Leveraging Knowledge to Manage Your Data Risks
On September 3, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit against Apitor Technology, which makes robotic toys, alleging that Apitor’s app “enabled a third party in China to collect geolocation information from children without parental consent.”
The DOJ filed suit following a referral from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that Apitor did not comply…
Researchers at Arizona State University and Citizen Lab have discovered that three families of Android VPN applications, used by millions of people worldwide, are related and owned by companies or individuals located in mainland China or Hong Kong with ties to the People’s Republic of China.
The researchers analyzed numerous VPN apps and the number…
Google recently issued its June Android Security Bulletin that is designed to patch 34 vulnerabilities, all of which Google designates as high-severity defects. The most serious flaw the patch is designed to fix in the Android system would allow threat actors “to achieve local escalation of privilege with no additional privileges required.” The bulletin contains…
This week, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for its use of a COVID-19 contact-tracing app for residents’ mobile phones. However, very few residents voluntarily downloaded the app. The solution? The lawsuit alleges that Massachusetts caused the app to be downloaded to certain residents’ mobile…
Like all technology, mobile apps can be infected with malicious code, or malware, which is intended to gain access to your mobile phone when you download the app. Although app stores try their best to not allow malicious apps to get into the store, monitor apps once they are included in the store, and delete…
This week, China-based DJI, the drone industry’s leading manufacturer of drones, issued a public statement regarding the recent reports released by cybersecurity researchers (neither Synacktiv nor GRIMM) about the security of its drones’ control app.
In two reports, the researchers claimed that an app on Google’s Android operating system that powers DJI drones collects large…
WhatsApp has announced that it has patched a vulnerability that would have allowed hackers to access with malware the chat history of users. Android 8.1 and 9 could have been susceptible to the attack. However, WhatsApp is urging all users to update their app.
Although WhatsApp says it has patched the vulnerability and does not…
New malicious malware dubbed “Gustuff” targets big banks, fintech companies and cryptocurrency apps, according to the security firm Group IB.
According to Group IB, which discovered Gustuff on hacker forums, the new malware is affecting Android devices and is “a mobile Android Trojan, which includes potential targets of customers in leading international banks, users of…
If you have bought a new cell phone recently, you have seen that the technology of the newest smart phones is far more advanced than in the past, and have features that most people don’t understand or use.
When I conduct employee education for companies on data privacy and security, I devote a portion of…
By now most smartphone users are aware of location tracking used by both Apple and Android operating systems. Basic location tracking is a system which uses GPS data to know the phone user’s location. However, according to a recent article published by Quartz, Google’s data collection goes far beyond basic location tracking. Not only does the data collected go beyond simple location information, but the ‘Opt In’ service Google uses to collect that data, Location History, isn’t as truly Opt In as users might expect. According to Quartz, Google’s Location History underlies many of Android’s main apps, including Google Assistant and Google Maps. Furthermore, Opting In to Location History for one app may actually give many apps access to Location History’s data and the ability to send that data to Google.
Continue Reading Google Tracking of Android Users Goes Beyond the Expected
