#android security

[octomotts]

Hey, I just wanted to make a post for the android users who just did a security update. If you go on YouTube and find that your app has been put in restricted mode, heres two ways to fix it. 1) Go to your profile on YouTube and click the cog wheel in the top right corner. Scroll down and check to see if restricted mode has been turned on. If it has and the slider isn't t grayed out, click it, and that should fix it. 2) If the slider is grayed out, here is what you do. Go to your android settings and scroll down to security and privacy. Scroll down to more security settings and click it, then scroll until you find android safe browsing. Click that, then look for use live threat protection and turn it off that should turn off the restricted mode on YouTube. To check, follow the first way.

[jcmarchi]

Alarming Privacy and Security Threats in Smart Homes Revealed - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/alarming-privacy-and-security-threats-in-smart-homes-revealed-technology-org/

Alarming Privacy and Security Threats in Smart Homes Revealed - Technology Org

A group of researchers from several international universities and research centres analyze the local network interactions of smart home  IoT devices and mobile apps, and demonstrate that a variety of security and privacy threats exist. 

An international team of researchers, led by IMDEA Networks and Northeastern University in collaboration with NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, IMDEA Software, University of Calgary, and the International Computer Science Institute, has unveiled groundbreaking findings on the security and privacy challenges posed by the ever-growing prevalence of opaque and technically complex Internet of Things (IoT) devices in smart homes.

Smart home control interface – illustrative photo. Image credit: DCStudio via Freepik, free license

Smart Homes: Trusted and Secure Environments?

Smart homes are becoming increasingly interconnected, comprising consumer-oriented IoT devices ranging from smartphones and smart TVs to virtual assistants and CCTV cameras. These devices have cameras, microphones, and other ways of sensing what is happening in our most private spaces—our homes.

An important question is, can we trust that these devices in our homes are safely handling and protecting the sensitive data they have access to?

“When we think of what happens between the walls of our homes, we think of it as a trusted, private place. In reality, we find that smart devices in our homes are piercing that veil of trust and privacy—in ways that allow nearly any company to learn what devices are in your home, to know when you are home, and learn where your home is. These behaviours are generally not disclosed to consumers, and there is a need for better protections in the home,” said David Choffnes, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Executive Director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University.

The research team’s extensive study, titled “In the Room Where It Happens: Characterizing Local Communication and Threats in Smart Homes,” was presented this week at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (ACM IMC’23) in Montreal (Canada).

The paper delves for the first time into the intricacies of local network interactions between 93 IoT devices and mobile apps, revealing a plethora of previously undisclosed security and privacy concerns with actual real-world implications.

While most users typically view local networks as a trusted and safe environment, the study’s findings illuminate new threats associated with the inadvertent exposure of sensitive data by IoT devices within local networks using standard protocols such as UPnP or mDNS.

These threats include the exposure of unique device names, UUIDs, and even household geolocation data, all of which can be harvested by companies involved in surveillance capitalism without user awareness.

According to Vijay Prakash, PhD student from NYU Tandon who co-authored the paper, “analysing the data collected by IoT Inspector, we found evidence of IoT devices inadvertently exposing at least one PII (Personally Identifiable Information), like unique hardware address (MAC), UUID, or unique device names, in thousands of real world smart homes.

Any single PII is useful for identifying a household, but combining all three of them together makes a house very unique and easily identifiable. For comparison, if a person is fingerprinted using the simplest browser fingerprinting technique, they are as unique as one in 1.500 people. If a smart home with all three types of identifiers is fingerprinted, it is as unique as one in 1.12 million smart homes.”

These local network protocols can be employed as side-channels to access data that is supposedly protected by several mobile app permissions such as household locations. “A side channel is a sneaky way of indirectly accessing sensitive data.

For example, Android app developers are supposed to request and obtain users’ consent to access data like geolocation. However, we have shown that certain spyware apps and advertising companies do abuse local network protocols to silently access such sensitive information without any user awareness.

All they have to do is kindly asking for it to other IoT devices deployed in the local network using standard protocols like UPnP.”, said Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, Associate Research Professor of IMDEA Networks and co-founder of AppCensus.

