Recent News – Page 3

Google’s Emergency Location Service Improves 911 Response

October 3, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Google is making a small but pivotal change as it relates to calls placed to 911 operators. Having recently finalized a complex partnership with RapidSOS and West (two emergency technology companies) and T-Mobile, Google will now send location data from its “Emergency Location Service” when an Android user places a 911 call.

If the caller is a T-Mobile customer, the information will be passed along via the carrier. Where 911 call centers use RapidSOS, Google will send the location data via the technology company. In the US Virgin Islands, Google has made the same arrangement with the Emergency Tech company, West.

While the announcement may raise some surprised eyebrows, the change has been in the works for more than a year. Google has spent much of that time testing. Their findings were that the location data Google sent over was more accurate and arrived more quickly than the data the 911 call centers had been getting previously.

Not to be outdone, Apple announced in June of this year that it was developing a similar service for iOS users, and that beginning with iOS 12, Apple devices would automatically send location data to emergency call centers when users dial 911.

Even privacy advocates agree that this is generally a good move, and it’s one of the growing number of instances where smart use of technology can save lives. Anything we can do to give our nation’s emergency call centers an edge is an important change. Currently, those call centers take an average of 140,000 calls a day, so this is by no means a trivial issue.

Kudos to both Google and Apple for taking bold action on this issue. While we may not like the idea of having our location data shared, in this particular instance, it certainly seems like a smart play.

Joseph Martin

President & CEO
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Android May Be Coming To More New Cars Soon

October 3, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Google scored a major coup in the auto industry. They just inked a deal that will put the Android OS in every car made by the global auto alliance Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. It sold a staggering 10.6 million vehicles around the world last year.

The tech giant has struggled to get its foot in the door, primarily because auto makers have been hesitating on handing over the keys to their Infotainment and other computerized systems, in fear of being shut out of the data collected by those systems.

It’s a fair complaint and a valid concern, but Google has been working hard to build trust in the auto world and has taken a variety of approaches.

Their first move was to build an OS called “Android Auto” which mirrors the functionality of the Android OS but offers scaled down functionality which means it falls well short of “Android running on a car.”

Having gained some ground with that approach, they next introduced Android Automotive, which is essentially the entire Android OS, geared specifically for vehicular use. They showed off their work last year at the 2018 I/O Tech conference, and their persistence paid off.

It’s a big win on all fronts. The automakers win by retaining access to their data, while handing off the software function to a company with a long history of getting it right.

Google wins because it expands the Android ecosystem in a whole new way. Consumers win because it offers a seamless (and improved) user experience and makes it easier for an auto owner to sync their Android device to their car.

Google also wins because they get access to all the data generated by the in-auto OS after gaining permission from the user. Plus, having scored a partnership with one major auto alliance, others will surely follow, which will further expand the tech giant’s footprint.

Joseph Martin

Malware Reports Continue To Rise

September 26, 2018 by Joseph Martin

We’ve known for some time now that the next big crisis the internet will have to come to grips with is the dramatic rise of the Internet of Things (IOT).

The problem isn’t with the devices themselves, which are enormously helpful and rapidly growing in their popularity. Rather, it lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of IoT manufacturers have been notoriously lax when it comes to building even basic security protocols into the goods they make and sell.

The lack of security and the complete absence of any type of security has made the Internet of Things the new “low hanging fruit” of the internet, and hackers have been happy to take advantage of the incredibly easy access.

Kaspersky Lab has recently given us hard numbers to provide a sense of the scope and scale of the problem.

Last year, the company detected a total of 32,615 malware infections on IoT devices. In just the first six months of this year, the company has spotted 121,588 infections on IoT devices, representing a staggering 273 percent increase.

Far and away, the most commonly compromised devices were routers. Behind them were a whole raft of other IoT devices including smart TVs, refrigerators, DVRs, printers, washing machines and more.

Things have gotten so bad that earlier this year, the FBI issued a public service announcement in a bid to warn users of the dangers of unsecured devices.

