Security

Bring your padlocks up to the 21st century with the Dog & Bone LockSmart Mini

Chances are you have a thing or two that you like to keep locked away with a padlock of some sort.

Whether you need it for a locker at school or work, or to keep a gate or shed closed at home, you can bring your padlocks up to the 21st century with the Dog and Bone LockSmart Mini, which utilizes wireless Bluetooth connectivity so you can unlock the padlock with your smartphone.

Hacker Luca Todesco advises jailbreakers to avoid updating to iOS 10.2

While there’s still no public jailbreak for iOS 10 to date, there have been some very convincing demos of personal jailbreaks for it, most of which have come out of the woodwork from none other than well-known iOS hacker Luca Todesco.

Amid the current jailbreak situation, Todesco is now seen warning netizens that if they have any intention of jailbreaking iOS 10 in the future, they should stay on iOS 10.1.1 and refrain from updating to iOS 10.2 when it comes out.

iOS 10.1.1 bug allows researchers to bypass Activation Lock protection on iPhone and iPad

Back in November, India-based security researcher Hemanth Joseph discovered a bug in iOS 10.1 which permitted him to bypass Apple's anti-theft Activation Lock feature by entering an excessively long string of characters in the Wi-Fi setup text fields.

Apple has patched the flaw in iOS 10.1.1 but now, as noted by SecurityWeek, researchers at Vulnerability Lab have managed to find another method of bypassing Activation Lock protection on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 10.1.1 and they posted video evidence to prove it.

How to set up automatic account login on Mac

Login screen on MacBook Pro running macOS Sonoma

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just turn on your Mac and start using it without having to log in to it all the time? If you’re someone who doesn’t need Fort Knox-like security to keep people from getting into your computer, then you can set up your Mac to log in to your account automatically when you turn it on, and we’ll show you how to do that.

New Lock screen bug bypasses iPhone/iPad passcode, lets you see photos/contacts

Apple likes to pride itself with strong security in iOS, but for all the platitudes the fact remains that the iPhone's Lock screen is one of iOS's weakest links. And now, YouTuber iDeviceHelp has discovered a new Lock screen vulnerability that lets anyone in possession of your iPhone bypass the passcode and get to your contacts and photos. The bug has been reported to Apple and should be fixed in a future update.

iOS 10 found to store call logs for up to 4 months, Apple explains

iOS 10's been found to upload missed call logs from apps like WhatsApp and Skype to servers, as well as near-real time FaceTime call logs—even if iCloud backup has been turned off, according to a Russian company called Elcomsoft which makes iPhone forensic tools aimed at law enforcement agencies.

Elcomsoft CEO Vladimir Katalov suspects in an interview with Forbes that this is most likely a result of iOS 10's expanded scope of call logging due to the new CallKit framework which was designed to make VoIP calls from apps like Viber, WhatsApp and Skype behave like cellular calls and integrate with Phone's Recents and Favorites.

According to Apple itself, call log syncing through iCloud is a convenient feature that elevates user experience by allowing customers to easily return calls from VoIP apps.

Backdoor in some Android devices sold in the US found to send data to China

Security firm Kryptowire recently discovered that some Android smartphones have a backdoor that secretly sends data to China, reports the NY Times. Maybe even more concerning, American phone maker BLU Products said that 120,000 of its phones were found to have the backdoor installed in its software, which has since been updated to remove all track of that secret backdoor.

WhatsApp rolls out end-to-end encrypted video calling

Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced yesterday that it had begun rolling out video calling to the more than one billion users it claims across iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms around the world.

According to TechCrunch, video calls on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted just like with FaceTime in order to prevent rogue parties from eavesdropping on your communications.

WhatsApp previously rolled out end-to-end encryption for chats. “We obviously try to be in tune with what our users want,” WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum told Reuters. “We're obsessed with making sure that voice and video work well even on low-end phones.”

PasswordRecovery stores passwords and recovers them when you forget them

It can be a pain to remember all your passwords, and that's why password manager apps like 1Password exist. But if you don't like the big price tag or the subscription models, then PasswordRecovery is a jailbreak tweak alternative you could check out instead.

This tweak comes with password remembrance and recovery options all in a single package so you'll never forget your passcode or have to reset a password for any of its supported apps ever again.