Daycare Apps Are Dangerously Insecure
Last year, several parents at EFF enrolled kids into daycare and were instantly told to download an application for managing their children’s care. Daycare and preschool applications frequently include notifications of feedings, diaper changes, pictures, activities, and which guardian picked-up/dropped-off the child—potentially useful features for overcoming separation anxiety of newly...
Apple and Google Are Introducing New Ways to Defeat Cell Site Simulators, But Is it Enough?
Cell-site simulators (CSS)—also known as IMSI Catchers and Stingrays—are a tool that law enforcement and governments use to track the location of phones, intercept or disrupt communications, spy on foreign governments, or even install malware. Cell-site simulators are also used by criminals to send spam and engage...
Vulnerability in Tencent’s Sogou Chinese Keyboard Can Leak Text Input in Real-Time
Security researchers at Citizen Lab discovered a number of cryptographic vulnerabilities in the Sogou Input Method keyboard software made by Tencent, the most popular input method in China. These vulnerabilities allow adversaries with a privileged network position (such as an ISP or anyone with access to upstream routers) to...
Android TV Boxes Sold on Amazon Come Pre-Loaded with Malware
Certain Android TV Box models from manufacturers AllWinner and RockChip, available for purchase on Amazon, come pre-loaded with malware from the BianLian family, a variant of which we investigated last year. The malware, discovered by security researcher Daniel Milisic, adds your smart set-top box to a...
Uncle Sow: Dark Caracal in Latin America
In 2018, EFF along with researchers from Lookout Security published a report describing the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) we dubbed "Dark Caracal." Now we have uncovered a new Dark Caracal campaign operating since March of 2022, with hundreds of infections across more than a dozen countries. In this report...
Is Mastodon Private and Secure? Let’s Take a Look
This post is part of a series on Mastodon and the fediverse. We also have a post on what the fediverse is, why the fediverse will be great—if we don't screw it up, and how to make a Mastadon account. You can follow EFF on Mastodon...
Snowflake Makes It Easy For Anyone to Fight Censorship
Tor, the onion router, remains one of the most effective censorship circumvention technologies. Millions of people use the Tor network every day to access the internet without fear of surveillance and censorship.Most people get on the Tor network by downloading the Tor Browser and connecting to a relay. But...
Study of Electronic Monitoring Smartphone Apps Confirms Advocates’ Concerns of Privacy Harms
Researchers at the University of Washington and Harvard Law School recently published a groundbreaking study analyzing the technical capabilities of 16 electronic monitoring (EM) smartphone apps used as “alternatives” to criminal and civil detention. The study, billed as the “first systematic analysis of the electronic monitoring apps ecosystem,” confirmed...
EFF’s “Cover Your Tracks” Will Detect Your Use of iOS 16’s Lockdown Mode
Apple’s new iOS 16 offers a powerful tool for its most vulnerable users. Lockdown Mode reduces the avenues attackers have to hack into users’ phones by disabling certain often-exploited features. While providing a solid defense against intrusion, it is also trivial to detect that this new feature is...
Anatomy of an Android Malware Dropper
Recently at EFF’s Threat Lab, we’ve been focusing a lot on the Android malware ecosystem and providing tools for its analysis. We’ve noticed lot of samples of Android malware in the tor-hydra family have surfaced, masquerading as banking apps to lure unsuspecting customers into installing them. In this...