These can be slaved by hackers to create enormous botnets like the one that brought down the internet on the entire eastern seaboard earlier this year. However, if they are connected to your home or office network, they provide a perfect launchpad for attacks against other network connected devices.

Sadly, manufacturers to this point have shown little interest in beefing up the security of the devices they sell, so the problem is likely to get much worse before it starts getting better.

Joseph Martin

SmartHome Users Aren’t Keeping Up With Security Updates

September 24, 2018 by Joseph Martin

The Internet on devices continues to be a major problem when it comes to security. Unfortunately, a big part of the reason why comes down to end users. Recently, Bitdefender released a new report entitled “The IoT Threat Landscape And Top Smart Home Vulnerabilities in 2018,” and it paints a grim picture indeed.

The average home now contains twenty smart devices, and most of them contain security vulnerabilities. 95 percent of those vulnerabilities reside in the firmware.

While the majority of smart device users (60 percent ) claim to be “worried” or “very worried” about identity theft, most are utterly failing to adequately protect their IoT devices. In fact, sixty percent indicated that they had never performed a firmware update on their router, and 55 percent reported that they had never updated their smart TVs.

It gets worse. 40 percent of users surveyed indicated that they use the same password for each of their devices, and half of all smart TV owners said they had literally never updated their password.

Thirty percent of users claim that they’re worried about the prospect of a hacker accessing a smart camera to spy on them, but paradoxically, fully 70 percent have at least one camera connected to a vulnerable router.

To provide a sense of scope and scale, the company reported that its BOX product blocked nearly half a million threats (461,718) in just a 30-day period, with 76 percent of those being malicious websites.

Analyst Bogdan Botezatu stressed that while weak passwords are a big part of the problem, it’s not only users who are to blame.

He added:

“Smart device manufacturers share responsibility for the current state of IoT security because most of them are overlooking the security aspect. In their rush to launch the product ahead of the competition, they are leaving attack avenues wide open to attackers interested in user sensitive data.”

If you have one or more smart devices in your home, and you probably do, it’s time to get serious about securing them.

Joseph Martin

Microsoft Outlook is Rolling Out New Design Changes

September 21, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Microsoft is making some long overdue and welcome changes to Outlook to include the Windows and the Web-based version.

People who use either one will now see a “Coming Soon” option that allows users to toggle between the version they’ve got now, and the new and improved version with the changes.

As to those changes, they fall broadly into three groups:

Better Organization – The improved Outlook offers intelligent technology, specialized icons, visual changes and a “highlights” feature that are all designed to help you manage your time better and provide a greater level of focus on your daily and weekly activities.

Improved Speed and Efficiency – The redesign is sleeker and faster. Using it will allow you to schedule meetings, read and act on emails and write new emails much more quickly than the old version.

More Customization – Hotmail users know only too well that Outlook on the web has lagged behind its competitors in terms of customization, and the redesign seeks to change that. Microsoft is playing a bit of catch up here, but any improvements on this front are welcome indeed. Among other things, you can now apply additional themes, personalize your inbox and simplify the ribbon.

There’s no word yet on how long the new features will be offered as an opt-in option, but of course, at some point, the company will mandate the change.

On balance, these are good changes. Perhaps more modest than long-time users would like to have seen, but again, any changes to one of the oldest email systems still around have to be counted as a positive.

Kudos to Microsoft for keeping Outlook reasonably up to date, and here’s hoping that the user base embraces them. which we hope hope will encourage the company to make additional improvements.

Joseph Martin

Another Chrome Extension Is Stealing Passwords

September 19, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Do you use the Chrome browser extension for the MEGA file storage service? If you do, please read this article carefully. The official extension for that service has been compromised. It has been replaced with a malware version that has the capability to steal user login data for a number of popular websites, including Github, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and more.

The extension was compromised on September 4th, when an unknown attacker breached MEGA’s Chrome Web Store account and uploaded the poisoned version of the extension. Any user who installs it is at risk of having their other login credentials stolen.

