Hundreds of Applications Could Potentially Expose Data Through Basic Errors
At the beginning of September, it was revealed that a relatively simple issue existed in nearly 2,000 mobile applications that potentially exposed some (read: a lot of) sensitive data. Let’s take a brief, basic look at the situation to see if there are any lessons that can apply to your business.
Trust us, there will be.
In Essence, the Issue is One of Access Permissions
Let’s go over how these apps generally work.
Naturally, the apps that you use on your phone aren’t fully hosted on your device. Instead, they are commonly hosted in cloud services. In theory, the application you install effectively just contains hardcoded access credentials that allow you to access the data or the service that the application provides.
Notice that we said, in theory. Research conducted by Broadcom’s Symantec Threat Hunter team revealed that these purportedly single-purpose logins were able to access all of the files that a cloud service contained—including company data, backups of databases, and system controls.
Worse, if multiple apps included the same publicly available software development kits (SDKs) or were created by a single company, these login credentials could potentially grant access to numerous applications, exposing the infrastructure and user data of each.
So, let’s say that an attacker happened to obtain these access tokens. With the situation being the way it is, that would give the attacker access to all of the applications—and more critically, the user data these applications contain—that the access tokens granted access to.
Between the Android and iOS platforms, researchers found almost 2,000 applications that had their credentials hard-coded to Amazon Web Services—three-quarters of those granting access to private cloud services (and half of those granting access to private files), with about half containing access tokens found in completely unrelated applications.
So, What Does This Have to Do With Your Business?
Let me ask you something: who in your business could potentially access your payroll information, your employees’ private information, or all the financial data you’ve collected from your clientele and workforce alike?
This idea that certain information is accessible by those who shouldn’t have access to it is the crux of the issue. You need to ensure that your data and files are only accessible to those who need them for their work responsibilities. This is known as the principle of least privilege—basically, all access and information are distributed on a need-to-know basis, based on the responsibilities of the individual users.
In short, much like these applications should have been doing, you need to ensure that access to this data is locked down. We can help.
Give us a call at 651-234-0895 to learn more about how we can help you.
How to Choose a Smartphone Now that Innovation has Slowed
Mobile devices have changed the world. They’ve definitely changed the way people do business. The prevailing sentiment is smartphone innovation has stagnated a bit over the past few years as most of the flagship smartphones are using extremely fast processors, data storage has moved to the cloud, and many other factors. Just look at the new iPhone, which traditionally looks just like the last iPhone. Today, we’ll take a look at what you need to know when buying your new phone.
The Modern Smartphone
With device reviewers becoming big business on platforms like YouTube, these reviewers have become the audience that smartphone manufacturers play to, even if the general public couldn’t possibly understand the year-over-year improvements that these devices have made. Consider that the biggest change in the smartphone over the past couple of generations is mostly improvements to the camera system while making marginal improvements to processing, data storage, etc. This indicates that most improvements are driven by the marketing benefits to be had.
The fact is that other than the folding phones most devices have very similar form factors. All flagship smartphones have a 5 nm processor or better, 356 GB of flash memory, 8 GB of RAM, and a bezel-less display. That said, savvy consumers are constantly looking for a specification upgrade, so it forces each iteration of a device to make marginal improvements (if only in name). If you think about how much you’ve paid for your current device, and how similar it is to the last device you owned—especially if you haven’t moved to a device with a brand new form factor—you may just feel like you aren’t getting the value for your money that you once did when you upgraded after two years of using a device.
What to Look for In a New Device
Before we get into what you should consider when looking for a new smartphone, we have to talk a little bit about form factor. The form factor of a device is how the device is built. As we stated above, most smartphones have laughably similar form factors. The ones that don’t are using innovative new OLED screens that allow the displays to fold in half. This presents users and app developers with interesting new constructs (with very large price tags), but for the most part, devices adhere to the more familiar form factor.
So what should you look for when buying your new device if you don’t want to pay a premium price for a foldable phone? Let’s go through some considerations:
Build Quality
The build quality of a smartphone may not have a lot to do with its ability to do what you need it to do, but devices that have better build quality will last longer and enhance the user experience. Most of the top-tier smartphones are built on a stainless steel or aluminum frame. These devices are typically draped in some type of tempered glass, such as Corning’s Gorilla Glass. The better materials used to make the smartphone, the more premium it will feel when you are using it.
