The apps have taken most of our time as we always get access to the news, music and movies, connections with friends, and a lot of exciting games through them. However, we should absolutely review these applications regularly and frequently. This review should check if any apps are abusing their permissions beyond basic competence. For instance, gathering more data about you and controlling you more devices. Even though most permissions of these applications are clarified in the Term of Service, users do not really know their intrusiveness. That’s not because users do not understand these words, but because they do not really know the meanings behind. If you want to know about these permissions, you can figure it out by checking the application’s “Data and Privacy Policy”.
The permissions of an application may include having access to a phone ’s camera, or a laptop ’s contact list, and so on. Granting these permissions may not be a mistake in itself, and generally, responsible developers will not request anything they don’t need the application to run. For example, some chatting programs require access to your microphone not because it wants to eavesdrop on you, but because it has voice memo capabilities. However, the existence of this feature is likely to give attackers a great opportunity to eavesdrop on it. However, if blocking that contact’s access does not break the basic functionality, then we must advise you to turn off this permission.
What’s more, do you know your apps can even know everything on your clipboard? The researchers demonstrated how applications can get detailed information about users through the clipboard. This is a way for any installed application to get detailed information about the user. Users can inadvertently display their precise location to the app by simply copying photos taken with the built-in Camera app to clipboard. With the GPS coordinates contained in the embedded image properties, any application that the user uses after copying such applications can paste the photos onto the pasteboard to read the location information stored in the image properties and accurately infer the precise location of the user.
Sometimes, these permissions may endanger not only one’s personal privacy but also the cybersecurity of a company. Therefore, Cyber Awareness Training is an efficient measure to make your employees the strongest cyber defenders.
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