Security News
Signal has added an easy way for users to report and block spam straight from message request screens with a single mouse click. Message requests were added to Signal last year, in August 2020, to allow new users to reach out to other Signal users even if they're not in their address books and provide more contextual info to those on the receiving end.
Element, which makes Matrix-based communications and collaboration tools, has launched a consumer-oriented version of its messaging platform, complete with bridges for WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram. Over the months it has introduced supported bridging tech to allow enterprise users to message users on other platforms such as Slack, Teams and WhatsApp.
This comes after competitors like Signal and Telegram shared info on a massive exodus of Facebook users joining or switching to other platforms following the 6-hour-long downtime that impacted Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Signal and Telegram also began experiencing in the wake of Facebook's global outage after millions of Facebook users were joining their platforms.
Matrix-based communications and collaboration app Element has continued its mission to make bridges into the decentralised network a little more commercially acceptable with connectivity for Signal. Amandine Le Pape, co-founder of Element, had already given WhatsApp a jab with the privacy blade the last time we spoke and Element's CEO, Matthew Hodgson, joined the party during our chat about the Signal bridge.
A newly discovered data exfiltration mechanism employs Ethernet cables as a "Transmitting antenna" to stealthily siphon highly-sensitive data from air-gapped systems, according to the latest research. Dubbed "LANtenna Attack," the novel technique enables malicious code in air-gapped computers to amass sensitive data and then encode it over radio waves emanating from Ethernet cables just as if they are antennas.
Signal has fixed a serious bug in its Android app that, in some cases, sent random unintended pictures to contacts without an obvious explanation. When sending an image using the Signal Android app to one of your contacts, the contact would occasionally receive not just the selected image, but additionally a few random, unintended images, that the sender had never sent out.
When you or your contact reinstall the Signal app or switch over to a new device, the Signal safety number between you two may not always change. The safety number is a feature of the app that helps users verify the security of their messages and calls with their contacts, and is typically expected to change when either party reinstalls the app or switches devices.
China has signalled that ride-sharing companies and laid out regulations that will stop cars from collecting unnecessary data. State-controlled media report that authorities hauled in ten major ride-sharing outfits last week, among them DiDi and Meituan, and gave them a stern talking-to about how much they pay to drivers.
Raytheon Intelligence & Space will provide signals intelligence field services for the U.S. Air Force's Distributed Common Ground System, which collects, processes and analyzes intelligence. RI&S will support seven different intelligence applications the Air Force uses to collect and correlate data under the new program, DCGS-Signals Intelligence Field Support.
Cellebrite's forensic applications do not include the type of security protections one would expect from a parsing software, which renders them susceptible to attacks, according to privacy-focused messaging service Signal. Cellebrite claims to have thousands of customers in over 140 countries.