It is no secret that most corporate IT departments have a tendency to be worried when it comes to shadow IT and personal mobile apps that employees might be using on the same devices while they’re at work – and for good reason. Recently, an analysis was made which revealed that quite a few apps, WhatsApp, WinZip and Facebook Messenger for Android included, presents a high risk to enterprise data.
The analysis known as the third quarter Enterprise Mobile Security Pulse Report, was made by Appthority. The report also stated that the riskiest iOS apps that are found in the enterprises are Pandora, Facebooka and Yelp. These mentioned apps and other popular ones that are present in enterprise setting have mobile threat scores which indicates data leakage and vulnerabilities based on the report. “Enterprise security teams need to understand which mobile apps are being used, the risks they bring, and how their peers are utilizing mobile threat policies to more effectively secure corporate data,” according to the president and co-founder of Appthority, Domingo Guerra. “With BYOD and [corporate owned personally enabled (COPE)] many commonly used app-store approved apps are making their way into enterprises and posing risks to sensitive corporate data. The Pulse report provides a snapshot of what’s happening in the market so mobility and security teams can make informed decisions to protect themselves from the growing number of mobile threats.” In this quarter, the apps that are believed to be highly dangerous in presenting an attack vector into enterprise systems which was determined by which apps are most likely to be blacklisted by security departments are spearheaded by WhatsApp, Pokémon GO and WinZip for Apple devices as well as Poot-debug(W100).apk which is an Android System Theme and that Where’s My Droid Pro that made it to the top of the list for Android. Appthority also stated on its report that enterprises blacklist apps for a number of security concerns such as specific malicious or data leakage behaviors, security policy compliance and concerns about shadow data storage. The report also showed that in Q3 that the Android apps that were blacklisted has scored in the malicious range since malware was detected. While the iOS apps that were blacklisted has scored in the data leakage range for sending SMS messages, tracking of location or sending information like sensitive data which is unencrypted. WinZip has released a statement to Infosecurity that these risks presented on the part of IT departments are definitely unwarranted. According to a spokesperson of WinZip: "Our team was extremely disappointed and surprised to read that WinZip for iOS has been mentioned in the Appthority report. We believe WinZip for iOS has been included in error and have identified incorrect information in their report. WinZip does not send SMS messages as the report stated. This statement is particularly problematic as it is the only reason provided to justify why WinZip for iOS is included on their list." "As we look into this issue further, we want you to know that we aren't aware of any valid reason why Appthority would consider WinZip for iOS a security risk. WinZip software is very popular with enterprise accounts and security is our top priority. Any security issue reported will be immediately investigated,” the spokesperson also added. On the other hand, the pulse reports also pointed out the most destination countries for mobile data and the reputation of the URLs which are used by a lot of apps among Appthority’s enterprise customers. The countries that are leading for the top 150 Android and iOS apps are Ireland and the United States. However, Android apps are reported to be connected to an even wider set of geographic locations while iOS apps are only connected to fewer countries like Chile, China and Saudi Arabia. In conclusion, these risks presented by the latest analysis by Appthority only shows that apprehension felt by a lot of corporate IT departments are certainly understandable which is why some of them resort to using SMS Tracker to keep track of their employees’ device activities. SMS Tracker is a device-tracking app commonly used by employers as well as parents to track their employees and kids, respectively. Using this app is legal as long as the parties you are tracking are has given their consent. Needless to say, SMS Tracker is definitely the answer to these risks found in popular apps that are used by employees.
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SpyBrother.com is presenting a tracking app known as the SpyBrother application. The tracking application allows tracking of one or more Android smartphone devices utilizing the Android platform, viewing of incoming and outgoing calls, reading of sent and received SMS, snapping photos, and environmental recording. Additionally, it helps in discovering the geographical location of the mobile phone via the features of GMS tracking and GPS tracking. Furthermore, the application is easy to use and sensibly valued thus making it one of the most groundbreaking tracking applications currently in the market. The Chief Executive Officer at a tech marketing event said if you are interested in the precise locations of your children, you should pick the SpyBrother application. It is the most capable, includes lavish cell tracker Android smartphone application. It offers an excellent option to stay in contact with your children with a single click notwithstanding their location. This software is the most terrific tracking device for smartphone users. The Spy Brother application is a complete SMS application that offers significantly more beyond tracking. Aside from tracking the incoming and outgoing SMS, it additionally displays the erased SMS. This information is accumulated into a document easily reachable on the dashboard and control panel. This document covers the entire report and additionally the most current activities and their detailed analysis. The Director of Operations at the same tech marketing event said the Spy Brother application also displays a spy recorder. It empowers recording of conversations to discover if anything wrong occurring to your children or staff in the office. So, you can read sent and received SMS and listen to outgoing and incoming calls of your kids or employees to ensure their protection. You can likewise snap undisclosed photos with your mobile phone utilizing its front room. This helps in keeping step on their location and employees always. What is more, the application is light and invisible. This lightweight application boasts several extraordinary features, and it only works when initiated. SpyBrother is the best tracking application which provides a free license for three days alongside with its comprehensive portfolio of functionalities. It enables you to see the benefits of checking SMS messages, phone calls, photos, GSM and GPS locations, and apps on the device. Additionally, it allows chat notifications, locking/unlocking phone, email notifications, environmental recording, ADSL connection, and name. With such many features and a simple UI, it’s affordably priced and it’s the lowest priced application in this category. Erasing the SpyBrother application from any smartphone is as simple as installing