“Our study shows that the local network protocols used by IoT devices are not sufficiently protected and expose sensitive information about the home and the use we make of the devices. This information is being collected in an opaque way and makes it easier to create profiles of our habits or socioeconomic level,” adds Juan Tapiador, professor at UC3M.

The Wider Implications

The impact of this research extends far beyond academia. The findings underscore the imperative for manufacturers, software developers, IoT and mobile platform operators, and policymakers to take action to enhance the privacy and security guarantees of smart home devices and households.

The research team responsibly disclosed these issues to vulnerable IoT device vendors and to Google’s Android Security Team, already triggering security improvements in some of these products.

Source: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[munaeem]

Is My Android Listening To Me? Experts Expose The Truth!

[robpegoraro]

Late or never Android updates remain a problem

Late or never Android updates remain a problem

Here’s yet another unintentional benefit of my shattering my Pixel 5a’s screen last weekend: an opportunity to reacquaint myself with how slowly many Android smartphone manufacturers still ooze out Google’s system updates. This is not a new problem, as I can see from re-reading a piece I wrote almost 10 years ago that’s aged a little too well. I had thought that architectural changes Google made…

[soupdweller]

day 29: apart.

[neoncitynights]

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[gorlygorlx3]

The Fnaf SB Cast as Spelling Bee Words

🐻 Freddy: eloquence (n) the art of using language in an apt, fluent way

🐔 Chica: supine (adj) lying face upwards

🐊 Monty: limerence (n) the state of being infatuated with another person

🐺 Roxy: defenestration (n) the act of throwing someone out of a window

🌞 Sun: chatoyant (adj) varying in colour when seen in different lights or from different angles

🌚 Moon: clinomania (n) excessive desire to stay in bed

[hensart]

Them again♥

[visionthefox]

Android glittler golf~

[valentingaio]

Here's a troll post I was cooking up over on Twitter, building up to the reveal that Freddy is infact a robot- an android.

It probably was obvious to some... and not as obvious to others... but anyway!

[cybernightart]

FNAF Art dump!

!!!suggestive art at bottom of post!!!! No minors, 18+!!!

(it's just a tad suggestive but rather be safe then sorry!)

But first!!!!

My FNAF au!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Glamrocks

(primarily just Freddy then Bonnie XD)

OG's (also just Freddy and Bonnie)

(Freddy is a British punk vibe with a cockney accent [very spider punk energy], while Bonnie is a surfer/Stoner type with a Floridian accent, they love each other very much<3)

Bunny Bros au!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(feat. Monty this time!)

!!!Suggestive bellow!!!

Bunny Bros au: (glam)Freddy x (glam)Bonnie

[donutboxers]

Introduction to COLOPORT CICI TV M21THW-1 BY NUCLEAR ELECTRICS© 1967

An OC I've been developing for the past two weeks, I've been hyper-fixating about a specific 1960s portable tv by General Electrics

She has 6 available personalities and comes with her very own pet! (soon to be released)

She's heavily inspired by 60s technology and the post WWII "return to normalcy" movement and the Red Scare, she's technically just a TV but that's not necessarily what NUCLEAR ELECTRICS or the government for that matter use her for. Let's just hope her pets don't find you acting out of the ordinary...

also... i couldn't figure out how to save this drawing without the pixels becoming blurry but CSP gave me the best resolution, i drew this in Ibis Paint on my phone :) all of the words are hand-drawn because i couldn't find a single font that wouldn't become blurry at the size i wanted

here's a fun list of all the websites i found trying to make this character:

https://www.earlytelevision.org/Etzold/portacolor-d.html

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-1967-ge-porto-11-color-tv-3845768543

https://clickamericana.com/topics/science-technology/how-to-enjoy-your-ge-porta-color-television-1967

https://www.cool386.com/ge_19inch/ge_19inch.html

also some cool pictures of it

[munaeem]

Stop Your Android From SPYING On You!

[nightmare-robo-1111]

Silly art of mesmerizer

[theriverbeyond]

ok you see it goes like this: turn on phone. navigate to browser app. open browser app. navigate to school email--oh it logged me out. log in. it has been more than 12 hours so i need to verify myself with push duo 2 factor authentication. swipe down to approve the notification--oh I have to open the app. open duo 2 factor authetication app. approve. navigate back to web browser. wait for email to load. immedietly close the app turn off my phone and walk into the sea