It gets worse. If you allow auto-updates, then the poisoned version of the extension would have automatically “updated” on your PC or smartphone when the malware was uploaded. Note that when the extension attempted to update, it would have asked users for elevated permissions. Those elevated permissions would allow the extension access to personal information, which is the mechanism by which the credentials are stolen.

The poisoned file was in place for a total of four hours before it was found, eradicated and replaced by a clean version (version 3.39.5).

According to MEGA:

“You are only affected if you had the MEGA Chrome extension installed at the time of the incident, auto update enabled, and you accepted the additional permission, or if you freshly installed version 3.39.4.”

If you think there’s even a chance you were impacted by this event, your best bet would be an across-the-board change of all your passwords, as there’s no way to be sure which ones may have been compromised.

Two things to note here: The Firefox extension was not impacted. This applies only to chrome users who have the MEGA extension installed. Also, you should check your extension version number immediately to be sure you’re not running version 3.39.4. If you are, uninstall it immediately and grab the clean version referenced above.

Joseph Martin

Name Of Utility Company That Leaked Information Just Released

September 18, 2018 by Joseph Martin

In 2016, an unnamed US energy company left some 30,000 records (containing information about its security assets) exposed for more than two months (a total of 70 days), in violation of energy sector cyber security regulations. When the incident was initially reported, the name of the company was withheld.

That company has now agreed to a $2.7 million-dollar settlement, and its name has now been made public, along with some additional details about the incident.

Initially, the company admitted that they unintentionally exposed the database in question, but that it contained fake data. As the investigation into the matter continued, it became apparent that the data was not only real, but that it included hashed passwords for administrators that hackers could have easily reverse-engineered. PG&E subsequently reversed their fake data assertion.

The exposed data was found by independent security researcher Chris Vickery, who indicated at the time that the database contained details for some 47,000 computers, virtual machines, servers and other devices.

In addition to that a number of non-encrypted email passwords were found, along with 120 encrypted passwords. In Vickery’s words, “This would be a treasure trove for any hostile nation-state hacking group.”

According to the official NERC notice regarding the incident:

“The data was exposed publicly on the internet for 70 days. The usernames of the database were also exposed, which included cryptographic information of those usernames and passwords. Exposure of the username and cryptographic information could aid malicious attackers in using this information to decode passwords.”

Once PG&E was made aware of the problem, it took a server offline, which removed the exposed data. They also brought in third-party forensic experts to investigate, and as a result of that investigation, revised a number of their security policies.

Overall, the company’s handling of the matter was spotty at best, but in light of the record-setting fine, the hope is that we won’t see a similar instance of carelessness in the future.

Joseph Martin

Amazon Joins Trillion Dollar Club

September 18, 2018 by Joseph Martin

It’s official, Apple now has company in the Trillion Dollar Club as Amazon’s stock surged past $2,000, briefly pushing the company’s total value to just over the trillion-dollar mark.

This makes the company’s CEO Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at around $166 billion dollars.

Amazon started out as just another internet company struggling to turn a profit. Over the years, however, the company has become a true retail powerhouse, and a disruptive force in the industry.

Some analysts predict that the company’s stock price is poised to climb even higher. Brian Nowak, (an analyst at Morgan Stanley) cities some reasons for his continued optimism. These include the company’s rapid growth, their improving business mix and their profit potential. Overall, Amazon’s total value only trails Apple’s by about $100 billion.

The last twelve months have been kind to Amazon, and the company has seen its stock price surge nearly 75 percent. The company is aggressively expanding into new businesses and finding success in doing so, which is exciting investors. Last year, for example, Amazon purchased Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion, and recently acquired the online pharmacy, PillPack.

While there are only two members of the trillion-dollar club, there are two other companies poised to join their ranks. Both Microsoft and Google’s parent company, Alphabet are currently valued at about $850 billion. A modest nudge in either company’s stock price could push either of them into the trillion-dollar stratosphere.