it. They can quickly erase it through a web-based reserved area allocated to them. The individuals who want to delete all the information need to tap on the SETUP menu in the control panel and evacuate the mobile device or devices from the tracking setup. After doing this, all data will be surely erased. Conclusion When you need a powerful tracking application, you must try SpyBrother. This feature-rich application can be downloaded on any Android phone to track every phone call. The application is developed as a strong tracking tool for the parents who want to protect children and their company. Also, be sure to stay on top of the updates which help keep the software up and running at all times. It will help you to add more features and tools. More than 500 Android applications could have been utilized to spread secretly spyware to users, thanks to a malicious advertising SDK (software development kit). The applications have been collectively downloaded over 100 million times from the Google Play Store. Mobile applications, particularly free ones, usually utilize publicizing SDKs to deliver advertisements to their customers through existing promoting networks, consequently generating revenue. Many application developers incidentally expanded a rogue SDK called Igexin, which can be used for malicious activity. SDKs (Software development kits) are basically little packages of pre-composed, pre-packaged code you can drop into your item to help out you so that you don't have to reinvent it repeatedly. Basically every application out there, from the smallest mobile application to the greatest blockbuster computer game, licenses and uses some SDKs to produce the final product. That is fine and dandy, as long as the SDK is legitimate and not compromised. But this specific SDK, Igexin, seems not to have met that standard. How does it function? Igexin is Chinese in origin and promotes services to use information about people, including their occupation, salary, interests, and location for the benefit of advertising. The Igexin SDK is utilized to serve up focused advertising to people using free applications. However, the researchers spotted an unusual traffic pattern coming from applications using the Igexin SDK. The pattern was consistent with a performance the researchers had regularly seen when “clean” applications secretly install some sort of malware after the fact, to avoid detection in advance. The application designers would have been unaware of the SDK's abuse of application authorizations for information collection: this functionality is not instantly noticeable, and those behind the malicious code can change it whenever they want. That made researchers look more carefully, where they found the malicious versions of the Igexin SDK enabled third parties to remotely stack new code onto a user’s Android phone to do, basically, anything. The most serious functionality the researchers actually observed from any of the applications utilizing the malicious version of the SDK is log exfiltration. The applications also used PhoneStateListener, a tool with the ability to record details about calls. Or, in other words, your smartphone records: The calls you make and receive, when, and if the call connects or not. Google has removed the tracking apps Other infected applications included a game targeted at adolescents with more than 50 million downloads, also a photo application and a weather application too.
Both of them with between one million and five million downloads, and a web radio application with between 500,000 and one million downloads. Many other applications downloaded from the Google Play Store including health and wellness, educational, emoji, travel, and home video camera applications, were also found to have been compromised. The developers of the impacted applications were unaware of the security defections. Google has been informed about Igexin's secret functionality for tracking, and all infected applications have now been expelled from the Play Store or updated with new, clean versions. There are times when there is a need to track or monitor SMS; be it on a family member or staff at work. Monitoring or tacking SMS can be very helpful for you and the people you are monitoring. It helps in keeping things in order and other security purposes to prevent things from getting out of hand. Keep in mind that when you use any SMS tracker application, there are both legal and ethical complexities when monitoring third party private messages. A few legalities are quite easier to solve. All you have to do is to make sure that both your staffs and family members gave you their consent to monitor their SMS activities, that way the legal side is covered. Meanwhile for the ethical part in monitoring SMS, you have to be very careful before you even implement it since the act of monitoring them may give them an impression that you do not trust them one bit. And even if you reason out to them, it can be very difficult to change their perception. So it will be hard to convince them to give you their consent especially when it comes to your family members. However, for your staffs or employees, employing such actions won’t be very hard considering the fact that they work for you. Although the SMS tracking implementing part can be quite challenging, the actual process of monitoring SMS is definitely a simple and easy one. The first thing you have to do is to download the SMS tracker app which is SMS Tracker and then install it on all the mobile phones that you want to set the app up, keep track of and then link all of them to your online management console where you can see and monitor all the SMS activities. You have to remember that the phones you installed SMS Tracker with should have access to the internet so that all the text messages that you would like to monitor can be accessed right away. To access it, you need to login to the web-enabled management console and check both of the received and sent text messages any time you want. And then you have to choose the mobile phone’s name on the dashboard for you to see the messages linked on the phone. From there, you can toggle between all the phones you have installed the app with and monitor all of them. It is quite interesting to note that SMS tracking is only one out of the many features that you can use on SMS Tracker. Amongst these features are: call monitoring; which provides a detailed information about each time, duration, caller’s contact details and find out just how much time they spend on each call, web and social media monitoring; which allows you to keep track of social media sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and more, Gmail monitoring; which allows you to view sent and received messages, application blocking; with this feature, you can remotely block any program restrict use of some programs including the downloaded or built-in programs, phone GPS tracking; which allows you to view maps of the visited place on real time, photo and video tracking; this way you can view all the pictures or videos taken on the phone, phone contacts and notes tracking; gives you information about the contacts and notes on the phone, as well as live control panel and a whole lot more. |
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