There's a worrying trend amongst businesses who haven't yet been through some kind of IT related security issue. It's human nature to think bad things only happ...
No user intervention needed
In October 2016, an exploit for iOS was discovered which caused iPhones to repeatedly dial 911 without any intervention from the user at all.
In some places, this hit so hard that the 911 emergency call center in one area was classed as being in "immediate danger" of losing service, and two more were also at risk.
The investigation into these incidents is now complete, and the results show it was much more serious than it first appeared.
The count of the number of calls made was first determined to be in the low hundreds, but it has now been established the number is massively higher. A single tweeted link was clicked on a total of 117,502 times - each click causing a 911 call to be made.
Acecard
Incredibly, new Android malware has been discovered which actually attempts to trick its victims into not only taking a selfie, but one of them holding a valid ID card such as a drivers license or passport. This is like the holy grail to id thieves, who are increasingly finding that government institutions, banks and other similar organisations such as utility companies are insisting on such proof before conducting business with their users.
Now let's be honest here, and a little discreet - it's only a "special" kind of user who's going to fall for such an obvious scam. We are, however, in the numbers game, and a tiny slice of a huge pie is still big enough to make it worthwhile for the bad guys.
Facebook and Twitter also use the "valid id" method to authenticate accounts which have had some kind of issue regarding security.
Sneaky
Over 8,000 different samples of a trojan being dubbed "DualToy" have been discovered in the wild after being initially identified in Jan 2015.
The unusual aspect to this malware is the mechanism it uses to hit it targets, which can be iOS or Android based.
The way it works is to first infect the Windows PC these devices are connected to via USB, then use the file transfer capabilities to deliver malware to the target, and it is capable of doing this to both Apple and Android devices. However, the good news is it is useless against those who keep everything up to date since it relies on weaknesses which were spotted and fixed several years ago.
Samsung issues recall due to battery problems
Samsung's worst marketing nightmare came true this week when it had to issue a recall for its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone.
Reports from the US and South Korea were coming in of the phone catching fire, or even exploding, during or soon after charging. They admitted the issues were fixed by replacing the battery but wanted to take no chances with customer safety issues.
The Note 7 was launched with great fanfare in 10 countries, but it was difficult to work out exactly which phones were affected because different companies supplied the batteries. Samsung said it would take two weeks to get new versions to customers, but urged them to return their current handsets as soon as possible.
