The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt in just about every county in the world. As some people fall ill, others are self-isolating to reduce the risk of infection, and millions of peoples around the globe are having to work from home and amend their travel plans.

And, as is so often the case, there are malicious-minded groups out there willing to take advantage of the chaos and confusion brought about by the spread of the virus. Aware that people are scared and in search of information, cybercriminals are luring in victims with the promise of a coronavirus app for Android – but in reality, it is ransomware.

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Both Apple and Google have been proactive in stamping out apps and games relating to coronavirus to prevent fake tools making it to their respective stores. Apple has placed strict limits on COVID-19 apps so that only tools from official sources are permitted, but this has not prevented criminals from finding other ways to take advantage of the coronavirus crisis.

Security researchers from DomainTools not only noticed an increase in the number of domains relating to coronavirus recently, but spotted one in particular – coronavirusapp.site – that purports to offers real-time tracking of COVID-19 cases via an Android app available to download outside of Google Play. The truth is that the app is ransomware that can be named CovidLock

Fake coronavirus tracking

The ransomware takes advantage of the fact that millions of people are hungry for information and advise about the spread of coronavirus. Once installed, the app asks for various permissions which it claims are needed to be able to deliver notifications. But in reality, requests to enable accessibility settings and activate the lock screen are just a ploy to force a victim to change their phone's lock screen password.

Once changed, the app reveals what it really is – ransomware. It demands a $100 (about £80, AU$160) Bitcoin payment to decrypt data, with the threat that everything will be deleted if payment is not made within 48 hours.

There is a glimmer of good news. This type of attack is quite old, and it is something Google has protected users against for some time. DomainTools notes: "Since Android Nougat has rolled out, there is protection in place against this type of attack. However, it only works if you have set a password. If you haven't set a password on your phone to unlock the screen, you're still vulnerable to the CovidLock ransomware."

The group also says that it is working to publicly release the decryption key free of charge so the cybercriminals behind the tool do not profit from it.

This all serves as a helpful reminder to only download apps from trustworthy sources such as Google Play.

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Via Android Police

In the second half of last year, WhatsApp started to experiment with a new feature – self-destructing messages. The idea was simple: you could send a message, and configure it to be automatically deleted after a period of time.

But although there was great interest in this feature, after a period of testing the company decided to only make it available within group chats. Chats between just two people were left without self-destructing messages... but this could be about to change.

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Analysing the latest beta version of WhatsApp – version 2.20.84 – WABetaInfo noticed new references to self-destructing messages in ordinary chats. Just as with the group chat version that already exists, the feature is known as Delete Messages, and it gives users the option of having messages removed after an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year.

Messages that automatically delete after a specified time have proved popular in other instant messaging tools, so it is not surprising to see WhatsApp experimenting with expanding such an option beyond group chats.

This message will self-destruct in 5... 4... 3...

When Delete Message is activated, the chat icon changes to signify this, and a message appears in the chat itself to remind chatters when messages will be removed. WABetaInfo notes that while there are references to Delete Messages for individuals, it is a feature that is currently under development and will be available in a future build.

Although the feature is not functional at the moment, it will be users of the beta version of the app that will be given the chance to try it out first. If you're not yet signed up as a WhatsApp beta tester, you can do so here.

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Until now, Gmail users have had two choices when it comes to email signatures – use one, or don't. But now the choices are widening. Google is introducing the ability to create multiple email signatures and choose which one to use for each email you send.

It's a simple idea, but one that will be welcomed by anyone who had become by having to constantly tweak a single signature to suit a particular email, or who has been irritated by sending messages with an inappropriate signature at the end.

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There are many reasons for wanting to use different signatures for emails. For instance, it makes sense to use something different for work and personal messages. Google also suggests that the ability to choose between signatures will prove useful for people who work in more than one languages, and for anyone who want to use different sign-offs for new messages and replies.

You can see how the new signature selection works in the GIF below:

Pick a signature, any signature

To access the multiple signature option, head to 'Settings' in Gmail and move to the 'Signature' section on the 'General' tab. Click 'Create new' and you can then create additional signature sin the text input field. The signatures you create can be accessed from the email composition window by clicking the pen icon.

