Tag Archive for: store

We need app store competition, not Apple’s 1960s-style paternalistic monopoly – TechCrunch

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Karen Gullo is an analyst and senior media relations specialist at Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A pair of bills moving through Congress would force some of the largest tech companies to cede control over how people find and use mobile apps, leading to more competition and lower prices. But Big Tech companies, especially Apple, want to scare people with dire warnings that the bills would put their security in jeopardy.

Tellingly, Big Tech firms are not so loud about other things jeopardized by the bills — their app store monopolies and ability to make more money off mobile customers and app developers.

Pro-competition bills — S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and S. 2710, the Open App Markets Act — would open up the largest app stores, including Apple’s and Google’s, by requiring them to allow competing third-party app stores and alternate channels for in-app payments. The bills would also stop the largest app store operators from preferencing their own apps over competitors’.

iPhone users would have the freedom to install less expensive third-party apps and choose to shop at third-party app stores. While some alternative app stores might have a greater volume of malicious apps, others may take a stronger approach to security and privacy than Apple — one that isn’t limited by the drive to enhance a monopolist’s bottom line.

Alternative app stores or app-vetting services could also offer important security- and privacy-enhancing apps that Apple has banned from iOS devices.

Nothing in the bills would stop Apple and Google from vetting apps for their phones for privacy and security or prevent them from offering new protective measures. So, because they trust Apple’s vetting of apps and are happy with the apps Apple lets them download, many iPhone users will choose to stick with the App Store. For those users, nothing will change under these bills.

The choice would be theirs. But Apple doesn’t want that. It wants to decide what, and how, users can purchase mobile apps. And it’s not just because the company is concerned about users’ privacy and security, which indeed it is.

No, it’s also because…

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Bronx T-Mobile store workers use merchandise security tags to help NYPD track and arrest armed robber in Manhattan – New York Daily News

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Traceable electronic security tags on merchandise stolen from a Bronx cell phone store helped cops track down an armed robber after a wild chase Saturday on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, police said.

Two armed men ransacked a T-Mobile location on E. 149 St. near Union Ave. in Woodstock about 3:20 p.m., cops said.

One of the men fled on foot while the other drove off with the stolen goods in a gray BMW.

(File) Two armed men ransacked the T-Mobile location on E. 149 St. near Union Ave. in the Bronx on Saturday — and cops nabbed one of them with help from store workers and merchandise tracking devices. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

Quick-thinking store employees began tracking the stolen electronics through security tags the thieves overlooked, police said.

Aided by the store workers and the trackers, cops followed the trail to the Upper East Side, where they soon found the BMW.

When they tried to pull over the car at E. 96 St. and Third Ave., the driver hit the gas, ramming a police vehicle as he tried to escape.

The crook made it just three blocks east when responding officers stopped the BMW on the southbound FDR Drive at E. 96 St.

The suspect ditched the BMW, ran one block up the highway, and tossed something into the East River before cops put him under arrest.

One of the arresting officers injured his wrist during the struggle.

The robber’s name and charges against him were not immediately released. His partner in crime was still being sought late Saturday.

The NYPD’s Harbor Unit and Aviation Unit were searching for the object he threw in the water Saturday evening.

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Infowars Store Enjoyed Traffic Boost During ‘Stop the Steal”https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/04/06/” Southern Poverty Law Center

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Hatewatch analyzed four years of domain ranking data on Jones’ Infowars Store from the internet security company Cisco. The data show the prolific and influential conspiracy theorist Jones faced a decline in the popularity of his store prior to Stop the Steal, but a rise during November 2020, December 2020 and the first days of January 2021. This rise in traffic hit levels the extremist had not generated since the early days of President Trump’s administration.

Hatewatch’s finding shines new light on profit-driven incentives Jones and other far-right influencers may have seen while supporting former President Trump’s election lies, as his supporters gathered to protest across the country. Jones, whose Infowars Store made $165 million in the three years from 2015-18, according to documents first obtained by HuffPost, has in private expressed revulsion over Trump.

Hatewatch previously reported on a leaked video of Jones saying in January 2019, “I’m so sick of fucking Donald Trump, man. God, I’m fucking sick of him.” Despite saying these words on camera, Jones went on to stoke anger among Trump’s supporters by perpetuating the ex-president’s inflammatory claims about election rigging that never happened. Jones promoted Trump’s Stop the Steal lies in a speech to Trump’s supporters on Jan. 5, 2021, in Washington, D.C., less than 24 hours before some of them went on to attack the Capitol.

“We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone,” Jones said on the eve of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Cisco, a network security…

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What was in store in the first quarter? Q1 2022 threat roundup

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The threat landscape is as active as ever.

This past quarter, Communication Service Providers that use Allot Secure saw several interesting new threats., including several threats that we thought had disappeared.

Here are three things that we found:

  • A rise and resurgence of banker trojans and other malware
  • Cryptocurrency trading scams
  • An explosion of adware

This is covered in-depth in Allot’s latest threat bulletin.

A banker trojan is a malicious computer program designed to gain access to privileged information from an online banking system. The Bian Banking Trojan was first discovered in 2019 and then went silent. However, it’s back. Allot security researchers have seen a resurgence since November 2021.

Allot researchers identified several hundred thousand blocks of the Coper banking trojan. First discovered in Colombia, it has spread to other parts of Latin America and has also been identified in Europe.

Allot researchers have also identified and blocked the Emotet malware. EUROPOL, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, announced that they disrupted the Emotet botnet in early January 2021. But it’s back.

Website spoofing is the act of creating a fake website to mislead visitors that the website is a different one. The website usually has a similar design as the real website.

For example, millions of subscribers of CSPs using Allot Secure were protected from website spoofing from a popular cryptocurrency trading site, Gate.io.

The site’s popularity made it a target for a lookalike site so criminals can trick users into giving up their credentials.

Want to see what the real and spoofed site look like? Read the threat bulletin.

The past few months also saw a rise in adware. We saw many cases of Fyben, targeting devices running Android. While Fyben is not a new threat, Allot security researchers identified a significant increase in blocks.

For the complete analysis and further details, check out our March threat bulletin.

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