Beware! Your Apps are Snooping on You!
This week, Rob and Jeff take on the security issue of apps continuously copying the information from your clipboard without your knowledge. Don’t miss this Tech-Talk!
In previous Tech-Talk videos, our technology duo has covered security, passwords, and Apple’s iOS 14 release. This week, they’re covering an important issue that spans all of these topics and has made national news: clipboard snooping.
The clipboard is where content is stored after you copy something and before you paste it. Data copied to the clipboard can be a URL, photo, or text from an article. It can also be private data such as your birthday, password, or credit card number. This data is not only being seen/snooped by your apps, but it’s also being copied as well.
Recently, many articles have mentioned that more than fifty widely used apps have been caught “clipboard snooping,” including Tiktok, LinkedIn, Reddit, and more. Here’s a link to one of the articles: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/tiktok-and-53-other-ios-apps-still-snoop-your-sensitive-clipboard-data/
Luckily, Apple is coming out with a solution. In the iOS 14 beta software sent to developers, Apple included a new security feature that alerts the user whenever an app is copying content from their clipboard. Later this year, the full version of iOS 14 will be out. Users will finally know which apps are snooping their data.
Until then, be vigilant. Copy “dummy” text after you copy something important to replace the vulnerable data. Upgrade to iOS 14 when it comes out for full awareness.
Better yet, give Thingee a call to hear more about what you can do to safeguard your data.
Sincerely,
Jeff Bromley
jeff@thingee.com
973-644-9012 x11
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