Tag: smartphone security

One of the privacy control features that had previously been available on smartphones has been removed.

It has just been revealed that Google Inc. has decided to eliminate an experimental Android mobile security feature meant to help users to be able to boost their privacy levels by blocking apps from being able to collect some forms of their data, such as their location and the contents of their address books.

This change will mean that smartphone users of version 4.4.2 of the operating system will not be able to block that sharing.

In order to be able to use certain apps, users will no longer be able to rely on the Android mobile security blocking to stop their personal data from being collected. According to a Google spokesperson, the feature had accidentally been included in the Android 4.3 version (Jelly Bean) that was released last summer.

Many have expressed suspicion concerning the explanation about the removal of the Android mobile security feature.

While some have accepted Google’s explanation and are not bothered by the removal of the privacy tool, others are suspicious and don’t feel that the elimination of the feature was the best move when improvement would have been a superior path.

The concern that has now been expressed is that users of smartphones based on the operating system can choose not to upgrade to Android 4.4.2, but this could place them at an increased risk of other types of vulnerabilities that were overcome by the upgrade. This will cause people to have to make the choice between two different types of protection for their devices.

Many third party apps for these smartphones require personal information access, such as location data and phone call information, in order to be used, despite the fact that there is not always an obvious reason why the application would require this data in order to function. The added privacy feature gave users the ability to select which types of data could be collected by a third party application.

Now, the Android mobile security feature providing that ability will no longer be available to users who upgrade to the latest version of the operating system.

British consumers carrying smartphones and tablets still do not take adequate precautions to protect themselves.

According to a recent mobile security study that was conducted by Trend Micro, a security firm, many consumers in the United Kingdom who have smartphones and tablets have yet to adopt appropriate precautions in order to guard themselves against the theft of their data.

The survey involved the participation of 2,500 device users throughout the United Kingdom.

The results of this study indicated that 27 percent of the research participants have lost up to three company devices. Another 52 percent regularly carry a device on their person that contains sensitive data from work, which increases the risk that their employers and customers could experience fraud from a mobile security data breach.

This mobile security finding should be taken seriously by businesses in the country.

The survey showed that 61 percent of the participants who use their smartphones and tablets for work purposes have not even protected those devices with a password. Among all of the participants 20 percent were using their personal smartphones for business reasons, which means that this number of unprotected device users is a considerable one. Among those who have gone to the effort of protecting their devices with a password, 63 percent have used the same one or a similar one across all of their various digital accounts.

Almost one in every three participants said that they use Wi-Fi hotspots on a regular basis. However 56 percent of hotspot users do not check the security of those spaces before they connect. Twenty two percent access their work emails from those locations, while 10 percent access confidential documents in those public connection environments.

This survey indicates that in the United Kingdom, there is a standard of relative carelessness when it comes to their attitude toward mobile security and the link between their behaviors and the safety of corporate data when using their smartphones and tablets for work purposes, said the report. In fact, among the respondents, 44 percent had a greater concern regarding the loss of their own personal content than they had about giving access to sensitive business data to cyber criminals.