Roku warns of unauthorized access to hundreds of its customers' accounts
19/03/2024A Roku investigation, the company that manufactures media streaming devices running Roku software to access all kinds of streaming content, has revealed unauthorized access to hundreds of its users' accounts, "likely due to compromised login credentials obtained from third-party sources unrelated to Roku," they said. According to the company itself, these credentials were used to access Roku accounts, where changes were made, including attempts to purchase streaming subscriptions. However, in an official statement, Roku said that any sensitive personal data such as full payment account numbers could not be accessed. The affected accounts were secured and required password resets, as well as the cancellation of unauthorized subscriptions. Roku has announced that it will refund its users for all unauthorized charges. "What can I do if I can't access Roku? Roku has reset all passwords for accounts affected by these unauthorized accesses, so if we are holders of one of them, we may not be able to access it in the usual way. To regain access, we should go to my.roku.com and use the "Forgot your password?" option. Additionally, the company recommends reviewing subscriptions and devices linked to the Roku account from the Roku account Dashboard."
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Meta warns about the vulnerability in password recovery linked to the recycling of phone numbers
22/02/2024Meta, a leader in social media, has announced that it will not assume responsibility for personal account theft on Instagram and Facebook related to password recovery through the use of recycled phone numbers. The company argues that it lacks control over telecommunications providers and users involved in this practice. Phone number recycling: an overlooked risk in a recent statement Meta revealed its inability to manage personal account thefts that occur when phone numbers are recycled by telecommunications carriers. This common practice among mobile phone companies involves reassigning discarded numbers to new customers, making them owners of a number previously used by another user. In countries like Spain, carriers wait for a period of 30 days before reassigning a number, but the risk persists if users do not unlink the number from digital services or associated platforms, such as social networks and emails. The danger of not unlinking phone numbers from digital accounts When users deactivate a phone number, whether due to a change of carrier or any other reason, carriers must wait before reassigning the number. However, failure to unlink this number from digital services can result in unauthorized access to personal accounts. In many services, linking the phone number is allowed for actions such as resetting passwords. Users, upon receiving a verification code on their number, can complete the login without the need for email validation or a password. This process, though accepted, can lead to unintentional unauthorized access. Meta warns users about the importance of unlinking phone numbers from digital accounts when deactivating them, insisting on the need to update associated information to prevent account theft.
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Detected a Trojan that emulates the WhatsApp account and fraudulently manages subscriptions to payment sites
17/10/2022Kaspersky researchers has reported that YoWhatsApp advertised on Snaptube and Vidmate, two of the most popular download platforms at the moment, is actually a Trojan capable to issuing paid subscriptions and stealing WhatsApp accounts. YoWhatsApp would act as a mod of the original messaging program, offering new functions that the official service does not allow, such as wallpapers, personalized fonts for chats and password-protected access to conversations, .... As Kaspersky researchers have explained, when a user installs YoWhatsApp on a device, it’s forced to log in to they real application account, and in this moment, Triada Trojan is activated, downloaded and executed on the terminal. Once this is done, the Trojan is capable of accessing the user's real WhatsApp account credentials, steal all the data, having already detected unauthorized subscriptions to paid subscriptions. Kaspersky recommends to install, only, Apps from official stores and reliable sources and they have insisted on the need to check always the permissions granted to each application. Installing an antivirus is another recommended measure.
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Less than half of Spaniards change their passwords when they separate from their partner
05/10/2022The email and social network accounts of one in five Spaniards (21%) have been subject to violation by a third party who has changed the passwords without the owner's knowledge or consent, attributing 37% of the victims this wrong use to their ex-partners. This data comes from the recent study carried out by Avast and Dynata on the degree of knowledge that Spaniards have of the passwords of their partners or relatives. In this study more than 2,000 Internet users have participated. Among the most striking results of this survey is that the collaborators who say they still know their ex's passwords, 56% of them has admit that they even know, also, their professional email passwords. 24% of those surveyed also claim that their location has been tracked without their consent due to knowing their password. This behavior, the authors of the study explain, can be considerated as technological abuse, which can be further aggravated by installing spyware or 'stalkwerware' on other people's devices or controlling or harassing someone through home technology.
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Hungary Proposes Orchestrated Attacks Against Illegal IPTV Platforms
23/09/2022Television operators in Hungary have come together in an unprecedented common front in the country to combat illegal Internet IPTV platforms.The objective is to put end to the unfair competition from these services and to do it they propose launching denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the websites that host them.In order not to incur in the legality, the television stations would entrust these attacks to an organization that would act with legal authorization and under official levels of supervision and control.Upon receiving continuous DDoS attacks, the pirate platforms would be overwhelmed by malicious traffic and the hope of the television stations is that the inconvenience that would be shared by getting their services active again would make them rule out continuing their operations.
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Video calling apps listen when the microphone is off, according to a study
25/04/2022A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) has determined that video conferencing applications can continue accessing audio data even if the user has disabled the microphone. To demonstrate this, they have studied the most popular video conferencing applications and have analyzed the behavior of the mute button until they has determined that all the applications that they has tested whether the microphone was open or closed, occasionally collected raw data and delivered it to the servers of their services. In their research they have worked with binary analysis tools to see how the audio was transferred from the application to the audio drivers of the computers and then to the network. They aslo have created, through machine learning models ( 'machine learning'), a classifier of daily activities that, with 82% accuracy, has determined which activities users were doing while their microphones were, theoretically, silenced. In relation to this, the authors of this work recall that beyond muting the microphone, you can turn off the microphone of a device through the settings menu, a safer option to limit access to confidential information and sensitive data. All the conclusions of this study will be known next July in the Privacy Improvement Technologies Symposium.
