The UK Government for England and Wales Coronavirus contact tracing app went live on 24 September 2020. I have been using this app since and monitoring its performance as well as comments from users on the Android Play Store. Permissions On the Google Play Store, the following are the permissions that need to be enabled to... Continue Reading →
On the 13 August 2020 the UK government released a revised Contact Tracing app to be trailed on the Isle of White, the London Borough of Newham and NHS volunteer responders. In addition to the Contact Tracing function it also has other features including: An alert system that informs users of the coronavirus risk level... Continue Reading →
This is an update to my blog Location Tracking, Your Privacy & COVID 19 Contact Tracing to bring this up to date with the recent developments in the UK. The UK were going to develop a COVID 19 Contact Tracing App using a hybdrid technology that was centralised and in which they owned the data... Continue Reading →
This week (WC 7 June 2020) the first preview of Android 11 (the latest iteration in the Android smartphone operating system) was released for specific test handsets. This brings a number of security and privacy updates as well as some functional updates that you may either love or hate. Privacy Updates A number of privacy... Continue Reading →
Defending against Malware is something we all need to do. This post will discuss a particular form of malware called Ransomware and how to put some defences in place to mitigate its effects. What is Ransomware? Ransomware is a form of malware that when it infects a system will encrypt files making then inaccessible to... Continue Reading →
An interesting factoid came to be earlier this week via a tweet by Twitter user @Tarah about the top 20 most commonly used 4 digit Mobile PINs. I also found a similar list on Gizmodo that also gave the percentages. These are as follows: 1234 1111 0000 1212 7777 1004 2000 4444 2222 6969 9999... Continue Reading →
Every year around May Google host their global developer conference. This is the venue where developers, and consumers alike, hear about new features provided by Google services and OS's. In the Keynote they normally make most of the main announcements for new features and products, and in this blog I want to focus in on... Continue Reading →
When was the last time you received an update to the device you are reading this on? If it was within the last month, you are among the lucky ones. If you are on a Windows 10 PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad then you will receive regular updates, but if you are on Android, then its a... Continue Reading →
Over the past few weeks cyber researchers have discovered a number of apps in the Android Play Store that were infected with a form of Adware that had the nasty capability of hiding itself from the app list. The AdWare, which security firm Check Point calls “SimBad,” creates a backdoor and allows its creator to... Continue Reading →
