Chinese company ByteDance faces growing concerns from governments and regulators that user data from its popular short video-sharing app TikTok could be handed over to the Chinese government. The concern is based on China’s national security laws, which give its government the power to compel Chinese-based companies to hand over any user data. More than
Apple
Court Rules Apple’s Face-ID Does Not Violate BIPA
Posted in Enforcement + Litigation
An Illinois appellate court has ruled that Apple’s biometric unlock features, including Touch ID fingerprint scanning and Face ID facial geometry scanning, do not violate the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The case involved a group of Illinois residents who alleged that Apple’s Face ID feature impermissibly collects facial geometries from pictures stored in…
Apple + Microsoft Release Patches for Identified Vulnerabilities
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Cybersecurity
This week, both Apple and Microsoft issued patches to fix serious zero-day vulnerabilities that should be applied as soon as possible. That means that if you have an iPhone or iPad, you may want to plug your phone or iPad in and apply the newest iOS 15.0.2, which is what I just did as I…
Apple Issues Patches: Apply Them Now and Alert Your Employees to Do the Same
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in New + Now
Earlier this week, Apple issued another patch—this one is said to address a reported vulnerability that “an application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.” According to Apple, it “is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.” According to reports, this is the 13th zero-day vulnerability…
Privacy Tip #291 – Cryptomining Apps Offer Fake Services for a Fee
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
Although app platforms guard against fake apps, criminals are working hard to get around app platform rules to scam victims out of a cryptobuck. Apple and Google throw apps off their platforms if they don’t play by the rules, yet fake and scam apps have proliferated and continue to scam victims.
Recently, security researchers at…
Privacy Tip #283 – Apple Users: It’s Important to Update to iOS 14.5.1 ASAP
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
If you are on top of updating your iPhone patches when a new operating system is released by Apple, you probably updated your iOS to version 14.5 when Apple released it last week. However, even if you did update last week, it is important to update again this week to iOS 14.5.1, which Apple released…
Privacy Tip #282 – Apple’s New iPhone Privacy Controls
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Privacy Tips
Once again, Apple is leading the pack on privacy and implementing new privacy controls, starting next week. What does this mean for you?
If you are an iPhone user, you will start seeing more pop-ups from apps asking you for permission to collect your data. Apple is requiring apps that it believes are collecting our…
Twitter fined $546,000 in December 2020 by European Data Protection Authority for 2019 Breach Notification Violations
By Kathleen Porter on
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) fined Twitter 450,000 euros (about US$546,000) for failing to timely notify the Irish DPC within the required 72 hours of discovering a Q4 2018 breach involving a bug in its Android app, and also for failing to adequately document that breach. The bug caused some 88,726 European Twitter users’…
Crime-as-a-Service Targets Popular Platforms
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Cybersecurity
It’s getting difficult to keep up with the jargon of all of the new digital scams. The SaaSes in the beginning became regular business terms, such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Business Processes-as-a-Service (BPaaS). But then the criminal enterprises came up with Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) and now Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS).
A new Crime-as-a-Service offering is targeting…
Privacy Tip #189 – Online Dating
By Linn Foster Freedman on
Posted in Children's Privacy, Privacy Tips
As someone who has been married a long time (longer than the Internet has existed), I never experienced the online dating scene. Everyone has their own opinion on the topic, and without getting into the merits of online dating, there is risk for children, which is the subject of this privacy tip.
The Federal Trade…