If you don’t see the option straight away, you'll just have to be a little patient. Google says that the multiple signature option is rolling out to all G Suite customers as well as people with personal Google accounts, but there is a gradual rollout in place.

For those with rapid release domains, the rollout is already underway, but for everyone else the start date in March 24 – and it could take up to 15 days for the rollout to complete in both cases.

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Spotify users are being treated to a massively updated version of the Home screen on phone and tablet. There are nice little touches such as being welcomed with a friendly 'good morning', 'good afternoon' or 'good evening' depending on the time of day, but there's much more to the revamp than that.

Throughout the day, not only will the welcome message that change, but also the type of content that is offered up. The suggested Daily Mix playlists, Discover Weekly and the 'made for you' podcast have been shrunk down to smaller buttons that appear at the top of the screen so you can jump straight in – or you can keep scrolling to browse further.

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Beneath the six recommendations, you can access your recently played content while further down you'll find suggestions from Spotify about what you might like to listen to. The effect of the redesign is that it is now quicker than ever to jump into the music you know and love, but great care has been taken to minimise the amount of space different elements take up.

This means that while the Home screen is now effectively comprised of two sections with new discoveries highlighted in the lower half, nothing is very far away. In Spotify's words, the new Home screen "the new Spotify Home does the hard work for you, making it easier than ever to find something to listen to – whether a long-time favorite or brand-new discovery".

Providing you have at least 30 days of listening history, the revamped look should be making its way to you right now.

Voice control

But while the current changes focus on touch controls, there could be an exciting developments just around the corner in the form of voice activation. Discovered by app researcher and reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, the feature will make use of the 'Hey Spotify' keywords.

Very little is know about voice activation so far, as Spotify hasn't officially announced anything. However, in a screenshot shared by Wong, you can see that when the 'Hey Spotify' feature is enabled, the app will listen out for voice commend 'when the app is open and on your screen'.

Via Engadget

It's an exciting development, and we'll keep you updated as soon as we learn more about how it will work, and when it will arrive.

• Check our our full guide to the best music streaming services

When you think of hacking, you tend to think of computers or phones being broken into over the internet. What doesn't tend to spring to mind is hackers using inaudible ultrasonic waves to take control of a digital assistant which can in turn be used to control your smartphone.

But this is precisely what a team of researchers at Washington University in St Louis have been able to do. They have devised an advanced method of hacking called SurfingAttack. It takes advantage of the fact that while humans can't hear ultrasonic tones, many smartphones can.

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The attack works by transferring ultrasonic waves through the surface of a table, and it is effective from up to 30 feet away, depending on the type of surface the phone is placed upon. While this is not the sort of distance that would allow for what would ordinarily be considered remote attacks, the fact that they can be carried out in a way which is very difficult to detect is cause for concern.

The attack has been tested on a total of 17 different handsets, and was successful on 15 of them – including various models of iPhone, and handsets phones from Google, Motorola, Samsung and Xiaomi. The transmitted ultrasonic waves were used to call Google Assistant and Siri into action, and to execute tasks such as taking selfies, place calls, retrieve codes from text messages in order to bypass two-factor authentication, and much more.

You can see SurfingAttack in action in the video below:

Keep yourself safe

While SurfingAttack sounds scary – particularly considering it can be executed silently – there is really no reason to be worried. At the moment, there is no suggest that the attack is being actively used, and the conditions under which it is effective are fairly narrow, and the equipment required to generate signals is not only fairly expensive, but also rather cumbersome and obvious.

Nonetheless the team who devised SurfingAttack suggest the following tips to keep your phone safe:

• Keep an eye on your devices placed on tabletops
• Reduce the touching surface area of your phones with the table
• Place the device on a soft woven fabric before touching the tabletops
• Use thicker phone cases made of uncommon materials such as wood
• Turn off lock screen personal results (or unlock with voice match) on Android
• Disable your Voice Assistant on lock screen, and lock your device when you put it down

You can read more about SurfingAttack here.

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Via Vice

An important new WhatsApp security feature could be just around the corner. Intrepid sleuths at WABetaInfo spotted an as-yet-unreleased feature called Protected Backups in a beta version of the Android app.

