Items tagged with Bug
Twitter has announced that it is blocking the APNG image format from its service. APNG is an animated PNG file, and Twitter is taking this step because it doesn't follow standard autoplay settings. The animated images can automatically play no matter what setting the user has enabled. Twitter said that it had found a bug that allowed users to add multiple APNGs to a tweet and that the file format ignored its safeguards against auto-playing images and could cause performance issues for the app and a user's device. We want everyone to have a safe experience on Twitter. APNGs were fun, but they don’t respect autoplay settings, so we're removing the ability to add them to Tweets. This is for...
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Over one billion people rely WhatsApp on a monthly basis for both personal and business use. Security vulnerabilities could therefore prove detrimental to communication and workflow. If you use WhatsApp, you will definitely want to make sure you have the latest version installed on your device. Security researchers recently discovered a WhatsApp bug that could completely wipe out your group chat histories. Security researchers at Check Point created a tool referred to as the “WhatsApp Manipulation Tool”. The tool essentially altered the parameters of the app. The researchers were able to use the new parameters to obtain access to the encryption and decryption keys that are generated...
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Apple launched a new version of iOS this week for users that brought the operating system to version 13.3. One of the big features for the new version of iOS are new controls meant to give parents more oversight into who kids talk to on the iPhone. The problem for Apple, and parents, is that the safety controls don't work properly. According to CNBC, there are several bugs with the feature, but the biggest of them is that the update doesn't protect kids from talking to strangers on the phone, via Facetime, or text messages. The Communication Limits option that allows parents to control who their kids can talk to is supposed to prevent kids from adding new contacts unless the parent enters a PIN...
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What do Hollywood, Apple users, and Google Chrome share in common? A wave of unbootable MacBooks and Mac Pros. A Google Keystone update was able to damage certain Mac files and shut the affected devices down unexpectedly. This past week, several Hollywood film editors reported that their Mac devices were unable to reboot. Affected Apple users included the video editing team of ABC’s Modern Family. Many of these film editors use Avid Media Composer software and initially believed that a software bug or virus was to blame. Google later confessed that a Chrome update was the real culprit. Google Keystone Bug Most Mac devices include “SIP” or “system integrity protection”....
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There are few things more inconvenient in the modern world than a bricked smartphone. A security researcher recently disclosed an iMessage bug that could brick a user’s iPhone. The bug was severe enough to require users to wipe and restore their device. What caused the bothersome issue? Google Project Zero security researcher Natalie Silvanovich noted that a “malformed message” contained a text key, but not a string. She noted that another method would try to use the key as if it was a string without confirmation. This created “an exception as the selector does not exist in that class”. This exception caused Springboard, an application launcher for iPhones, to crash...
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Early last month a security researcher announced that he had discovered a severe bug in macOS that left passwords stored in keychain vulnerable. The catch was that the researcher, Linuz Henze, refused to share the flaw with Apple because he was unable to get paid for his work. While Apple operates a bug bounty program for iOS where finding and reporting bugs gets researchers money, macOS has no similar program. Henze said at the time that to exploit the bug he had discovered, all the user of the Mac computer had to do was run a simple app. Henze's refusal to share the bug with Apple was a stand against the policy of not paying for bugs found by macOS researchers. Apple and Henze were in a standoff...
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The big news of late in the Apple realm was the severe flaw in Group FaceTime that allowed users to eavesdrop on people added to the group conversation before they accepted the call (without their knowledge). The flaw could also share video from the camera of the iPhone in addition to audio. The first person to discover the bug was a 14-year-old teen named Grant Thompson, and Apple has confirmed he will get paid. While Apple has confirmed that Thompson will be paid for finding the flaw, it is being coy about how much the teen will receive. All Apple says so far is that it will compensate the family and make a contribution to Thompson's education. Thompson's mother was very vocal about the run...
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One of the features that many Apple users were looking forward to with the iOS 12 update that landed in 2018 was the Group FaceTime feature that allowed multiple users to chat and see each other at the same time. A severe bug in group FaceTime has been discovered, and the bug had users understandably upset because it would allow anyone to call via Facetime and hear what the person on the other end of the call was doing without their knowledge. The bug could be exploited to listen via the microphone of the person you are calling and possibly see video from their device before the person even picks up. The flaw was exploited by adding yourself to a FaceTime call before the person on the other end...
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Two days into the new year and already Bethesda has a new bug in Fallout 76 to annoy gamers. The new bug is leaving gamers unable to access the in-game nuke codes. Without the nuke codes, players aren't able to deploy nukes around the map. The strangest part about this bug is that since Bethesda has been so bad at communicating with players of the game, many people assumed the removal of nuke codes was intentional. Bethesda has now stepped up and confirmed that nuke code issue was not intentional, stating that it is an "issue with Nuke silo access," and it is investigating the problem right now. Speculation is that the problem with nuke access has to do with the in-game calendar since the nukes...
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Some people collect stamps, others collect vintage coins, and some companies collect your Facebook photos. Facebook recently announced that a bug allowed third-party apps to access the photos of nearly 6.8 million users. Facebook has apologized and promised to alert users whose photos may have been shared without their permission. It is believed that 1,500 apps by 876 developers were impacted by the bug between September 13th and September 25th, 2018. The issue affected apps that are able to access the photo API and the users who authorized these apps. Facebook typically only allows apps to obtain photos that are posted on a user’s timeline. This bug was also able to access content from...
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The notch isn’t the most beloved smartphone feature in the world; in fact, many people outright hate the notch. With manufacturers like Apple and others working to make screens as large as possible -- while still finding a place for the front speaker, camera, and sensors -- the notch has been a necessity. However, notch haters won't like the new flaw that some Pixel 3 XL owners have reported. The bizarre Google Pixel 3 XL bug gives the smartphone an extra notch. This second notch has turned up on the right side of the screen, and it's clear that the bug has reproduced the top of the smartphone directly on the right upper half of the device. The notch is accompanied by rounded corners that...
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PS4 gamers beware, a message is going around that will crash your console and potentially force you to perform a factory reset. Warnings on Reddit have highlighted the issue and have given PS4 gamers insight into how to protect themselves from the bug and recover if you are affected. The bug, in some instances, has been used during matches to cause the opposing team to crash and be unable to complete a match. The message received is pictured below, and the box with a question mark in it contains a null character that causes the PS4 to become unstable. Reddit users have given directions on how they have recovered from the crash. Some are having to factory reset their consoles, but some have been...
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China has no love for Taiwan, and the former's censorship has led to strange issues for some iPhone users. If users have their region set to China and someone sends them the Taiwan flag emoji, a bug in iOS could cause the app to crash. That bug has the potential to allow a remote user to launch a denial of service attack on the message receiver by continually sending them the Taiwan flag emoji. The bug was discovered by security researcher Patrick Wardle. Wardle says that the bug was first brought to his attention when a friend told him that iOS apps crashed when she typed the word "Taiwan" or received a message with the Taiwanese flag in it on a fully patched iPhone 7. In his debugging of the...
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If you own one of Samsung's Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9 Plus smartphones a wild bug making the rounds is leaving customers on edge. Reports indicate that some users have seen the default messaging app randomly send photos from their gallery to contacts without their knowledge. One impacted user claims that the Samsung device sent the entire photo gallery to their girlfriend. Another user from reddit reported that the device had sent photos to his wife. The photos are being sent out over the stock Samsung messaging app. The particularly odd thing about this bug is that there is no record that the photos are being sent out left on the phone according to the Reddit user. There is a record, however, in...
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