Followups Cambridge Analytica & Facebook Kerfuffle Followup Additional developments: It’s been revealed that Facebook scraped call and text data from Android phones for years. Technically users did opt in to the collection, but it doesn’t seem to have been informed consent based on the public reaction to the reporting: Facebook scraped call, text message data […]
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Security Bits Special — The Cambridge Analytica & Facebook Kerfuffle
The Cliff Notes Version of the Story This story was broken by two major news paper organisations cooperating with each other — the Guardian (through it’s publication the Observer) in the UK, and the New York Times in the US:
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – AMD Bugs (AMD Gets Its Turn in the Spotlight (RyzenFall, MasterKey, Fallout & Chimera) & GrayKey
Spectre/Meltdown Update Microsoft have removed the special registry flag which prevented the Spectre/Meltdown patches being applied on machines without AV that explicitly declares itself compatible with the patch. This approach made sense early in the response to these bugs, but it did have an undesirable side-effect, a machine with no AV would never get patched. […]
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – US Customs Epic Security Fail, Can Cellebrite Unlock Any iPhone
Spectre/Meltdown Update Intel ships (hopefully stable) microcode for Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake — arstechnica.com/… Intel’s latest set of Spectre microcode fixes is coming to a Windows update — arstechnica.com/… In an SEC filing in the US, Intel have revealed there are now 32 lawsuits against it over Spectre & Meltdown — arstechnica.com/…
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – Google’s Ad Filter, iBoot Leak, iOS Teluga Text Bug
Security Medium 1 — Google’s Ad Filter On February 15 Google’s Chrome browser gained a nice new feature for controlling ads. It’s been reported on as an ad blocker, but that coverage misses a very important subtlety. Google itself calls the feature ad filtering, and an ad filter describes this feature very well indeed. Google […]
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – Spectre/Meltdown Update, Strava Heat Maps
Followup — Spectre & Meltdown News Intel asks customers to halt patching for chip bug, citing flaw — www.reuters.com/… New Windows patch disables Intel’s bad Spectre microcode fix — arstechnica.com/… macOS Sierra, OS X El Capitan Updates Patch Meltdown Flaw — www.intego.com/… Apple offers another Meltdown fix for Mac users… — nakedsecurity.sophos.com/… Security Medium — […]
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – Spectre & Meltdown Update (Again), Dark Caracal, chaiOS
Meltdown & Spectre Update Steve Gibson of GRC (author of ShieldsUp & SpinRite) has released InSpectre, a free Windows app which clearly communicates your PC’s current level of protection against Meltdown & Spectre, and what kind of a performance hit you should expect — www.grc.com/… RedHat have withdrawn their microcode patch for Spectre after it […]
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We felt it was a good idea to bring everyone up to speed on what we know a week later about Spectre and Meltdown instead of waiting for our regularly scheduled Security Bits.
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – Password Trackers, IOHIDeous, Meltdown & Spectre
Security Bits – 5 Jan 2018 Security Medium 1 — Password Managers as Trackers Security researchers have found that less-reputable tracking firms have deployed JavaScript which uses invisible forms to trick password managers into entering information which can then be used as a kind of super-cookie that users cannot delete, and hence, track them around […]
Continue readingMore TagSecurity Bits – 08 December 2017 – macOS Root Bug, HomeKit Bug, iOS Backup Encryption
Security Medium 1 — macOS High Sierra Root Bug A nasty bug was found in macOS 10.13 High Sierra — it was possible to cause the root account to become enabled, and to do so with a blank password. To trigger this bug all you had to do was go into the control panel, click […]
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