Displaying items by tag: Google

In early February, rumors about a potential acquisition of Mandiant by Microsoft started to circle the internet. The response was not positive with many feeling that it was allowing the fox to run the chicken coop. Although unpopular the rumor did make sense on a few levels. However, regardless of whether the rumors were true or not, Microsoft is not buying Mandiant; Google is. Yes, Google is scooping up Mandiant for a cool $5.4 Billion.

As mobile devices continue to be a focus for attackers, we are hearing that there is new banking malware in the Google Play Store. The new malware belongs to a the SharkBot family and, according to researchers, is also a new generation thanks to included features found inside. The biggest difference between SharkBot and other banking malware is that SharkBot allows the developers to steal money in a highly automated fashion.

Google has a bit of a history (understatement) of abusing data collection and sneaking in ways to continue collecting data on its users. This type of collection is all in service to their ad business. They want to be able to send targeted ads to users and the only way to do that is to collection information about them. This pattern of behavior has led to more than one lawsuit in the past based on the way they word turning features on or off and what they collect. Even Google’s current proposed solution to excessive data collection for targeted ads is confusing and seems like nothing more than a way to maintain control of the collection process.

After Google talked about their response to Apple requiring user acceptance for cross app tracking on mobile devices, the internet sort of exploded with different articles about the pros and cons of each. We wrote about this 2 days ago and gave out thoughts on both solutions. You can read the full article, or just read on for the summation. In short, Apple requiring a user to explicitly allow an app to perform cross tracking and data collection is better than Google’s current plan to collect everything and allow controlled access to the data via API. Google’s plan has even brought up the specter of anti-competition laws as they would literally control all the data on a mobile device. Yes, it is that bad.

A couple of weeks ago Meta, Facebook’s parent company, announced that they were losing money (to the tune of $10 Billion) due to changes in the way Apple mobile devices handle user tracking by apps. The move by Apple was a bit of a surprise considering some of Apple’s history, but when you consider that Apple and Meta will probably be VR competitors it was not that much of one. The announcement also caused many to wonder if Google would follow suit.

Firefox was once one of the leading “alternative” browsers on the internet. After the death of Netscape Firefox came along and offered people an alternative to the building Windows Internet Explorer and even to Safari on macOS. This trend continued into the mobile arena, at least until Google launched the Chrome Browser. Although Chrome had a bit of a rocky start (with clear indications of data collection), it has grown in popularity and gobble up about 64% of the browsing on the internet.

Google has announced the release of a new version of Chrome. The new version comes with fixes for eight vulnerabilities. Once of these vulnerabilities CVE-2022-0609, which is describes as a user-after-free vulnerability is already being exploited in the wild. This has led them to advise users to updated Chrome as soon as possible to avoid compromise. The flaws were found by Google’s own Threat Analysis Group.

It seems that web site data analytics are now on the radar for privacy regulators in the EU, especially Google Analytics collection tools. Recently data protection regulators in Austria and France have rules that the collection of user data by Google combined with the unregulated transfer of this information out of the country (back to the US in particular) is a violation of GDPR.

Irony is a funny thing especially when it is so blatantly obvious as in our example today. Google, owners of YouTube, Adsense and many other internet properties. Google has a history of policing content they do not agree with going so far as to demonetize and even ban differing options on topics such as the US 2nd amendment and de-prioritizing searches for topics that run counter to their viewpoint.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, Connected Devices, Smart devices whatever you want to call them have become a fixture in most homes. It has gotten to the point where you have to look hard to find a device that is not “Smart”. Manufacturers love to push the marketing term smart onto the consumer as it becomes a value add proposal; hey this can do all of this and you can control it using your phone from anywhere. What they do not disclose is exactly how insecure these devices are and how much privacy you can end up giving up just by having them in your home.