Pocketnow Daily: Apple is KILLING Face ID & The Notch?! (video)

On today's Pocketnow Daily, we talk about the possible changes coming in future iPhones, upgrades in the Nintendo Switch and more

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More than 700,000 ‘bad’ apps were banned from Google Play last year, up 70 percent

Google Play Protect, machine learning techniques and an overall increased commitment to security made Android's main app store a more trusted and safer place in 2017 than ever before.

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OnePlus confirms credit card security breach, up to 40k users ‘may be’ affected

A whopping 40,000 people who used their credit cards on the official OnePlus website between mid-November 2017 and January 11, 2018 may have had their financial info compromised.

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Auto-clicking Judy malware detected after years of Google Play-downloaded nefarious activity

Check Point security researchers believe up to a whopping 36.5 million Android devices may have been tainted by Judy adware roaming free in Google Play.

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Security & Privacy: Do You Need Mobile Antivirus Apps?

Various antivirus and antimalware apps are available through app stores; some even come pre-installed from OEMs. Question is: are these mobile antivirus apps really necessary?

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Barnes & Noble now faces criticism for baking Adups spyware into $50 Nook Tablet 7

You didn’t really think Miami-based BLU Products was the only Android device manufacturer that unwillingly put its users’ personal data at risk by loading cheap phones up with a malicious third-party Chinese app, now, did you?

In fact, recent research estimated the number of gadgets pre-installed with Adups firmware at around 700 million, allowing the shady “leading global FOTA provider of end-to-end device management and software solutions” to potentially monitor text messages, phone call histories, and details of how all these phones are used without their owners’ permission.

Among those controversially choosing to collaborate with Adups, we found important OEM names like Lenovo and ZTE in addition to BLU, while Barnes & Noble reportedly joins the list after the holiday launch of the ultra-low-cost Nook Tablet 7.

For just $50, it seems you’re not only getting a compact “reading-optimized” IPS display, full Play Store access, skinned Marshmallow, exclusive B&N content, up to 7-hour battery life, and 8GB expandable storage, but also complimentary spyware.

At least in theory therefore, everything from call logs to contacts and even your IMEI number are in danger of falling into the wrong hands, although we have to underline the low-end slate doesn’t support cellular services. Still, Barnes & Noble should take care of this security hazard in a similarly expeditious way as BLU so as to nip unnecessary scandals in the bud.

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1.3 million Google accounts compromised by Gooligan Android bug

The bug formerly known as “Ghost Push” has gotten some new life from some successful hackers. And its name is somewhat ridiculous: Gooligan.

Check Point Software and Google have been tracking down this bug, which spreads through the installation of malicious apps from third-party libraries, and seeing what Gooligan does. Once the app gets downloaded, malware inside the app siphons account credentials, roots your device, sticks in code into your apps and downloads more of them and abuses authentication tokens into your Google accounts for Google Play, Photos, Drive, Docs, Gmail and others.

gooligan-how-it-works

Your compromised account may “pen” fake, five-star reviews for apps on the Google Play Store.

Devices on Jelly Bean, KitKat and Lollipop are at risk with this bug — which is pretty much most of the Android smartphone market out there — and its blast radius of 1.3 million accounts has mostly been in Asia at 57 percent. 19 percent of the affected accounts are from the Americas, 15 percent are from Africa and 9 percent are from Europe. An estimated 13,000 accounts are getting hijacked every day.

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For a complete list of fake apps infected by Gooligan, head to our source link. You can also check to see if your Google account has been compromised at this site.

For its part, Google is tracking down all the fake apps and removing them from the Play Store as well as revoking the authentication tokens of Google accounts that may have been hijacked. It is also contacting internet service providers to take down servers where these Gooligan operations are taking place.

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Qualcomm Quadrooter bug affecting 900 million Android phones to be patched next month

Another Def Con convention down and developers have people talking about this year’s Stagefright.Security company Check Point is publicizing four major Android vulnerabilities that it is dubbing as a package, “Quadrooter,” found in Qualcomm-made chipsets.Snapdragons are estimated to be on about 900 million Android handsets from

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There’s a RAT in Pokémon Go! And it’s not Rattata

We have to ask how you’ll fare this weekend, the first full weekend of availability for Niantic Labs’ Pokémon Go! Prepared for long days walking from one side of the city to the other? Or are you memeing it up, pointing and laughing at the people who end up crossing town to catch that Flareon? Maybe you’re just sticking your fingers in your ears at this point.Whatever the case, if you even have the slightest interest in downloading Pokémon Go, make sure you get the .APK from a safe ...

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Twitter: credential leak not from server breach, we’re taking action

The microblogging platform is working on damage control after a massive credential leak left about 33 million Twitter accounts’ user information out in the open.Michael Coates, Trust & Information Security Officer, stated in a blog post that the company is “confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s

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Nearly 33 million Twitter records revealed, likely by malware

Another day, another big passwords leak.LeakedSource, a site that provides users access to possibly compromised records, has received 32,888,300 Twitter account credentials from someone going by “[email protected]”. In a sample of 15 users, all of them affirmed that the passwords revealed related to their accounts were theirs.The crack likely didn’t occur on Twitter’s side, but with ...

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Drive-by Android malware silently installs over the web (but you’re probably OK)

There’s only so much you can do to help smartphone users keep their devices secure. You can tell them to keep their apps up to date, or not to download software from unknown sources. You can even teach them how to spot when someone’s trying to trick them into installing they shouldn’t be. But despite all those efforts, sometimes malware still manages to get a foot in the door, and that’s just what’s happening with a new ransomware attack.Let’s get one thing out of ...

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Google greatly reduced the probability of installing harmful apps from the Play Store in 2015

For many Android users, 2015 will go down in history as a sad year for the platform’s vulnerability protection, due mostly to a collection of mischievous software bugs known as Stagefright.But that’s all behind us now, and at least according to Google’s second Android security annual report, the remote code execution and privilege escalation troubles may have made the ecosystem stronger than before.Of course, there’s ...

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LG G3 had a security flaw patched in its Smart Notice widget

It gives wibbly weather reports even those at the Met Office in London would tsk at. And it bothers users every so often with battery consumption notices, just like many a Chinese Android phone. You can probably tell that we are editorially not in favor of LG’s Smart Notice widget, found on its major Android flagships from the past several years.But on the LG ...

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