google – PSafe Blog

Google Introduces Anti-Phishing Feature for GSuite Users

PSafe Newsroom — Sat, 16 Jun 2018 12:00:06 +0000

Google has introduced a new tool to keep users of their GSuite services more protected. If your organization pays for Google products, such as Google Drive or Gmail, these new measures might improve overall security for your company. However, if you aren’t a paid user of GSuite, what can you do to keep your personal Google secure?

Google Defense for Businesses
Many phishing attacks will trick you into signing into a false account, giving hackers full access to all your data. The new Google feature will have an additional screen that asks a user to review the login email address and confirm that he or she is the proper owner of the account. This extra verification process is meant to enforce security and can be used with two-factor authentication.

What About Your Personal Google Life?
As previously noted, this new feature will only be available for Google Chrome users. This sadly leaves other browsers and Mozilla devotees in a vulnerable spot. After all, you still use Google services like Android, YouTube, or Google Photos. Basically, these new changes don’t assist the majority of Google users. Your data will still be exposed to hackers.

Your best bet is to stick with a third-party solution like dfndr security and activate the anti-hacking feature to block potential phishing attempts. The feature uses advanced AI to stop an attack before you even click on a malicious link. Your data is most infiltrated by the deceptive phishing process of placing malware links in emails, chat apps like Facebook Messenger, and SMS.

It’s also important to follow safe web browsing practices when checking email or enjoying the internet. If you’re unsure where a link might take you, avoid it and move on – the risk isn’t worth it.

When dealing with emails, always follow up with the sender of an email by phone to confirm the message details. And finally — be skeptical of any requests for detailed information. With these tips, all of us can have a safe, enjoyable experience online.

Who Should You Hide Apps From and Why

PSafe Newsroom — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 12:00:46 +0000

With Google Play Store’s teaming collection of exciting apps, there might be a few sensitive apps, as well as guilty pleasures, that you want to keep hidden. Don’t worry; we aren’t here to judge your secret love of Candy Crush. However, we are here to keep your personal information safe from prying eyes and snoops.

If you want to keep curious individuals out of your Android phone, we recommend dfndr security’s applock feature. By creating a secondary passcode, you can quickly lock down apps that you don’t want anyone to access on your device. Whether your phone is stolen or you’re lending it to a friend, using applock can ensure your most important apps are off limits.

The concept of locking down apps, in general, might seem weird. You might be wondering, why bother doing this and on what occasions would you need to?

Love Knows No Bounds in Your eBooks
We know, you love Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books; it’s the way she weaves vampire romance onto a page, but you don’t want your friends to discover her books’ in your Kindle app – not to mention all the detailed notes and highlights you took on Edward and Bella’s relationship. Be smart, lock your secrets away, but don’t delete the ‘undead’ passion.

Absolutely Not, You Can’t Buy That on Amazon
Kids seem to be born with an instant ability to understand technology, but that can sometimes have a downside. Keep those prying little fingers out of shopping and financial apps such as Android Pay or the Amazon Store. Sure, you want to make your kid happy, but how thrilled will you be when a $250 LEGO set shows up at your doorstep?

That Embarrassing Photo, ‘You Know the One’
It was late, you definitely lost count of the beers you were drinking and the number of karaoke songs you sang badly. Sure, you can look at the pics and laugh now, but your mother-in-law might beam a cold stare at you when she accidentally clicks on your photo gallery. Lock it all down, and hopefully, she won’t be curious to see what you were up to last Saturday.

Stop Your Friend From ‘Fixing’ Your Love Life
Anyone single can relate to dealing with ‘that person’ – the one who has made it their mission to put you in a relationship. Keep your privacy under wraps, and keep others from swiping left for you. After all, do you really need a date with another person that your friend finds absolutely ‘perfect?’ Maybe it’s time to “fire” your self-appointed matchmaker, because no, that guy in ripped camo shorts with the python probably isn’t your soulmate, no matter what your friend thinks.

