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How well is the German economy protected against espionage and data theft? This is a question that the Corona pandemic raises in a new way. Companies have become more vulnerable. Internet access, Wi-Fi, many connected devices - standard in most private households. In the Corona pandemic, however, smartphones, computers and TV sets are used to access more than just movies, music or cooking recipes. While parents are connected to businesses via their laptops, children are being taught digitally. Data flows in parallel via a shared home network. This poses considerable risks, warns Roland Feil, managing director of Munich-based security company Dallmeier Systems. "You might have two or three kids on the Internet with their devices, and each device provides a gateway." A gateway all the way into a company's core systems. At the beginning of the pandemic, many companies still completely underestimated this, he said. "People simply accepted it in order to be able to contin...

Fitness apps have become increasingly popular in recent months. However, as an investigation has now revealed, some smartphone apps include trackers that monitor you. Some fitness apps are spying on their users. This is the conclusion of an investigation by ExpressVPN Digital Security Lab . According to the study, a total of twelve apps are accused of using location tracking that goes beyond the actual functionality of the application. Some of the apps cannot even be accused of intent. Instead, the problem lies in the services used by the developers behind them. For tracking, they often rely on external providers that allow easier interfaces during app development. A few of these providers have built backdoors into their systems that ultimately end up with the users' data. These fitness apps use trackers Couch to 10K Running Trainer Half Marathon Trainer 13.1 21K C25K - 5K Running Trainer Marathon Trainer - 26.2 42K Accupedo Pedometer - Step Counter Accupedo+ pedometer - step count...

In the dispute between the German Federal Cartel Office and Facebook over the sharing of user data, the European Court of Justice is now to rule. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is to rule on the extent to which Facebook may merge user data with its other services Whatsapp and Instagram. This was decided by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court on Wednesday in a dispute between Facebook and the German Federal Cartel Office. The authority had prohibited the social network operator from demanding blanket consent from its users to collect and link data without offering the alternative of less extensive data use. Both parties have been disputing the February 2019 decision for more than two years. After the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled in favor of the competition watchdogs in summary proceedings in June 2020, the Higher Regional Court now had to examine the case more thoroughly in the main proceedings. This also involves the question of whether the terms of use of Facebook servi...

In the fight against child pornography, the EU wants to have the Internet screened. Pirate politician Patrick Breyer warns that innocent people could come under suspicion - and that's not even the only problem. Question: Mr. Breyer, what are the EU's plans for monitoring Internet communications? Breyer: The EU Commission is planning to screen all private electronic messages without any prior warning and across the board, in order to search for child pornography. There is a current draft law on this, which the European Parliament is negotiating with the EU governments this Thursday. It provides that e-mails, messages and chats may be searched by the providers of these services for allegedly suspicious photos or texts. The big U.S. companies - Google, Facebook, Microsoft - already practice chat control, as came out last year. Question: They wouldn't be allowed to do that at the moment? Breyer: That's right, the General Data Protection Regulation doesn't allow it, ...

Even when Google users surf "incognito," Google collects data. A US lawsuit wants to change that. Google has tried to avoid the lawsuit - in vain. Google is facing another US court case regarding data protection. Some users have sued Google because the company collects data even when users use the incognito mode of the Chrome browser. Google thus illegally invaded the privacy of millions of users. Google filed the usual motion to dismiss the case in the USA. However, the federal judge in charge, Lucy Koh, has now rejected this request. The parties to the lawsuit can now prepare for the main trial. The core of the case is that Google collects data for user profiles via its own websites and countless third-party websites, even when users have activated the incognito mode. It does not help against this form of data collection. Google's position is that this is clear from the incognito start screen as well as the privacy conditions. The users would therefore have consented. N...

Hackers have apparently exploited a huge security hole at Microsoft. US media report attacks on 30,000 systems in the US alone. Among others, research on infectious diseases and companies with defense contracts were of particular interest. According to U.S. media, tens of thousands of corporate, government and educational email servers have fallen victim to hacker attacks. A security update for the vulnerability in Microsoft's Exchange Server software has been available since last Wednesday. However, it must be installed by customers. On Friday, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) urged thousands of German companies to quickly plug the gap. Reports differed widely on the number of people affected. There could be more than 250,000 victims worldwide, the Wall Street Journal wrote, citing an informed person. A former U.S. official familiar with the investigation told the financial service Bloomberg that at least 60,000 email servers were known to have been affecte...

Facebook collects the biometric data of millions of users in the USA - without them knowing about it. The company is accused of violating privacy laws. The platform has now reached a record settlement in court. To settle a lawsuit over the violation of the privacy of 1.6 million users in the U.S., the Internet group Facebook pays 650 million dollars (538 million euros) compensation. According to documents seen by the AFP news agency, a federal court approved the agreement between Facebook and 1.6 million of its users in the state of Illinois. The Chicago district attorney's office had charged Facebook in 2015 with collecting biometric data for facial recognition, which was done without users' knowledge. It argued that the California-based Internet giant's actions violated a privacy law passed in Illinois in 2008. After Facebook failed with its motion to dismiss the case, the company had agreed in January 2020 to pay $550 million to settle the lawsuit. However, Judge James D...