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Google and Samsung confirm massive Android Camera exploit affecting “hundreds of millions” of users

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There’s been constant paranoia about the cameras in smartphones for as long as smartphones have had cameras. Can somebody hack into your phone, turn on your camera and watch? Or record? Well, it turns out that yes, they can. At least, they can if you’re one of the potentially “hundreds of millions” of Android users on a Google or Samsung smartphone.

The issue was first discovered (at least, publicly) by the security research team at Checkmarx. They say that after a detailed analysis of the Google Camera app in the Pixel 3, they found a way to manipulate certain code to take control of the camera to shoot photos or record videos, even when the phone was locked with the screen off, and without the user knowing.

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Over 30 Canon DSLR, Mirrorless and compact camera models found vulnerable to ransomware

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Canon has issued a global security advisory relating to Canon digital cameras which feature the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) communication system. It’s a pretty long list of 32 cameras, including popular DSLRs like the 5D Mark III, 5D Mark IV, 6D and 6D Mark II, as well as their full-frame mirrorless cameras, the EOS R and EOS RP.

The vulnerability was discovered by Check Point Software Technologies, Ltd. They used information from the Magic Lantern forums in order to open up the firmware and uncover the flaws.[Read More…]

Millions of private photographs leaked in Ricoh Theta360 data breach

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vpnMentor reports that its research team discovered that Theta360’s photo-sharing platform has suffered something of a pretty major data breach. The leak, they say, has exposed at least 11 million public and private photographs on the system.

They say that while most personal information was not released, usernames, first and last names along with the captions were exposed in the database alongside the images. Images that many users had chosen to keep private.

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Photographer got stopped at the airport three times because he had a Pelican case

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Pelican cases are a good choice for protecting your pricey gear while flying. But one such case recently caused a series of unpleasant situations for photographer Antonio Kuilan. The airport security stopped him three times at Houston Airport, and all three times he raised suspicion because of the Pelican case in which he carried his gear. We spoke to Antonio about this case to hear more, and we learned that he wasn’t the only one who had this experience.

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A major Instagram security bug leaked users passwords as plain text

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According to a report on The Information Instagram has experienced a pretty major security bug which allowed user passwords to be displayed in plain text. The issue arose, ironically, over the feature which allows users to see exactly what personal data Instagram has collected about them. Yes, the “Download your data” feature could potentially let anybody download your data, if you access the feature on a public computer, thanks to the bug.

The Download your Data feature was introduced last April in order to comply with new European data privacy regulations (the GDPR) as well as to keep users around the world, who are becoming more and more security & privacy conscious since the Facebook revelations over the last couple of years.

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EyeEm and Animoto affected by major security breach – over 47 million accounts compromised

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Last night, I received an email from EyeEm about a “data security incident.” 22 million accounts have been compromised, exposing the users’ names, email addresses, and encrypted versions of passwords. However, EyeEm wasn’t the only victim of this data breach. It’s the same one that hit 500px, and it also affected 25 million users of Animoto.

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