You can now obtain a cell phone that is guaranteed to keep your communications private… if you are in the U.S. military. Apparently, nobody else can buy one: https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s20-tactical-edition-for-dod-and-federal-goverment-2020-8
The attack doesn’t exploit any flaw in the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) protocol; instead, it leverages weak implementation of the LTE mobile network by most telecommunication providers in practice, allowing an attacker to eavesdrop on the encrypted phone calls made by targeted victims. Details may be found in an article by Swati Khandelwal in The Hacker News web site at: https://thehackernews.com/2020/08/a-team-of-academic-researcherswho.html. The fix? Turn your cell phone off until your […]
A billion or more Android devices are vulnerable to hacks that can turn them into spying tools by exploiting more than 400 vulnerabilities in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, researchers reported this week. The vulnerabilities can be exploited when a target downloads a video or other content that’s rendered by the chip. Targets can also be attacked by installing malicious apps that require no permissions at all. From there, attackers can monitor […]
Of all the popular text messaging, voice conversation, and 2-way video services available today, Signal is probably the one that offers the best privacy, using end-to-end encryption on all information sent and received. Assuming you are interested in such privacy concerns, you will want to read Brian Barrett’s article, How to Get the Most Out of Signal and Encrypted Chat, in the Wired web site at: https://www.wired.com/story/signal-tips-private-messaging-encryption/.
If you care about your personal privacy and if you own an iPhone, you need to read the article by Zack Whittaker in the TechCrunch web site at: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/23/hackers-iphone-new-jailbreak/.
I haven’t had a chance to try Status just yet. However, if the product lives up to its specifications, this could become the only text messaging app you would ever want to use: Fully encrypted end-to-end No central server; all text messages travel directly from the originanting cell phone to the receiving cell phone with no temporary stops on any server in between No telephone numbers! Spies, hackers, credit card […]
At the center of the investigation are all four major U.S. carriers: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. It is unclear at this time which groups will be penalized, and what that penalty will look like. Further documentation on the specifics of the violation is forthcoming. Details may be found in an article by Alison Foreman on the Mashable web site at: https://mashable.com/article/fcc-concludes-location-data-investigation/.
Elcomsoft, which creates digital forensic software for governments and law enforcement agencies, said on Friday that its iOS Forensic Toolkit can now extract some data from locked iPhones and iPads in Before First Unlock (BFU) mode. The tool takes advantage of a vulnerability, known as the Checkm8 exploit, in certain iPhone and iPad models. The Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit sells for $1,495. Details may be found at https://mashable.com/article/iphone-data-extraction-locked-bfu-mode/.
“Paying with just a wave of your phone can be more secure than a physical card.” Key takeaways: Mobile payments are safe—and they are faster and easier than paying cash or using a card. You can connect a debit card or a credit card to the digital wallet app in your phone to make mobile payments. If you have a smartphone, you can use that to pay for things with […]
A new Linux-based smartphone dubbed Volla Phone is listed on Kickstarter. The phone reportedly rethinks the entire approach to how we use our smartphones and all the features of the Volla Phone are based around protecting user anonymity. Here is a quote from the Volla Phone information on KickStarter: “Today’s smart phones know what we do and when. The deep integration of cloud services with Google Play in mobile operating […]
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