Display
Today, most flagship smartphones come with impressive displays. For people that use their smartphones for media consumption, you will want a larger display with a higher resolution, but there are plenty of mid-range models manufactured today that have impressive screens that could have been found on a flagship phone only a couple of years ago.
Processing Power
This is where smartphones vary wildly. Most of the top-end smartphones have a multi-core 5 nm processor or better nowadays. This means that the top smartphones have the computing power of pretty powerful workstations that can fit in your pocket. The better the processor, the better the phone will be.
Camera
A lot of manufacturers will point to a high number of megapixels in their marketing, but the effectiveness of a camera is contingent on many other factors. Obviously, the features of the camera system: number of lenses and their focal length, ISO levels, pixel size, and autofocus ability have to be taken into account. Each year the camera systems on devices do improve, however, some substantially.
Battery
An often overlooked feature when buying new hardware is the battery life. For the smartphone, it is one of the most important considerations. After all, if a device has to be plugged in, it isn’t really “mobile”. Most phones that have upwards of 3,500 mAh batteries should do, but the foldable phones will use more juice than devices with the traditional smartphone form factor, so be mindful.
Operating System
Most phones typically have one of two mobile operating systems: Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android OS. The majority of phones will come with some semblance of Android on them, but not all versions of Android are created equal, so knowing what version of the OS your handset is on is pretty important considering it will dictate what apps you can run, how your device’s security is handled, and many other factors important to a clean and productive smartphone experience.
Cost
Probably the most important factor in the purchase of a new device is the cost it presents to you. If you are planning on buying one of the top smartphones on the market, you will likely be paying about $500 or more per year of use for the device alone (and that is if you don’t have to have it repaired). Mobile service providers mostly work with users to finance smartphones, but it can add a lot of money to your monthly bill.
Other Considerations
All other factors are basically the icing on the proverbial cake. There are devices with larger displays. There are smartphones built for gaming. There are ones that have huge batteries so they don’t need to be charged every day. Some users like to have a 3.5mm headphone jack, but most flagship phones have done away with them long ago.
Finding the phone for you may come down to these small features, but chances are that they won’t have as big of a role on the reliability of the device as the variables listed above.
Have you recently bought a new smartphone? What are the features that got you to buy the model you chose? Leave your comments below and stop back soon for more great technology content.
How to Help Keep Your Mobile Devices Kicking for Longer
It’s a common enough frustration—just as you really need it, your mobile device’s battery is on its last legs. This is something that we all would like to avoid if we could. That’s why we wanted to take the time to share a few ways to prolong your device’s battery life just a bit longer.
Five Tricks to Prolong Your Device’s Battery Life
While there are a few other means of keeping your device charged for longer, we figured it best to stick to the simplest and most cost-effective ones.
Avoid Apps that Drink Up Charge
Different applications will call for different things, and if those demands utilize more of the system’s resources, more power will be necessary to support them. Basically, the more computing that needs to be done, the more power will be used up. This is why using multiple apps at once eats away at your battery faster, too. Apps that keep the screen on, play video, or make your phone generally feel warm to the touch tend to be the ones that consume the most battery.
Keep Locked When Not Actively Using
Locking your phone offers a variety of benefits, not the least of which is the fact that it turns off the screen, thereby saving your device a considerable amount of power.
Update the OS
Your phone’s operating system effectively controls how the device works, which itself will influence how long its battery lasts. In fact, part of the improvements made during updates are generally related to battery optimization.
Therefore, an up-to-date OS and the bug fixes it brings often assists with battery performance and longevity.
Set Sleep Mode to Kick in Faster
As a power-saving measure, most mobile devices have a setting that will turn off the screen and suspend background processes until the phone is actively used once again. Once sleep mode is activated, it requires a password to disengage, making it a basic security feature as well as a power-saving one.
Minimize Notifications and Location Services
While both location services and notifications are meant to make a mobile device’s processes more convenient, they can also result in the battery being drained. Try turning off all non-essential notifications for less drain on the battery. Limiting location services to only kick in when an app is actively being used both maintains your privacy, and your battery!
Trust Point North Networks to Ensure Your Business IT Works as Well as Possible
Give us a call at 651-234-0895 to find out what our managed IT services can do to improve your work processes!
