Facebook has launched the ‘News’ tab on its mobile app which directs users to unbiased, curated articles from credible sources in a bid to publicly combat fake news and help restore trust in its own brand. Large US Cities For Now The ‘News’ tab on the Facebook mobile app, which will initially only be available to an estimated 200,000 people in select, large US cities, is expected by Facebook to become so popular that it could attract millions of users. What? The News tab will attempt to show users stories from local publishers as well as the big national news [...]

If you’re using Windows 10 and you’d like to maintain productivity and minimise distractions from your operating system e.g. notifications, sounds and alerts, ‘Focus Assist’ can help you to achieve this and can now be turned on automatically for full-screen apps. With Focus Assist you can choose which notifications you’d like to see and hear when working, and you can choose the automatic rules for these (using on/off toggles) so that you can minimise distractions at certain times and during certain activities.  You can also ask Focus Assist (with a simple tick box) to give you a summary of what [...]

Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRL) discovered possible hacking flaws in Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home speakers and installed their own voice applications to demonstrate hacks on both device platforms that turned the assistants into ‘Smart Spies’. What Happened? Research by SRL led to the discovery of two possible hacking scenarios that apply to both Amazon Alexa and Google Home which can enable a hacker to phish for sensitive information in voice content (vishing) and eavesdrop on users. Knowing that some of the apps offered for use with Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are made by third parties with [...]

Some of Microsoft’s enterprise-based customers may be feeling cautious about installing the latest Windows 10 update because Microsoft warns that it could stop the Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service from running. The Update and Warning The update in question is the October 15, 2019 KB4520062 (OS Build 17763.832).  The update contains a long list of improvements and fixes (see here for full details: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4520062/windows-10-update-kb4520062), but also three known issues, one of which concerns the Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service. What Is The ATP? The ATP is a paid-for service, for Microsoft Enterprise customers (not Home or Pro [...]

A recent report from cyber-security company RSA has highlighted a significant rise in fraud via fake banking apps. Number of Attacks Has Trebled The Fraud and Risk Intelligence (FRI) team at RSA have noted a tripling of the number of fraud attacks via fake mobile banking apps in the first six months of this year with rogue mobile app fraud generally up by a staggering 191 per cent. Fake Mobile Apps Exploit Digital Finance Trust Not only did the 40,344 fraud attacks represent a 63 per cent rise, but 29 per cent of those attacks were recorded as coming from fake [...]

Samsung’s so-called “revolutionary” fingerprint authentication system for the Galaxy A10 phone appears to be offering less than satisfactory results as it is discovered that any thumbprint can unlock one. Biometric ‘Fail’ South Korean phone giant Samsung has received some unwanted bad publicity for its new Galaxy A10 phone after an article appeared in the Sun newspaper highlighting how a British couple discovered that, after putting a low-priced screen protector (purchased from eBay) on the phone, each other’s thumbprint could unlock the phone. The thumbprint scanner, which uses ultrasound to detect 3D ridges in fingerprints and only is supposed to recognise [...]

A lawsuit against US Credit Rating Company Equifax relating to the massive 2017 hack alleges that the breaching of Equifax’s systems was “inevitable because of systemic organisational disregard for cybersecurity and cyber-hygiene best practices.” What Happened Back in September 2017, US Credit Rating Company Equifax was hacked and, in one of the largest recorded data breaches in history, an estimated 148 million customer details stolen, 44 million of which are believed to have come from UK customers.  Details stolen in the attack included names, US social security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, driver's license details, and around 209,000 credit card numbers. [...]

One of the new features added to Windows 10 with the September (1909) update was to enable Calendar users to be able to simply create a Calendar event directly from the Calendar flyout on the Taskbar. To add quickly and easily add your Calendar event: - Click on the date and time at the lower right corner of the Taskbar to open the Calendar flyout. - Pick your desired date and type your text box to identify your event. - Use the Inline options to set a time and location.

A report by a former Google employee on the ‘Freedom of the Press Foundation’ website warns organisations that any data stored on Google’s G Suite is not encrypted, can be accessed by administrators and can be shared with law enforcement on request. G Suite G Suite is Google’s set of cloud-based computing, productivity and collaboration tools including Gmail, Drive (for your company documents) and Calendar. Privacy Risk Former Google employee Martin Shelton alleges that files stored within Google’s G Suite have no end-to-end encryption as other Google services do, thereby potentially leaving business data vulnerable to being viewed by Google [...]

Well known food writer, Jack Monroe, has reported falling victim to criminals who were able to steal £5,000 from her bank and payment accounts in a "Simjacking” attack. What Is Simjacking? Simjacking, simswapping or ‘phone hijacking’ involves criminals being able to port a person’s mobile phone number over onto on another SIM card. This is often carried out by criminals who, armed with the necessary personal data of an intended victim, go to a phone shop and pose as a customer who wants to switch to a different mobile provider but keep their existing phone number. In some cases it [...]