Google has taken direct action against adverts promoting ESTA registration services, often offered by third parties at highly inflated prices. Ads displayed on the Google network shouldn’t display fees higher than what a public source or government charges for products or services. This tightening of the ad leash has taken a remarkable eight years to complete—and we argue it’s not done … [Read more...]
November 28, 2018
November 7, 2018
Google logins: JavaScript now required
Google users: In news that may sound alarming, it is now a requirement for you to enable JavaScript. Why? When your username and password are entered on Google’s sign-in page, Google runs a risk assessment and only allows the sign-in if nothing looks suspicious. Recently, Google went about improving this analysis and now requires JavaScript in order to run their assessment. Want to use some of … [Read more...]
August 27, 2018
A week in security (August 20 – 26)
Last week on Labs, we took a look at insider threats, doubled back on the privacy of search browser extensions, profiled green card scams, revisited Defcon badgelife, and talked about what happens to a user’s accounts when they die. Other cybersecurity news There was an archiving error in Twitch HQ. Unfortunately, that left some private user messages (even those with sensitive info in them) … [Read more...]
July 27, 2018
New Android P includes several security improvements
According to the Android developer Program Overview, the next major version of Android, Android 9.0 or P, is set to arrive soon. Their plans show a final release within the next three months (Q3 2018). The end of the Android P beta program is approaching, with the first release candidate built and released in July. As a security company, we simply can’t help but take a close look at what … [Read more...]
July 18, 2018
What’s the real value—and danger—of smart assistants?
You’ve heard them called virtual assistants, digital personal assistants, voice assistants, or smart assistants. Operated by artificial intelligence, technologies such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana have become ubiquitous in our culture. But what exactly do they do? And how seriously should we take them? While all the tech giants want us to use their smart assistants all the … [Read more...]
July 5, 2018
May 30, 2018
Researchers discover vulnerabilities in smart assistants’ voice commands
Virtual personal assistants (VPA), also known as smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant, are in the spotlight for vulnerabilities to attack. Take, for example, that incident about an Oregon couple’s Echo smart speaker inadvertently recording their conversation and sending it to a random contact. Or that time when the Alexa started laughing out of the blue. Indeed, something … [Read more...]
February 6, 2018
Tech support scammers find new way to jam Google Chrome
During the past quarter we have noted an increase in fake browser alerts pushing tech support scams. Most of these campaigns come from malicious advertising but also via compromised web sites. Crooks are using all sorts of tricks to not only scare users but also to try and ‘lock’ their browsers. One such technique involving the history.pushState API which we reported about on this blog … [Read more...]
December 22, 2017
November 27, 2017
Mobile Menace Monday: Chrome declares war on unwanted redirects
As it was introduced earlier this year, Google is initiating their plan to implement a few new changes in Chrome to defend against unwanted web redirects. A redirect happens when a different website from the URL that was entered opens in the browser. Sometimes redirects are intentional, as in when an organization/website is bought out by another entity and their traffic is redirected to the new … [Read more...]