Alexa or Google Home Could Be Spying on You

PSafe Newsroom — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 18:00:53 +0000

Alexa and Google Home are among the most innovative artificial intelligence applications in recent years, but they could be spying on you. Smart-home voice assistants can actually record the information you give them, regardless of whether you’re asking for the weather or requesting a special song as you sit down to dinner.

There are lots of positives to using these devices, but they may know more about you than you’d like. Here’s a breakdown of why Alexa and Google Home could be a detriment and not a help.

How It Works
These devices may not be listening to everything you say, but once you request an interaction with “Alexa” or “OK Google,” they will record you. As soon as these devices hear these keywords, they will instantly upload everything uttered to cloud servers.

The reason for this action is Alexa and Google Home need to store information in the cloud in order to respond back to you. The data is processed into machine-comprehensible instructions and the devices return with an answer to your command. For example, if you ask Alexa to read you an email or an SMS, this information could be stored on cloud servers forever.

What Else Should I Know?
An estimated 31 million Alexa devices have been sold already, as well as 14 million Google Home devices, which is a dream for marketers. Your data could be compiled and used for marketing purposes and all your data will be concentrated in a central place. Having all your data exposed in one area could make it easy for hackers and cybercriminals to target you.

What Can I Do?
You are able to delete the information that Alexa and Google Home collects about you by going to your Amazon or Google account and deleting old recordings. But, if you do this, the devices will unlearn some of the information they know about like your email account to read messages out loud or your musical preferences.

Be careful which devices you link to Alexa or Google Home. Remember that sensitive, personal information may belong to the device as much as it belongs to you. Another option is you can choose when to turn off a smart home device’s connection to your information. For example, if you’re not using an online shopping feature on your device, turn it off.

Google Introduces Over 20 New Security Features to Protect Users

PSafe Newsroom — Fri, 18 May 2018 12:00:04 +0000

Google has announced that they will be introducing a collection of new security features for Android phone users. While some of these features are aimed squarely at enterprise users, a number of new additions will be welcomed by consumers looking to remain more secure while browsing the web on their mobile devices.

New Features to Secure Your Online Life
For starters, the company will be including new anti-phishing capabilities based on machine learning algorithms from Gmail user scenarios. The service will now be able to flag emails as suspicious; it can also alert you to odd attachment files that may pose a threat. It can be a tiring practice to be on your toes continually looking out for malware, so these new features could be quite beneficial.

The anti-phishing system will also be able to scan images and expand shortened URLs in order to look for signs of malicious content. Basically, while you browse your Gmail inbox, Google has implemented a collection of new tools to watch your back. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your eyes peeled for trouble!

Advanced Changes to Google’s Backend
Other changes introduced include modifications made to Google’s Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution, which offers new mechanisms that detect how a user interacts with the platform. On a security level, it monitors strange activity, like logging in from halfway around the world, or sending emails that don’t sound like you. These occurrences will be noted by the system.

Remember: Keep Your Eyes Open!
Overall, Google has introduced new security protocols that many users will find useful. However, it’s important to note that a basic patch of security doesn’t give complete protection. In fact, Google Play Protect, an essential part of the Android ecosystem continues to fail third-party testing by independent security firm, AV-TEST.

To make sure your entire Google life is safe and secure it’s worth downloading a third-party app such as dfndr security to watch your back. With features including full virus scanning abilities, anti-phishing fueled by AI, along with cleanup and performance features – it really is an excellent option to keep you moving forward. Go ahead, try it!

dfndr lab Uncovers Potentially Malicious Google Chrome Scam

PSafe Newsroom — Tue, 08 May 2018 01:00:48 +0000

Hackers never seem to rest; luckily for you, neither does the security team at dfndr lab. Recently, our team discovered a new technical loophole within Google Chrome that may lead to unauthorized use of your device. The latest scam takes advantage of the popular web browser’s notification system; drowning users in permission requests until they give in out of pure exhaustion. How does such a scam work, and how does it aim to hijack your Android device with malware?