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Recycling containers connected to the mobile to reward the citizen
31/03/2022The Spanish startup Recircula Solutions has just presented Recysmart to the market, a device that can be installed in any type of urban container and identify the material of the recycled packages. The objective of this development is to promote incentive programs that helps population to recycle. The device combines a unique mechanical design with AI algorithms based on acoustics, so the unique and characteristic acoustic signal that a package generates when it's inserted into a container is captured by the sensor, processed and reported in real time to the managers authoritys so they can remunerate the person who has use the container. To do this, the citizen will have previously identified himself on the device through his mobile or using a physical card. In Sant Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona) several of these devices have been installed in various containers in the town. Recircula Solutions will also send several units to Portugal, Austria, France, the United Kingdom and Greece.
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Spotify buys Findaway to expand its audiobooks service
16/11/2021Spotify is determined not to lose the battle as a digital entertainment platform, so they have announced the next acquisition of the Findaway audiobook service, with which, Spotiby will expand this type of content in its catalog. The operation is pending final approval by the regulatory authorities and is expected to be effective before the end of this year. The audiobook platform works for authors, publishers and consumers alike, and according to Spotify one of its goals with the acquisition is to work to remove current limitations and give better economic tools for audiobook creators.
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How to set up a digital marketing strategy?
16/06/2021As our daily life Internet gains prominence in our physical world, companies selling products and services are increasing their online presence. To do so, they resort to strategies and tactics that ensure their omnipresence in both worlds, with the main task of attracting and retaining customers who buy their products. In this race for customers' attention, strategies such as Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing have emerged as protagonists and although they are radically different in their forms, both techniques have found in online communication an ideal medium through which to achieve their goals. What is Inbound Marketing? Inbound Marketing is based on attracting customers through non-intrusive techniques that use content related to the needs and interests of our target audience to attract them to our brand and products. Inbound Marketing Strategy In Inbound Marketing, content is the king and the strategy to get the user to approach the brand is to create, through these contents, links with the customer and establish a relationship of trust and support that favors their interest in our products and services, as well as their loyalty. To achieve this attention on the contents, it is basic and essential to optimize the SEO search engine, which makes our website, our contents and brand visible, makes us relevant and also contributes to our authority. To achieve this optimization and positioning, SEO will be in charge of indicating which words are trending in searches related to our content, will improve the structure of the web to allow a correct user experience, will implement a good strategy of referral links or link building and will take care of other aspects such as the integration of CRM tools or user metrics. All this will make it possible for our content to be positioned and that in a totally "natural" way and without any intrusion, all those contents written according to the interests of a certain group of customers, awaken their interest and attract them to our brand. Inbound Marketing Tools Throughout the whole process of customer attraction and loyalty, the Inbound Marketing strategy has a wide variety of tools to achieve its goal: Blogs Landing page Lead Creation Calls to action Intelligent content Workflows, ... What is outbound Marketing? Unlike Inbound Marketing, outbound Marketing is based on a totally traditional commercial approach, in which the product or service being sold is the only protagonist of the communication. Outbound Marketing Strategy To reach the public, outbound strategies use invasive methods that address broad audiences, without a specific target, with the intention of reaching the maximum number of possible interested parties. Outbound Marketing strategies are based on one-way communication, from the brand to the customer. The company shows the value of its products and services and tries to convince the public to buy them. All this operation is implemented without the customer's request, even before he has made a search or has shown previous interest in a specific product or service. Outbound Marketing Tools In Outbound Marketing, since there is no specific target audience segment, the communication reaches many users, although it may not be of interest to any of them. To achieve this massive distribution, companies use resources such as: Pop-ups Advertisements inserted in videos Banners Email campaigns for which companies use powerful email marketing software in Spanish, with multiple integrated tools that allow from automating mass mailings to A/B testing, comprehensive monitoring of the actions of each recipient (open rate, clicks on links,...) or even advanced segmentation based on interactions and / or user behavior detected in previous actions. Newsletter, inbound or outbound marketing? Now that we know the differences between Inbound and Outbound Marketing, we will finish by looking at a very useful and versatile tool that, unlike those previously mentioned is used interchangeably by both strategies. We are referring to the Newsletters. If we look at the Newsletter of Which is my IP, for example, we would be talking about an Inbound strategy, because to receive the electronic newsletter you must first register (by the way, if you have not done so yet, do not miss it and you will receive timely information on news and updates to get the most out of your Internet connection). On the other hand, if we look at newsletters like the ones we have all surely received at some time, in which we are offered, for example, a telephone offer from a company that is not our own, we are dealing with an electronic newsletter included in the marketing plan of an Outbound strategy. At this point, we can only conclude that knowing our priorities as a company, analyzing the degree of knowledge we have about our target and assessing our objectives, we will have all the necessary answers to start working and designing our digital marketing strategy.
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