As if the recent Facebook hack of 50 million user accounts that was discovered on 25th September wasn’t bad enough, it became apparent that it could also affect "Facebook Login" service, which allows other apps to use people's Facebook account to login. What Happened? On Tuesday 25 September, Facebook engineers discovered that hackers had used a vulnerability in Facebook’s "View As" feature (which lets people see how their profiles appear to others) to steal digital keys known as "access tokens" from any accounts of people whose profiles were searched for using the "View As" feature. This meant that hackers were [...]

Figures from Goldman Sachs appear to show that, even though Apple may publicly take the moral high ground and criticise digital advertising businesses, it may actually be making $9 billion this year, one-quarter of its estimated total revenue, from a deal with digital advertising giant Google. Opposition and Irony Apple has been famously vocal about its high regard for user privacy and its opposition to the idea of harvesting user data to feed online advertising. For example, in a TV interview in April (Recode’s “Revolution” TV special with MSNBC) Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook said that Apple had elected not to [...]

Following the introduction last month of Google Chrome 69’s better password protection, Google has announced that Chrome 70 will bring trustworthy extensions by default. What Are Extensions? The Chrome extension system, introduced to the browser nearly a decade ago, has enabled the introduction of 180,000 different extensions which are small, bolt-on software programs that allow Google Chrome users to customize their browsing experience through functionality and behaviour that suits their individual needs or preferences. Extensions are typically built using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and are available in the Chrome Web Store. Google says that the dual mission of its extension [...]

Manchester-based Oaklands Assist UK Ltd has been fined £150,000 by the ICO for making approximately 64,000 nuisance direct marketing calls to people who had already opted out of automated marketing. Serious Contravention of UK Law & EC Directive The monetary penalty by the ICO was delivered under section 55A of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) due to a “serious contravention” of Regulations 21 and 24 of the Private and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. The law states that live calls must not be made to any number registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) unless they have specifically [...]

Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk’s tweet(s) about taking the company private using ‘secured’ funding has cost him not just his role as Chairman for 3 years, but also a $20m (£15m) fine, and some damaging fraud accusations. What Happened? Back in August, the South African-born, 25th richest person in the world (Forbes), and Chairman of American multinational corporation specialising in electric vehicles ‘Tesla’ made a short series of tweets that put him on the wrong side of the US financial regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules. In the tweets, Mr Musk said that he was considering taking the electronic car [...]

Windows 10 has a “Near Share” / “Nearby Sharing” feature, similar to Apple’s AirDrop, that allows you to share (by Bluetooth) files, links, photos, and more to nearby Windows PCs that also have the feature enabled. You can enable Nearby Sharing from either Windows 10’s Share dialog, or in Windows 10’s Settings app. Here’s how: From the Share dialog - - Click a “Share” button e.g. the “Share” button on Edge’s toolbar, or right-click a file in File Explorer and select the “Share” command. - In the Share menu, click / tap the “Tap to turn on nearby sharing” option. [...]

Research by B2M Solutions has concluded that instead of saving costs, mobile working could be costing UK businesses £1.18 billion per year, as 40% of mobile workers attribute time taken off work to stress and anxiety caused mainly by reliability issues with mobile devices. The Research The B2M Solutions ‘Mobile Impact Survey’ gathered the opinions of 200 mobile workers in the US and UK who said that the mobile device they used at work was a critical tool that they needed to complete their work tasks, and that device reliability was of the uppermost importance. What’s The Problem? According to [...]

Microsoft has listened to corporate SaaS Windows 10 clients and slowed down the rate of patches and updates that it is sending out, thereby giving company admins more time to catch up. What’s The Problem? For many enterprise / corporate customers, two feature upgrades for Windows 10 a year is proving too much to keep up with, resulting in many admins now saying that they’ve barely got the time to deal with one upgrade before another one comes along, thereby leading to the temptation to skip every other update. Those tasked with managing the updates also say that the updates [...]

Microsoft has made the news again by appearing to flex its market muscle by testing pop-up warnings in Windows 10 that are triggered when users start to install rival Chrome or Firefox web browsers. What Happens? It’s been reported that when a user tries to install another, non-Microsoft browser on a computer running Windows 10, pop-up warnings are issued that remind the user that they already have Microsoft's Edge browser installed, and that Edge is a "faster, safer" browser for the Windows 10 operating system.. Just A Test Microsoft has been quick to point out that the pop-up warnings are [...]

Chrome 69, the latest version of the Google browser which is now 10 years old, has a number of value-adding new features, including the ability to automatically generate strong passwords. Improved Password Manager This latest version of Chrome has an improved password manager that is perhaps more fitting of the browser that is favoured by 60% of browser users, many of whom still rely upon using very weak passwords. For example, the most commonly used passwords in 2017 were reported to be 123456, password, 12345678 and qwerty. The updated password manger in Chrome 69 hopes to make serious inroads into [...]