Security News Bites for the Week Ending July 17, 2020

Microsoft’s LinkedIn Sued for Abusing Clipboard Access

Apple’s Universal Clipboard allows you to share data between devices. According to the lawsuit, LinkedIn reads the data without notifying the user. However, LinkedIn is not alone. More than 50 apps, apparently, do that. Now that they have been sued, they are changing their app. Credit: Reuters

When is 10 million actually 140 million?

Apparently MGM resorts is not great at counting. In February ZDNet reported that hackers stole info on 10 million guests. Apparently the number is actually 142 million. How we know this is not because MGM said so but because a hacker is selling that much data. Credit: ZDNet

340 GDPR Fines Totaling 158 Million Euros Issued Since 2018

The smallest fine was 90 Euros. The largest fine was 50,000,000 Euros.

France, Italy and Germany represent 73% of all of the fines.

While fines issued by France total 51 million Euros, fines issued by the UK were just over a half million Euros.

While GDPR has been in force for around two years, that is just a blip when it comes to the legal world. Stay tuned for the next two years. Credit: Helpnet Security

The Same Senate That is Trying to Ban Encryption is Asking Why Twitter isn’t Encrypting DMs

While the Senate debates the EARNIT Act, which would require companies like Twitter to implement encryption back doors or the LEAD Act which FORCES judges to make companies decrypt data if the cops ask the judge to do it with no judicial descretion, that same body is asking why Twitter isn’t encrypting Direct Messages (DMs). Sounds kind of bizarre to me, but that is reality. Credit: Security Boulevard

Beware of VPNs That Keep No Logs

UFO VPN (first clue: based in Hong Kong) says this about their security practices:

UFO VPN does not collect, monitor, or log any traffic or use of its Virtual Private Network service, under any circumstances, on any platform

Which makes it hard to explain how 894 GB of log data, including encryption keys, was stored on an elastic search server with no password. This represents 20 million users logs.

If you care about your privacy, check out any VPN provider that you plan to use carefully. Credit: Hack Read

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