Although there are a number of analysts who are excited by the stock’s future prospects, there is also some cause for concern. At current prices, the stock is trading at nearly 100 times earnings, which is nearly five times the broader market’s P/E ratio of 21. Then there’s the considerable risk that Amazon may suffer from a regulatory crackdown, given its size and dominance in the market.

Even so, it’s great news, and even better if you already own Amazon stock!

Joseph Martin

Air Canada Customers May Have Had Their Data Exposed

September 17, 2018 by Joseph Martin

If you fly Air Canada and use their mobile app, it may be time to change your password. The company recently announced that between August 22nd and August 24th of this year, they detected “unusual log-in behavior,” and that a small fraction (some 20,000) of their 1.7 mobile app users may have had their data compromised as a result.

The company stressed that no credit card information was compromised, but that doesn’t make the breach much less damaging.

The exposed data included:

Customer name

Physical address

Email address

Phone number

Any information an individual customer added to his or her profile

Worst of all is the fact that passport numbers were also exposed. Using that information, a hacker could easily gain access to the countries that a person has been to, when the passport expires, country of residence, the flight numbers of any flights they’ve taken, their gender, birthday and more.

As is usually the case when events like this occur, Air Canada has apologized to their customers and has reached out to all of their potentially impacted users.

Even if you didn’t get a notification from Air Canada, it would be prudent to change your password as soon as possible.

The company has not released any details about exactly how the breach occurred, and the matter is still under investigation.

Note that in terms of scope and scale, this is a fairly small breach. The 20,000 users represents about 1 percent of the total user base. Even so, the data stolen has the potential to be quite damaging. Even after you change your password, since email addresses were compromised during the breach, be on the alert for phishing emails, as the group responsible may attempt to leverage the information they have to get even more.

Joseph Martin

Tech Support Scammers Are Advertising Online

September 17, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Tech Support scams are nothing new, but they are getting increasingly sophisticated. Worse, tech giants like Google are finding it notoriously difficult to detect them.

A report recently released by the venerable data security firm, Symantec, indicates that tech support scammers are increasingly integrating call optimization into their schemes, which allows them to insert phone numbers into web pages dynamically. Among other things, this allows the scammers to display the phone number of someone who speaks the language of the victim, which makes the whole act more convincing and much more likely to succeed.

In recent years, tech support scams have begun promoting their “services” via ads, where they claim to be legitimate, authorized service centers for companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Dell. The brand recognition and professional presentation combine to put their victims at ease.

They’re so slick and professional, and their “employees” so good at mimicking the employees of legitimate service centers that it can be virtually impossible to tell the real companies from the fake ones.

David Graff, Google’s Director of Global Product Policy had this to say about the matter:

“For many years, we’ve consulted and worked with law enforcement and government agencies to address abuse in this area. As the fraudulent activity takes place off our platform, it’s increasingly difficult to separate the bad actors from the legitimate providers.”

Google is taking steps to try and combat the rising threat. Recently, they’ve made a change to their policy as it relates to tech support companies, only accepting ads from verified third-party support vendors.

Even with this added layer of protection, however, the tech support scam is thriving. Scammers have already begun taking steps to get around the new restrictions by cold-calling their victims. For the most part, this has proved to be a successful tactic for them. However, in at least one instance, where the scammers called the New Zealand Police, it ended quite badly for the criminals.

Joseph Martin

Google’s Emergency Location Service Improves 911 Response

Android May Be Coming To More New Cars Soon

Malware Reports Continue To Rise

SmartHome Users Aren’t Keeping Up With Security Updates

Microsoft Outlook is Rolling Out New Design Changes

Another Chrome Extension Is Stealing Passwords

Name Of Utility Company That Leaked Information Just Released

Amazon Joins Trillion Dollar Club

Air Canada Customers May Have Had Their Data Exposed

Tech Support Scammers Are Advertising Online

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