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An article titled iOS 17 to Support App Sideloading to Comply With European Regulations indicates that you can soon sideload applications from other stores to comply with a new DMA law discussed within the article.

Other countries including the U.S. are talking about other legislation to allow this.

Apple says that this could open IOS users up to more scams and malware, and while the Mac has safeguards it has, IOS can in theory get those safeguards.

AllI’vegot to say is that I hope Apple does this in the best interest of security. If they don’t comply with the law, they could be fined and I understand why they are needing to comply here.

The JRN will be watching this.

Want to check to see if a phone is stolen?

I heard this in a Kim Komando minute, and now its in the newsletter. The article is titled Do this free check so you don’t buy a STOLEN phone for some tips that might be of interest that you should do.

It lists a website that should be visited to check if the phone is stolen. On top of that, it gives you a code which I checked out and it works. It braught up a screen with info that is of value to this website.

Feel free to check out the article, and make it a great day!

In iPhone malware: Check your phone for these 7 apps we are starting to see the signs that IOS may now be starting the trend that Android has seen for quite awhile.

I’ve always said that IOS is not any different than Android, and we should keep tabs on things of this nature.

Here are the apps listed.

Must be time to go through email, because I see Kims newsletter and it is talking about Spam texts.

I’ve followed a few links to see where they’ve gone, but recently quit doing that and for good reason.

While the texts I’ve gotten seemed harmless, you never know where the links are going, so if its something you’re not expecting, than just kill it and don’t click that link.

The Kim Komando article is titled Spam texts never end! 5 sure signs to delete that message which has images and samples of texts and descriptions to help us.

I’ve probably seen a good number of these through the last few years, but it doesn’t surprise me that it is getting worse.

Stay safe!

Hello folks, welcome to another blog post here on the blog.

I must be feeling better, I have been posting quite a bit more, and I will also be working on the podcast for the Security Box. With that said, I have some news coming out of Komando.com and IOS 15.6 that we must get out. To be fair, I did see a blog post from Applevis that mentioned it, but i didn’t read it till I saw Kim’s posting.

First, let’s cover Update your iPhone now! iOS 15.6 fixes 37 security flaws which comes from komando.com.

This has several CVE designations that are talked about, and they are as follows:

1. • CVE-2022-32832: A hacker can take over your phone.
2. • CVE-2022-32788: Exposes your phone to remote code execution attacks.
3. • CVE-2022-32857: Makes it easier for hackers to track your activity.
4. • CVE-2022-32847: A hacker can restrict your Wi-Fi access.
5. • CVE-2022-32849: A hacker can access sensitive information in your iCloud Photo Library.

Here is Apple Vis’s coverage of the 15.6 release.

It has information that affects speech, braille and other odds and ends that Komando doesn’t cover. In no way am I saying that article is bad, but it covers other things Applevis doesn’t cover in general. Apple Vis does indicate that there are security fixes.

I would suggest that you read both articles and see what applies to you. Thanks for reading!

In an article I spotted today in Kim Komando’s newsletter, Google is finally doing something about all these malicious apps tht Google apparently has that take advantage of the accessibility features of Android.

Google is banning this popular type of app from the Play Store is the article title and is worth a read.

Here is one blog post that talked about this problem. Those people who need accesibility features are those who need the phone to talk, magnified or braille support. It is not meant, says Kim’s article, to record calls, turn on the camera, exfiltrate data or anything else of that nature. While I added a few of these to that list, we know that that article is not the only one I’ve covered about android accessibility issues.

I’m sure I’ve talked about this in podcasts, and this … I think is a welcome sign for those who want Android because its cheaper.

Thoughts are welcome.

While I’m not techbnically logged in to any sites using safari like Google and Twitter, I hardly do a whole lot of browsing with my phone anyhow. The article was sent to us by Armando Vias to the Security Box on the 21st of this month, and it was definitely a very interesting read.

The problem I have is that Apple had several months to work on this, but only acknowledged the bug within the past week or two.

I know, I know, apple is pretty secretive on bugs, but this article titled Stop Using Safari Immediately (at Least for Now) coming from lifehacker is something we should be aware of.