A Dangerous Loophole in Chrome
When a website wishes to deliver notifications to your device from within Google Chrome, a small popup will appear on your screen. From here, users can either select to ‘Allow’ or ‘Block’ the website from displaying such content. Chrome is now supposed to log your decision and prevent the site from asking you again, but there’s a problem – clever web programming has found a way around this system.

One method of fighting against this type of scam is to use dfndr security on your Android device. dfndr security offers a full virus scan and an advanced anti-hacking feature; these include scanning your device from top to bottom for malware, while also preventing dubious websites from touching your device by blocking malicious links. In a short period, the dfndr lab team has detected and blocked over 10,000 attempts of the Chrome-based scam.

Inner Workings of the Google Chrome Scam
The clever loophole behind the scam takes advantage of the fact that Chrome blocks a website from asking for permissions based on the primary domain, but not the subdomain. A subdomain is the part of a web address that proceeds the primary. For example, if you were to access, ‘www.login.yourbank.com,’ the ‘yourbank’ part of the address is the primary domain, and the ‘login’ part of the address is the subdomain.

Due to this flaw, if a website wants to ask for repeated permissions continuously, the site programmer can merely swap between multiple subdomains until the user chooses to allow consent. Research at dfndr lab has shown this practice of websites using a slew of subdomains is an attempt to force an individual into accepting.

But, how does this practice lead to your device becoming infected with malware and eventually hijacked? Once a malicious website displays notifications on your device, it can then attempt to showcase content that you think comes from your operating system. You might see what appears to be a valid prompt for an update, unknowingly tap on it, and download malware that could take over your device.

Staying Protected Against the Attack
Besides downloading an antivirus solution for your device, if you still stumble upon the scam, your best bet is to try and close out the webpage, so that it can no longer ask for permission requests. Do not give in to hitting ‘allow’ out of pure frustration, once you’ve done that, hackers are one step closer to infiltrating your Android.

Android P’s New Features Guard You Against Snoops and Spies

PSafe Newsroom — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:00:16 +0000

With each new version of Android that’s released to the public, Google attempts to improve the operating system’s overall security. Recently, the company introduced their latest version of Android to developers for testing. The newest iteration merely codenamed ‘P’ places immense focus on improving the ease-of-use and overall design of Android’s interface, but dig deeper and you’ll find new protocols put in place to protect you from applications that attempt to spy through your smartphone’s camera and microphone.

Developers noticed these new changes in the Android P focus on apps in the background, known as idle applications, will now be unable to access content from the microphone or camera systems. Google notes the feature notes is in place to ‘protect user’s privacy.’ While you wait for the latest release of Android to add an extra barrier of security, there are some easy precautions you can take with your existing OS.

Keep Your Eye On App Permissions
When an application presents you with a pop-up, don’t just hit okay and continue on. Take the time to read the message displayed to you. In many circumstances, an Android app may be asking for permission to access certain parts of the system. This can involve your contacts, photo library, and even your camera and microphone.

Carefully note what permissions an application is asking for and use common sense when doling out access. For example, a calendar app most likely doesn’t need to access your microphone, and a video game doesn’t need to access your contact book.

Lockdown Sensitive Apps
Your smartphone passcode is your first line of defense, but what if it were to fail? Or, what if you were to hand your phone to a friend so that they could make a call and keeping your apps safe is a concern. Consider using a solution such as dfndr security’s applock feature, which allows you to create an additional passcode, or use a scanned fingerprint when opening certain apps. Best of all, you get to choose which apps to hide or not.

Security apps that add a second level of authentication is an excellent way to protect your banking apps and other sensitive information.

Always Keep Your Device Updated
Lastly, and most important, be sure to keep your device updated with the latest available software. While Google may only issue massive updates once a year that doesn’t mean the apps you use or the phone manufacturer doesn’t prompt you to update.

