Eavesdropping on AirPods?
Apple released a firmware update patching a critical Bluetooth vulnerability in AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro. According to its support page, an adversary in Bluetooth range could spoof as an intended source device for these wireless headphones. When the targeted headphones send a connection request to the spoofed device, it could eavesdrop on confidential conversations.
Mail surveillance is widespread
According to data unearthed in a congressional probe, more than 60,000 requests by federal investigators and police captured data on 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023.
When data brokers break
We often talk to newsrooms about dealing with data brokers — companies that aggregate and sell data from commercial and public records. According to recent reporting from TechCrunch, an alleged breach of a U.S. data broker impacted at least 300 million people. Their reporting suggests “mixed results” verifying the authenticity of the data.
Apple's password app
In the hope of simplifying how customers can log into apps and websites, Apple has announced it will offer a new Passwords app in its upcoming versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15.
Oops, all breaches!
Data breach notification service “Have I Been Pwned?” has added the login information associated with 361 million email addresses. Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt says as many as 151 million of these unique email addresses have never been seen in his database before. The website boasts tracking over 13.5 billion breach accounts. Some of these credentials are reportedly harvested from users’ devices infected with information-stealing malware.
Slack trains AI models on user data
Over this past week, Slack published a blog post defending its privacy practices following widespread criticism over its use of customer data to train its global AI models. At the moment, organizations are required to opt out to prevent their messages, content, and files from being mined to develop Slack’s AI.
Crossfire over messaging security
Johns Hopkins cryptography professor Matthew Green explains that “the cryptography behind Signal (also used in WhatsApp and several other messengers) is open source and has been intensively reviewed by cryptographers. When it comes to cryptography, this is pretty much the gold standard.” By comparison, Telegram does not provide end-to-end encryption protection by default and only offers it as an option in one-on-one “Secret Chat” mode.
Google Docs locks out writer
While it’s powerful and convenient, Google Docs might not be right for all documents, including those that you consider sensitive, private, or that you can’t risk losing. Read more about newsroom privacy and security considerations when using Google Workspace.
Google details app violations
According to its security blog, Google prevented 2.28 million — yes, million — Android apps from being published on its Play Store in 2023. The company says it also removed 333,000 accounts for attempting to deliver malware through the Play Store, as well as for “repeated severe policy violations.” These numbers have grown substantially since 2022, when the company disclosed it prevented 1.43 million apps from being published on the Play Store.
Bill expands US spying powers
Last week, Congress reauthorized a controversial surveillance authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. While legislators considered reforms to FISA that would restrain the federal intelligence and law enforcement community’s abilities to spy on American communications without a warrant, they in fact expanded these surveillance powers to subject more electronic communications service providers, such as U.S. cloud computing data centers, to data collection.