Facebook has confirmed to me that all WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, and that a ProPublica report is based on a misunderstanding. Update: ProPublica has added a ‘clarification’ and amended its story to reflect Facebook’s explanation.
Expand Expanding CloseA previous version of this story caused unintended confusion about the extent to which WhatsApp examines its users’ messages and whether it breaks the encryption that keeps the exchanges secret. We’ve altered language in the story to make clear that the company examines only messages from threads that have been reported by users as possibly abusive. It does not break end-to-end encryption.
The British government has expressed support for Apple’s now-delayed CSAM scanning plans, and says that it wants the ability to scan encrypted messages for CSAM, even where end-to-end encryption is used.
The country is offering to pay anyone who can find a way “to keep children safe in environments such as online messaging platforms with end-to-end encryption” …
Expand Expanding Close
Privacy and civil rights activists say that a US GDPR-style federal privacy law should be passed to replace the confusing mass of federal and state laws in place at present. This is an approach also favored by Apple, which wants the simplicity of a single set of privacy requirements across the US.
In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides the strongest protections ever seen for consumer data, all within a single piece of legislation. The US, in contrast, has no fewer than eight different federal privacy laws, and a mass of current and planned state ones …
Expand Expanding Close
The German government has reportedly admitted to buying Pegasus spyware, despite the fact that using some of the functionality would break privacy laws in the country. Privacy is a particularly hot-button issue in the country, given the country’s history.
Sources cited in the report say that the version purchased from NSO had certain features disabled so that its use would be lawful in the country …
Expand Expanding Close
An annual National Privacy Test shows that Germans are the most privacy-savvy of 197 nationalities surveyed, followed by Americans…
Expand Expanding Close
Apps used by children – defined as any app “likely to be used by children,” even if they are not the target audience – must meet new UK privacy standards from today …
Expand Expanding Close