I don’t think i have any sites logged in at the moment, and i think that should be the case until I know what is up. One site which I order food with, while somewhat accessible, isn’t that accessible but I get it to work. To pay, you have to log in, so it isn’t a persistant log in.

Have you seen anything like this? What did you think when you heard this article or read it? Sound off in the comments.

I saw this article late the other day, and finally got around to reading it. It is unfortunately sad that Android had this bug where Microsoft Teams of all apps was part of the culprit of disallowing someone from calling 9-1-1.

The article talks about someone in December who needed 911 because of a situation going on at their home. Luckily, a landline was available and they were able to get the help they needed.

While I tried the emergency calling button a couple of times, I didn’t really need it. Because I had no speech or no idea what it was doing, they called me back. I just said I was doing something with the phone, but everything was fine.

In this Android’s case, there was no call made at all. It could’ve been tragic, and Google decided to wait an entire month to fix it, although the 6 is getting delayed due to other technical problems.

For the full article, Read the ars technica article titled: Google fixes nightmare Android bug that stopped user from calling 911. This can’t be good.

Are you effected by the t-mobile breach that is now coming to light? The article is written today, January 4, 2021: and this looks to be quite interesting as this isn’t the first by the looks of things.

Here are three paragraphs.

T-Mobile says that it “recently identified and quickly shut down” a data breach that included call-related information about some accounts.

The wireless telecommunication firm said in a notice mailed to some customers in late December that the incident “may have included phone number, number
of lines subscribed to on your account and, in some cases, call-related information collected as part of the normal operation of your wireless service.”

It’s the fourth data breach that the company has acknowledged within the last three years. T-Mobile, which completed a merger with Sprint in April 2020,
also disclosed incidents that occurred in March 2020, November 2019 and August 2018.

I’m happy that they identified this 4th breach quickly, what about the other three? The article continues:

The company called the intrusion “malicious, unauthorized access,” but did not release details about the suspected intruders or their methods. Personally
identifiable information was not affected in this latest breach, T-Mobile said.

“The data accessed did not include names on the account, physical or email addresses, financial data, credit card information, social security numbers,
tax ID, passwords, or PINs,” the company said, adding that it had contacted cybersecurity experts and federal law enforcement about the breach

Even though it doesn’t have personal information involved, we learn:

The affected data is known as customer proprietary network information, and although it might not contain the names or other identifying information of customers, the Federal Communications Commission still considers it sensitive in nature.

If you’re a t-mobile customer, the boards await youT-Mobile: Breach exposed call information for some customers is the article in question.

Hey folks, I have a serious question. Why in this day of everything going wrong are we even promoting spy apps? In something I just read entitled Watch Your Kids with Mobile Spy Apps and in practice, that may be a good idea.

Have you ever thought of the types of information these applications might collect? They send the information to you via email or sms, and you know exactly what is going on.

While I understand the idea of these applications which vary from IOS and Android and many names are listed, is this something we should really be promoting?

Mobile Spy Apps or Mobile Spy Software are specifically designed for use with iOS and Android devices. These kinds of applications help you monitor incoming,
outgoing text messages, GPS locations, and calls made and received on your mobile phone. To do this, these programs need to read the files that come in
the form of APN’s (Access Point Name), HAP (Home Access Point), and IMS (Incoming Message Status).
When the Mobile Spy Software analyzes these data packets, a log of the device’s activity can then be extracted. All the information is recorded in the
text and automatically sent to a third party website.

What are th practices of these web sites?

The article continues:

Some of the most famous examples of these monitoring applications are iSpy for iOS and Freezy for android phones. Other examples include SpyFu for Mac,
Rxected for iPhone, logger for Blackberry, Cloner for Windows Mobile, GoArtical for PSP, CoolMobile for Windows Mobile, MyTrace for iPhone, MyTrace for
Android, MyTrace for PC, Sonar for Symbian, ATOM GPS for HTC, ATOM GPS for Windows Mobile and PC.

Here we have a lot of different applications, and today, I just can’t recommend anything like these apps to anyone. With the breaches becoming rampant and not slowing down any time soon, consider checking on the privacy practices of any of these apps before deploying them.

Kids are smart, they can surely find apps they know nothing about and can remove them too. Just something to think about.