As the feature is yet to be officially added to the app – and WhatsApp-owner Facebook is yet to say anything about it – details are a little scarce for now, but we do still have an interesting vision of what're in store for the popular messaging app.

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The feature was spotted in WhatsApp version 2.20.66 for Android. It's not currently functional, but analysis of the beta version's interface shows that WhatsApp users will, at some point, be able to save encrypted backups of their chats to Google Drive

A new option in the Chat Backup section of WhatsApp will give users the opportunity to 'Password protect backup' by enabling the Protected Backups feature. If you look at the Google Drive section of WhatsApp's setting at the moment, you'll see a warning that cloud backups are not protected by end-to-end encryption (as messages are). The new Protected Backup feature adds an extra layer of security meaning that neither WhatsApp nor Google will be able to see backups.

Chat backup lockdown

As this security feature has only be discovered by WABetaInfo rather than having been announced by WhatsApp, it is impossible to say when it will become functional for beta testing – and even harder to guess when it might make its way to regular users. It's also hard to say whether iOS users will be given access to the same option; we'll just have to wait and see.

If you're interested in becoming a beta tester for WhatApp, you can sign up here; there are no free places available right now, but it's worth checking back from time to time to see if that changes.

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Via WABetaInfo

Facebook has launched a completely rewritten version of its Messenger app for iPhone, promising that it is faster, small and simpler than before. And the changes are very significant.

On the coding front, Facebook has managed to shrink Messenger from a bloated 1.7 million lines of code down to a mere 360,000. It goes without saying that this makes the app smaller, but also helps to noticeably speed things up. In terms of raw number, Facebook says that Messenger is now a quarter of a previous size and twice as fast.

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We learned a little about Facebook's more streamlined design for Messenger a few days ago, but the company has only just revealed the under-the-hood performance and optimization improvements for iOS users.

The design is part of what has been called Project LightSpeed, and Facebook says that anyone who launched Messenger multiple times a day to chat with friends, family and colleague will really notice the difference.

There are some pleasing side effects of trimming back on the codebase, too. A smaller app needs smaller updates, meaning faster updating using less data. Facebook also points out that the changes will be of great benefit to people using older handsets, and those who live in places with poor connectivity.

Missing features

Facebook concedes that it has undertaken a massive project in giving Messenger such a huge overhaul. Unfortunately, the rebuild of the app does mean that a few features will be temporarily unavailable, but the company says it will bring them back as soon as possible – although it doesn't specify exactly which features have gone AWOL.

Android users have already received an update which tidies up the interface a great deal, but for now it seems as though the speed and app shrinking are limited to iOS. In our tests on Android, Messenger certainly seems not faster than before.

If you're interested in learning more about Project Lightspeed, you can read a detail article from Facebook here. You can download the update version of Facebook Messenger from the App Store.

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Via Facebook

Google's 'knowledge panel' cards appear at the top of the results page when you search for well-known people. Perform a search for Barack Obama, for instance, and you'll see a summary of information pulled in from Wikipedia, some key pieces of information, links to social media profiles, and more.

Now it seems that Google plans to give everyone a similar profile card. The cards will be customizable, so it will be possible to control just what people are able to see about you when they perform a search for your name.

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Although no official announcement has been made about this yet, Android Police stumbled across three Google pages that talk about the cards and these features they will offer. The profile cards differ from celebrities' knowledge panels in that they are customizable, and could be considered replacements for profiles on the now-dead Google+.

While the cards haven't rolled out flobally, Google has already given access to some parts of the world. On one of its support pages, Google explains that: "This feature is only available to some people in India who set their language to English. This feature isn't available yet on desktop."

The support pages explain that those who have access to the profile card feature can edit their card via their mobile phone. Google explains that you simply need to visit google.com, sign into your account, search for 'Edit my search card' and then tap 'Edit'.

Personalized public profiles

Profile cards will not only be customizable, they will be optional. Unlike for celebrities, Google will not automatically create card for individuals – and the company also says that it will be possible to delete them should you change your mind about having one.

It appears that content will be vetted as Google explains that certain language and content is not acceptable. Importantly, Google also stresses that it "doesn't guarantee that your card will show up on Google Search". The company adds: "The more info you provide in your card, the more likely it will show up in Google Search results".

