Apple's iPhone Spyware Problem Is Getting Worse
wired.com
wired.com
This problem either causes undue concern on behalf of the account holder, or trains them to dismiss these messages without verifying the potential intrusion. Neither are good outcomes for security of the Apple account.
It doesn't even tell you enough to know which device it is talking about. Much less first class context information, like the fact that it is just an access renewal.
It doesn't let you review the information and disable the access if somehow it was a security problem.
Virtually useless, misleading, and unnecessarily alarming, as you say.
I do not know why people think this. I make sure nothing Financial Related is on any kind of Cell Phone. With the closed system, you have no idea what Apple or Google is seeing.
I miss the days before Cell Phones, where there were a lot of regulations surrounding Land Lines.
If on Linux or a BSD, people can analyze what is happening by inspecting packets, seeing what is saved and being sent on the system. That cannot be fully done on phones.
Not to the degree that a full-on conspiracy theorist will believe it - like the people who actually think that Apple telling us not to "close" iOS applications is actually some 5th dimensional chess Tim Cook is playing to get people's phones wear down more or something.
But enough to convince the best security experts I know and have heard of. That's enough for me.
I find it especially difficult to believe that Google has any moral qualms about extracting every bit of data possible.
I'm not saying they are, I'm saying it's based on trust and that trust has been broken.
But, extracting your financial information is so far into the boiling ocean of criminal prosecutions and mass customer abandonment, that they are heavily incentivized as an ad company, and operating system developer, to make sure that neither they nor anyone else can get that information.
That doesn't mean there can't be security gaps that could reveal financial information, but Google is the one looking to prevent them, and plug them when found, not leverage them.
If Facebook ads has it , don’t other ad systems have to compete ?
User data is more like nuclear waste whose identifiable storage must be avoided as much as possible.
I think you have the 'inaccurate bits of conventional wisdom' reversed. People have a pretty good idea of what Apple and Google see and banking on your iPhone is safer than driving to the bank.
You say that, until: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
One can really never know what happens with their data server-side. At this point, we barely even control what happens client-side too.
Maybe second safest. Nothing beats Android's mobile record.
Are you unaware of Pegasus/ NSO Group? They are doing laps around Apple with 0 clicks. Android still requires you to manually go to a website, download something, approve installs from browser, etc...