Take the appropriate steps to ensure that your phone’s operating system current and check the Google Play Store to guarantee all of your apps have the latest patches. New vulnerabilities and threats happen quickly so the best way to stay safe is to stay ahead.

Grammarly Has a Vulnerability You Should Know About

PSafe Newsroom — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 12:00:55 +0000

If you’re a big user of Grammarly, your information may have been exposed to hackers. The writing enhancement platform appears to be missing the necessary security features to keep their users information intact, although the issue is believed to have been caused by a bug. Avoid this and other bugs with dfndr security’s full virus scan feature, which checks your device for any threats, in both your phone’s memory and SD card.

Here’s what you should know about the “Grammarly” bug that struck millions of people.

Weakness in Top Browsers
The issue was found due to a vulnerability in the Grammarly extension for Chrome and Firefox browsers. Information of about 22 million users accounts was exposed as a result, making it easy for remote hackers to access their personal documents and records. Tavis Ormandy, security researcher with Google’s Project Zero, said the it was a high severity bug.

Ormandy said that the authentication tokens to all Grammarly websites were there for the taking easily stolen by cybercriminals remotely with four lines of JavaScript code. The company said that the vulnerability only affected Grammarly Editor, but the issue could still have very severe consequences for some users if their documents were stolen.

The Issue Was Addressed in Time
Grammarly’s outside security IT team responded to the issue swiftly, fixing the bug only three days after the issue was revealed. A number of security updates were made available for Chrome and Firefox browser extensions, which the company is automatically updating without users having to actively find the update. Adding an extension on the Chrome Web Store seems to have done the trick for Chrome users.

A Grammarly spokesperson wrote an email to their security firm, noting that there is no evidence that users personal documents and information had been stolen, nor exposed by a hacker. Ormandy noted that the company’s response time was impressive. Grammarly added that the vulnerability may affect text saved on Grammarly Editor.

Any Further Threats?
While it is likely that the security threat is gone, the company says it is actively working to monitor any new issues in order to keep users information private and secure. Luckily the bug had no effect on Grammarly Keyboard, the Grammarly Microsoft Office add-in, or any documents created online while using the company’s browser extension.

Everything You Need to Know About APK Files

PSafe Newsroom — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 21:00:21 +0000

Even if you’re an Android phone user, you might not know what people mean when they discuss an APK file. Put simply, an APK file is created by Google exclusively for the Android operating system. Most APK files come pre-installed, or “native,” to the Android mobile device, whether it be a smart phone or tablet. However, that doesn’t mean they’re useless like temporary files or cache.

In fact, you likely will not see an APK file because many Android operations happen behind the scenes. However, users are likely to notice them if they examine the files of a downloaded app from the Google Play store.

What’s in an APK File?
As mentioned, an APK file is designed exclusively by Google for Android’s operating system. The content of some common APK files explain why. The META-INF contains what is known as the manifest file. Think of this as the main file, which contains the file’s signature and the resources within the APK file. After that are the Lib/ and Res/ files, which contain the native library and further resources, such as images, within the APK file. An AndroidManifest.xml file describes the name, version, and contents of an APK file. Think of this like a more robust version of the META-INF file. Lastly, the classes.dex and resources.arsc files contain compiled Java classes and resources, like strings, to be run on your Android device.

Looking at an APK File
Viewing APK files is actually quite easy. In fact, they even have their own folder. Simply locate the APK file you want to see and click it. APK files are stored in a .ZIP file, which compresses all the information within the APK file into a single file. This is used to save storage on your device. By clicking, or unzipping, the file, you’ll be able to view the contents within the file. Note, however, that you may have to rename the file “.zip” before opening. Alternatively, you can also open the file through the Zip application’s “open dialogue” box.