It's not clear quite when this feature will spread to the rest of the world, or if it will remain mobile-only, but hopefully Google will have something to say about it soon.

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Via Android Police

We've known about Mozilla's VPN service for a little while now, and now the company has released an Android app for beta testing.

Mozilla has already released a browser extension for Firefox that provides free access to the service in the US, but apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux and Chromebook are also planned.

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The monthly cost is currently set at $4.99 (about £4 / AU$7), but Mozilla describes this as a "limited-time beta pricing", so it's safe to assume that this will increase when the service launches properly.

The apps serve as true VPNs and offer full-device protection; they aren't just proxies that handle data from your web browser. They can be used to protect up to five devices as part of the monthly fee, and Mozilla says you'll be able to choose from servers in more than 30 countries.

Join the queue

You can download the Android app from Google Play if you have an invite to the beta program, which you can sign up for here – but bear in mind that there is currently a waiting list.

If you make it to the top of the waiting list, Mozilla will also provide access the Windows 10 app. Beta apps will also be made available for other platforms, but Mozilla hasn't yet indicated when these may be released.

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Via Android Police

We've known about Mozilla's VPN service for a little while now, and now the company has released an Android app for beta testing.

Mozilla has already released a browser extension for Firefox that provides free access to the service in the US, but apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux and Chromebook are also planned.

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The monthly cost is currently set at $4.99 (about £4 / AU$7), but Mozilla describes this as a "limited-time beta pricing", so it's safe to assume that this will increase when the service launches properly.

The apps serve as true VPNs and offer full-device protection; they aren't just proxies that handle data from your web browser. They can be used to protect up to five devices as part of the monthly fee, and Mozilla says you'll be able to choose from servers in more than 30 countries.

Join the queue

You can download the Android app from Google Play if you have an invite to the beta program, which you can sign up for here – but bear in mind that there is currently a waiting list.

If you make it to the top of the waiting list, Mozilla will also provide access the Windows 10 app. Beta apps will also be made available for other platforms, but Mozilla hasn't yet indicated when these may be released.

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Via Android Police

A growing number of Spotify users are reporting that they have access to song lyrics that are synchronized to the tracks they're listening to.

Spotify tested this feature with a small number of people towards the end of last year, bringing its services in line with both Apple Music and YouTube Music. But now it seems that song lyrics are rolling out to increasing numbers of users meaning that more and more people will be able to use Spotify as a portable karaoke machine.

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Android Police reports that numerous Spotify users are tweeting about the arrival of lyrics in the mobile app, but it's not clear quite what determines who has access to the feature. While one user has lyrics available in Spotify Beta 8.5.46.848, others with the same version do not have the feature. It seems to be something that Spotify is enabling on a server-side basis for a selection of users, and it's not tied to any particular part of the world.

Sing-along-a-Spotify

Lyrics come courtesy of Musixmatch, and there are also reports from some users that the lyrics feature has arrived in the desktop version of Spotify -- but this does not seem to be anywhere near as widespread as for Android users:

You can check to see if you're one of the chosen ones by swiping up while playing a song – if you're lucky, you'll see lyrics, but if not, you will just have to wait a little longer.

• Check out our guide to the best music streaming services

Via Android Police

The switch to the Chromium engine gave many people a new reason to try out Microsoft Edge. Now Microsoft has revealed something else that might motivate more people into taking its web browser for a spin.

The company says that it has introduced new optimisations into Edge that have made it significantly faster. Benchmark results show that there has been a 13 percent improvement in performance – a figure that's not to be sniffed at!

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Microsoft reveals the results of tests carried out using the Speedometer 2.0 benchmarking utility. They show that the new toolchain optimisations that have been enabled bring about what the company describes as a "substantial performance improvement in general browsing workloads".

The improvements can be seen in Microsoft Edge build 81.0.389.0 on 64-bit Windows 10, which has been compared with build 79.0.309.71 of the browser. Microsoft points out that the benchmarks were performed on "Windows 10 1909 (OS Build 18363.592) on a Microsoft Surface Pro 5 (Intel(R) i5-8250U CPU 1.60GHz and 8 GB RAM), with no other applications running and no additional browser tabs open".

