Security News

The NSA released the advisory this week informing people of the various ways mobile phones, by design, give up location information-which go beyond the well-known Location Services feature that people use on a regular basis. Most people are aware that location services on devices can pinpoint where they are so people can have access to services in the area, as well as share their location with friends via mobile apps such as WhatsApp, among other useful activities.

Uber is poised to file a federal lawsuit over Los Angeles's demands for what the company consider to be the city's privacy-invading demands for real-time location data of its users. This isn't an answer - LADOT hasn't been able to give one - but in general, LA wants the data for a new data standard called the Mobility Data Specification.

US regulators moved to impose fines Friday against the nation's four major wireless carriers for selling location data of customers without their consent. The wireless firms were accused of having disclosed mobile network user location data to a third party without authorization from customers, the FCC said.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines of more than $200 million against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for selling access to their customers' location information without taking adequate precautions to prevent unauthorized access to that data. While the fines would be among the largest the FCC has ever levied, critics say the penalties don't go far enough to deter wireless carriers from continuing to sell customer location data.

The Federal Communications Commission Friday proposed fines against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for selling real-time mobile phone location data without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to that information. In Friday statement, Paj said: "The FCC has long had clear rules on the books requiring all phone companies to protect their customers' personal information. And since 2007, these companies have been on notice that they must take reasonable precautions to safeguard this data and that the FCC will take strong enforcement action if they don't. Today, we do just that. This FCC will not tolerate phone companies putting Americans' privacy at risk."

Now an app developer called Mysk has discovered pasteboard's dark side - malicious apps could exploit it to work out a user's location even when that user has locked down app location sharing. In the simplest scenario, an iPhone user would take a photo, copy it between apps using the pasteboard, from which a malicious app could extract location metadata while comparing it with timestamps to determine whether it was current or taken in the past.

The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee - which oversees the FCC - Frank Pallone issued a statement: "Following our longstanding calls to take action, the FCC finally informed the Committee today that one or more wireless carriers apparently violated federal privacy protections by turning a blind eye to the widespread disclosure of consumers' real-time location data. This is certainly a step in the right direction, but I'll be watching to make sure the FCC doesn't just let these lawbreakers off the hook with a slap on the wrist." For her part, Commissioner Rosenworcel put out a statement saying: "For more than a year, the FCC was silent after news reports alerted us that for just a few hundred dollars, shady middlemen could sell your location within a few hundred meters based on your wireless phone data."

A Federal Communications Commission investigation found that one or more U.S. wireless carriers violated federal law by selling consumer location data to third parties, according to a letter FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sent to congressional lawmakers. The findings described in the letter came from an investigation the FCC launched after the New York Times in 2018 reported about how the biggest wireless carriers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, were giving real-time location data to third-party companies.

In today’s smartphone economy, hiding your location has become a major challenge.

Including: Nasty Mac malware and gas-pump infections Roundup Here's a catch-up of security news beyond everything else we've covered.…