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Hacked Gmail on Smartphones

With an incredible 92% success rate, US researchers have hacked Gmail accounts.

By exploiting a weakness in smartphone memory, the researchers disguised malicious software as a downloaded app and they were able to gain access to a number of other apps including Gmail.

The researchers performed this test on many popular apps however Gmail was among the easiest to access on an Android phone but the researchers believe it could work on all smartphones.

So what was the hardest? The Amazon app with a 48% success rate.

The US researchers hacking method involved accessing the shared memory of a smartphone using malicious software disguised as an app or wallpaper.  This shared memory is used by all apps and the hack would analyze it which would tell them how a user was logging into apps such as Gmail.  This would provide them with login details and passwords.

All tests were carried out on Android phones however researchers believe the attacks could be successful on Windows and Apple phones because their apps use shared data in the same way.

365 iT SOLUTIONS is a leading IT consulting firm in Toronto. We provide industry leading Managed IT ServicesIT Support ServicesIT Outsourcing ServicesTech Support Services and Cloud Services.

Take advantage of our Complimentary Network and Security Assessment by 365itSolutions.com

 

 

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Industry Insights IT Solutions Managed IT Services

Google Gmail Crack Down on Phishing

With so much spam out there, Google Gmail is stepping up its effort to stop spammers.  Google rejects emails that include restricted character combinations.

Google has introduced a tool to block spammers to getting to a Gmail accounts users box.  Google announced that it was adding spam filtering support to its email platform in an effort to stop scammers from sending misleading or phishing messages.

 

So how the newly introduced Google Gmail Spam filters work against Phishing?

The new filters deal letter that look similar from the Unicode Consortium.  This may allow spammers to fool people as many companies, apps and websites use Unicode standard icons so that characters work across platforms however some characters look identical such as the Latin and Cyrillic lowercase “a.”

 

Here is an example of how the filters help reduce spam:

Spammers and scammers exploit the “0”, “૦”, and “ο” as they look nearly identical to the letter “o”.

Now scammers can mix and match the character and attack unsuspecting victims.  Think about it as they can create some of the following emails such as “Sh0ppingSite” vs. “ShoppingSite” or even “MyBank” vs. “MyBɑnk”.  The combinations our countless.

 

Google is taking a firm position on this and claims that its new filters will block these combinations included in emails sent to Gmail users.  Google has now put the Unicode Consortium lists on a highly restricted status.

 

365 iT SOLUTIONS is a leading IT consulting firm in Toronto. We provide industry leading Managed IT ServicesIT Support ServicesIT Outsourcing ServicesTech Support Services and Cloud Services.

Take advantage of our Complimentary Network and Security Assessment by 365itSolutions.com