The need for speed

The Speedometer 2.0 benchmark works by simulating real-world web usage, and Microsoft's test show that Edge 79.0.309.71 (the current stable build) yielded a score of 84.85. Version 81.0.410.0 of the browser saw this figure increase to 96.15, while in build 81.0.403.1 is was 95.6.

For now, the speed improvements can be enjoyed by anyone running the Dev or Canary preview builds of Edge, but they will land in the stable version before long. If you're eager to see how much faster things are, you can download and test the preview versions.

If you're yet to try out the Chromium-based version of Edge, what are you waiting for? There's never been a better time to give Microsoft's web browser a test drive.

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Via Windows Latest

The Facebook Lite app was designed for people with slower connections, or those just looking to reduce data usage – and now there's a new reason to consider using it. As well as offering a faster social networking experience, Facebook Lite now has dark mode.

For some reason Facebook saw fit to bring the eye-saving dark mode option to Facebook Lite before it lands in the main version of the app.

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Facebook Lite is the latest in a line of app from Facebook to receive a dark makeover, following on from Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.

You may well have seen that the Facebook website has a dark mode that is currently in beta testing. This is only available to a small number of users, but dark mode in Facebook Lite is completely independent of this; just because you have to endure bright white Facebook online, it doesn't mean that you need to suffer on your phone as well!

Lite to dark

Switching to dark mode is very simple – you'll just need to make sure that you're updated to the very latest version of Facebook Lite. With this done, just tap the setting menu to the upper right of the screen and you'll find a new 'Dark mode' toggle that you can enable.

There are no settings to configure; Facebook like only gives the choice of enabling or disabling dark mode, with no customisation options.

If you're yet to try Facebook Lite, you can download it for iOS from the App Store, and for Android devices from Google Play.

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The arrival of global media controls for Chrome meant that users were given an easy way to play, pause and navigate audio and video playing on a website. Now Google has added a new option to the Canary build of the web browser that makes it possible to pop out a video into picture-in-picture mode, so you can keep watching a video while you browse other sites.

The new option is quicker than double right-clicking a video and selecting the PiP option, and – as TechDows notes – it can also be enabled in the new Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge.

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Global media controls (which Google calls the 'media hub') eliminate the need to trawl through a site to stop an auto-playing video disturbing you, and the new feature makes it even more useful.

For now, the new picture-in-picture controls are only available in the Canary preview build of the browser, but it shouldn't be long until the feature makes its way to the main release.

If you have Chrome Canary and want to give it a try, there area few steps you'll have to take to enable the new option.

Enable picture-in-picture

First visit chrome://flags to access the hidden settings necessary to switch on the picture-in-picture option.

Search for 'global media controls picture-in-picture' and use the drop-down menu to select 'Enable'. Repeat for global media controls and then restart Chrome.

When you next click the global media control/media hub button in Chrome, in addition to the backwards, forwards and play/pause buttons, you will also see a picture-in-picture button.

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Microsoft has pushed out a big update for its Office apps on iPad and iPhone, with importance changes coming to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Each of the three apps has – in Microsoft's words – been made "simpler, faster and more beautiful than before". All three apps have an updated Alt Text Pane to help improve accessibility, but it's Excel users who have the most to look forward to.

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Microsoft says that Word, Excel and PowerPoint have all been redesigned from scratch, and it's fair to say that the new look is very easy on the eye. But while the update to the Office apps may seem to be primarily about aesthetics, there are important changes too.

In addition to the Alt Text pane that can be found in all three apps, Excel user also benefit from the arrival of the extremely powerful XLOOKUP function.

Look it up

XLOOKUP has been available to Office Insiders for a little while now, and is the successor to VLOOKUP. Now it is available to everyone, and it allows you to look for data in cells both horizontally and vertically.  

Excel has also been updated with the ability to respond to comments and mentions right from emails, so there's no need to open up a workbook.   

If you don't have the apps yet, you can download Word, Excel and PowerPoint from the App Store; if you do already have them installed, now is the time to check for updates to get the latest versions.

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