21st Century Learning and Teaching

Recently, a report has emerged on the fact that certain applications available on Android are vulnerable to the Heartbleed Bug, and it seems that more...

Moreover, the team claims that the issue is present even on handsets and tablets that do not run under the affected platform iteration itself. 

They note that 273 applications in Google Play were found to be bundled with the standalone affected OpenSSL library, thus being vulnerable on any device on which they are installed.

“In this list, we see last year’s most popular games, some VPN clients, a security app, a popular video player, an instant message app, a VOIP phone app and many others,” the TrendLabs notes in the aforementioned blog post. 

Learn more:

• http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Heartbleed

With the threat already in ads, are mobile users left vulnerable to attacks?

Though developers need to be very careful installing ad networks in their apps, users can still protect themselves by

===> making sure that the Android system setting ‘Unknown sources’ is unchecked to prevent dropped or drive-by-download app installs and installing security apps like Lookout to as their first line of defense against malware. <===

Summer 2013 App Reputation Report to examine the hidden behaviors behind free and paid mobile apps

The cloud-based, fully automated Appthority App Risk Management Service performed static, dynamic and behavioral app analysis on the 400 most popular free and paid apps on the iOS and Android platforms.

Appthority analyzed each app for particular behaviors within a test environment

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Highlights from the App Reputation Report are:

- Overall, 83% of the most popular apps are associated with security risks and privacy issues.

- iOS apps exhibited more risky behaviors than Android apps. 91% of iOS apps exhibit at least one risky behavior, as compared to 80% of Android apps.

- 95% of the top free apps and 77.5% of the top paid apps exhibited at least one risky behavior.

- 78% of the most popular free Android apps identify the user's ID (UDID).

- Even though Apple prohibits its developers from accessing the UDID, 5.5% of the tested iOS apps still do.

- 72% of the top free apps track for the user's location, compared to 41% of paid apps.

- Although paid apps already generate revenue when downloaded, 59% of paid iOS and 24% of paid Android apps still support in-app purchasing.

- Furthermore, 39% of paid iOS and 16% of paid Android apps still share data with ad networks.

There are some surprising numbers available that tell a dark story about mobile apps and what they can be doing on your device.

By now you've read about malicious apps that leak privacy data, but do you realize how serious it really is? If not, you'd better pay attention to the following statistics gathered by Symantec*. And if you think that Google Play is 100% safe, it isn't. I have some data that yields some shocking results about the number of malicious apps waiting to grab your data.

===> Unfortunately, the playing surface for Internet naughtiness has changed in the past couple of years and you need to know that it's only getting worse. <===

So, how did this happen?
Snapchat, the self-destructing photo-sharing app that turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer by Facebook, uses what’s called an Application Programming Interface (API).

Typically, an API is shared widely in order to attract a large pool of developers wanting to use a company’s capabilities. Not so with Snapchat. Snapchat instead keeps its API to itself, using it only to help its applications talk to its servers.

But just because Snapchat doesn’t publish its API doesn’t mean it isn’t up for grabs. In fact, Snapchat’s API has been reversed engineered to the point that it’s not only widely shared, but openly critiqued by security professionals and actively used by third party app developers on both Google Play and the Apple iTunes Store. One of these third party apps (many of which aren’t well secured) is called Snapsaved, which, like its name describes, saves Snapchat’s supposedly fleeting images for users to later retrieve—and that’s where we see a problem.

Learn more:

- http://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/often-asked-questions-are-there-cyber-security-dangers-with-apps-and-whats-about-privacy/

National Institute for Standards and Technology issues first draft of guidelines intended to help federal agencies balance benefits and risks of third-party mobile apps.

Learn more:

- http://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/often-asked-questions-are-there-cyber-security-dangers-with-apps-and-whats-about-privacy/

12 December 2013

Word that mobile malware is rather pervasive has been making the rounds for months, but a new report has found that a shocking 100% of the Top 100 paid Android apps and 56% of the Top 100 paid Apple iOS apps have been hacked. Averaged together, users have a 78% chance of running into an app that has been compromised at some point.

Those of you interested in preserving your privacy will want to watch out for the mSpy app. When installed on an Android or iOS device, it can track phone calls, location data and ...

Instead of being used as spam during DDoS attacks, botnets are now used to bring down enterprise apps, leaving the more connected countries more vulnerable, according to Barracuda Networks.