Latest News about Information Security

Let’s take a quick glance at some interesting news that has been brewing in the world of information security this week.

Ubisoft – Too Soft Against Hackers!
Ubisoft has always hit the spotlight with its heavyweight games like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and others. Yet again, it’s in news, but this time, for the wrong reasons. The France-based company has announced in its blog, that one of their Websites has been hacked exposing user names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. Given that, it has strongly recommended those with a Ubisoft account to change their passwords immediately. Read more about this incident here.

Hackers can Easily Transform Good Android Apps into Notorious Ones
Seems like, the issues surrounding the Android platform have become a common parlance. The legitimacy of an Android app is determined by the signature it contains; it is like an identity card. But reportedly, a new security hole has been discovered in Android that allows hackers to change the application’s code and turn it into a malicious one. And this can be done without changing the app’s signature. So, what may look like a genuine Android app, could be actually stealing sensitive data like passwords, credit card information, etc. from the victim’s phone.

Fake Jay-Z’s Malicious Android App Doing the Rounds
Recently, Jay-Z announced that Samsung Galaxy smartphone (S3, S4 and Note 2) owners can download his new album “Magna Carta Holy Grail” for free, via an Android app from Google Play store. No sooner than this news was up, fake versions of the Magna Carta app populated non-official Android sites, for people without Galaxy smartphones. Reportedly, the fake app does function like the real one, but it also sends information about the victim’s device to an external server. But that’s not all, the app was also meant to deliver an anti-Obama message on July 4^th; it was regarding America’s cyber surveillance program PRISM. Read the entire story here.

Fix your Privacy Policies or Face the Music – UK to Google
Search engine giant Google is under the scanner of UK authorities. The latter believes that the privacy policies of the search engine fail to comply with UK Data Protection Act. The company has also been criticized for not being transparent about how the data of its users is used across its products. Similar allegations have been expressed by other European data authorities. Google has been issued an ultimatum to right what it has been doing wrong, before 20 September. Read more about it here.

Increase in Phishing Scams Targeting Apple Users
Apple users are increasingly being targeted by phishing scams. Compared to last year, these scams have increased by a factor of about 200. Reportedly, incidents of people getting fake emails from Apple are in the figure of millions per day. Scammers are mainly after users’ Apple ID and payment information, which they can use to exploit their iTunes account and other sensitive data like credit card information. Apparently, most of these phishing mails urge users to verify their Apple ID details.