CyberSecurity news
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Mike Robinson@Tech Crawlr
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A significant data breach at location data firm Gravy Analytics has exposed the sensitive location data of millions of users. The compromised data includes coordinates from mobile devices across the US, Europe, and Russia, with some records also linking the location data to specific apps. Popular apps like Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal, and various others are impacted. The data was initially posted on a Russian-language forum by a hacker using the alias "Nightly".
The breadth of the breach is staggering with apps across several categories being affected including dating apps such as Grindr, games like Temple Run and Subway Surfers, transit apps such as Moovit, period trackers, religious apps including muslim prayer and christian bible apps, various pregnancy trackers, and even virtual private network (VPN) applications. It appears that these apps were co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to collect this data through the advertising bid stream, often without the knowledge of the app developers. This has raised concerns about how user data is being collected and sold within the advertising ecosystem.
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@www.forbes.com
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Apple has agreed to a $95 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit concerning its Siri voice assistant. The lawsuit alleges that Siri recorded private conversations when unintentionally activated, sharing these recordings with third parties including advertisers and human reviewers. The plaintiffs claim this happened without their consent and that they were then targeted with specific ads based on these conversations, with some citing examples of receiving ads for products or medical treatments after discussing those topics near their devices. The settlement also mentions that Apple employed contractors to listen to some of these recordings which included private and confidential conversations.
Apple denies any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. However, the agreement indicates that eligible users who owned a Siri-enabled device between 2014 and 2019 may be entitled to a payout of up to $20 per device. Class members are defined as individuals who are current or former owners of a Siri Device and reside in the US and its territories. They must also be willing to declare under oath that Apple recorded their conversations while Siri was accidentally activated. The final size of each payment will depend on the number of claims made.
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@securityonline.info
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A critical security vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-8474, has been discovered in the OpenVPN Connect application. This flaw affects versions prior to 3.5.0, and stems from the application logging the user's private key in clear text within the application log. A malicious actor who gains access to a device running a vulnerable version of OpenVPN Connect could potentially extract this private key, using it to decrypt the user's VPN traffic. This vulnerability makes VPN protection completely ineffective. OpenVPN Connect is a widely used client application, boasting over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store, making it vital for users to be aware of this threat.
To address this, OpenVPN has released version 3.5.1, which fixes the key leakage vulnerability. While this latest update also addresses a separate app stability issue, users are strongly encouraged to update as soon as possible to ensure their protection. As a precautionary step it's recommended users check application logs for any suspicious activity if they were using a vulnerable version, and to change their VPN usernames and passwords. The OpenVPN Connect app itself requires users to connect to a separate VPN server. Users should remain vigilant for potential security risks and make it a habit to keep software updated.
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