Creating an APK File
Feeling crafty? Actually designing an APK file, which you can use for your own app or for beta testing an app, isn’t that difficult. You can design an APK file using the Android Studio, the official integrated device environment (IDE) available for Android software developers. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and allows users to design APK apps for the Google Play store.

How Do Phishing Attacks via Google Docs Work?

PSafe Newsroom — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 13:00:41 +0000

If you’re savvy on digital tech trends, you may have noticed the highly publicized phishing attack that occurred in early 2017 that gained access to Google accounts via Google Docs. The report affected millions of people, and required Google to send out a notification warning users to ignore the phishing request and to change their permissions quickly. This shows how important it is to not only be aware of the latest scams, but to take measures to block phishing attempts. To protect your phone from these kind of hacks use dfndr security’s anti-hacking feature:

If you like the idea of having an antivirus app block malicious links before you even click on them, the anti-hacking feature does just that. So how did this Google Docs attack work, and what can users do in the future to sniff out future attacks before they happen, in addition to using anti-hacking? Continue reading to find out more about Google Docs phishing attacks.

How This Attack Worked
First, the initial issue that caused this was a minor one, and it stemmed from a simple email that appeared as if it was sent by a recent contact. The email then encouraged individuals to open and log in with their Google account. The page that users were delivered to looked exactly identical to the normal Google permission pages, which is what caused so many users to grant and fall for the attack.

Of course, once they had signed over their information, it was too late. Hackers were able to use the information and passwords for whatever they wanted, and users were left scrambling to change their information and ungrant permissions. Of course, while the attack targeted less than .1% of Gmail users, that still means that millions of people were at risk, and many clicked on the link.

Of course, there’s a lot to learn about this that users can use to protect themselves in the future. First and foremost, users should be careful and always think twice about sharing their information. If an email takes you to a page looking for information that you’ve likely already shared on your computer, you may have encountered the phishing page. Maintaining a healthy skepticism is key to staying vigilant and on top of attacks that may be incoming.

4 Android Games That Will Make You Smarter

PSafe Newsroom — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 13:00:01 +0000

While some think that smartphones — and our constant need to be on them — are a downside of today’s society, there is a way for these devices to actually help our brains. Luckily for us, there are a variety of Android apps that serve as games that can actually train us to be smarter, all while we’re enjoying ourselves. Playing these games make it easier than ever to stay sharp. You can also take your gaming experience with these apps a step further by using dfndr security’s game booster feature to enhance your gameplay:

The game booster feature can can stop lagging by freeing up RAM memory to optimize and boost your phone. Keep reading to learn about all of the best games to train your brain and make you smarter. You’ll totally enjoy yourself as you play with these apps!

Elevate
This game is specifically designed to help train your brain to make you smarter. Playing is an invigorating experience, as it’s designed to improve attention, enhance speaking skills, accelerate processing speed, improve your math skills, and sharpen your memory. The app is smart enough to personalize each person’s training program, and it boasts over 40 games to boost cognitive skills.

Brainwell
This is another game that was created to help players train their brain to be smarter in their everyday life. Put your problem solving skills to the test and improve your attention to detail with the cognitive exercises in the fun games this app showcases. It’s designed for both kids and adults, making it a versatile download to your Android device.

PowerVocab
If you love word games and are looking to expand your vocabulary, this game is for you. It’s a free Android app that is made for those who love crosswords, Scrabble, or anything else of the sort. Using flashcards, this app helps to expand your vocabulary in a fun way. It’s a great tool for students preparing for tests like the SAT or GMAT, or for anyone that wants to keep their vocabulary sharp and growing.

Eidetic
Brain teasers are a great way to train your brain, and they’re always a fun puzzle to figure out. This app is both fun and challenging, with 98 levels and four bonus challenges. The difficulty levels on these challenges are between medium and difficult skill levels. One of the best parts of this game is that it’s free to download and doesn’t include in-app purchases, making it affordable to train your brain and to have fun while doing it!