Good evening and welcome back to another post from ToBeSecured. If you haven't already, go and check out episode 10 of Cyber Tuesday's where I discussed the new iOS 13.3 update, Google's G-mail application and how their security has been very proficient in helping their users be secured, and a different type of Facebook data breach that involved theft of 29,000 current and former employees. In addition, you all should know this will be my final post of 2019 due to next Wednesday falling on the Christmas holiday and the following starts the New Year. With that being said, I thank you all for supporting me thus far as I began my journey this year and I look forward to new ideas, topics, and subscribers in 2020.
So, today's post will be very brief and straight to the point. Of course, I got my inspiration from Twitter when one of my followers posted a funny video that highlights the topic of authenticating to Google. The video begins with the person entering a password and claims he just entered the same password, but now it's saying it's incorrect. Another person who portrays a Google employee working for the security team enters the camera. He then asks the user to hand over the phone, makes the claim that the user is trying to sign in and asks the following questions:
1. What is the last 4 digits of your social security number?
2. When is your birthday?
3. What's the name of your first pet?
All of the answers checks out as correctly and the employee runs off telling him to have a nice day. The user then asks "where are you whenever someone is trying to hack into my account?"
At that moment is when I bookmarked the tweet and thought this would be a great thing to highlight in today's post. Going back to yesterday's video I recorded about Google's security, users are now able to authenticate via a phone notification being sent to their phone as well as entering their fingerprint. Google will send a notification to your phone to verify it's you and you have the option to press 'yes' or 'no' instead of manually entering a password. It's much more secure because anytime someone is trying to sign into your account, you will receive a notification immediately to warn you. I think it's very beneficial and a great way to help us be more secured.
Last Wednesday, I also came across a tweet that highlighted the fact that certain applications are definitely listening in on our conversations via the microphone and we come across ads later about the same conversation. This girl in the tweet definitely served as a testimony as she posted Facebook showed her an advertisement about a conversation she had earlier that day. In your settings of your phone and these applications, you can go and disable the microphone, camera, and whatever else to protect your privacy. On the Gmail application, I disabled tracking my location for recommendations, harboring my search history, ad recommendations, and so much more because I, as well as you, have the right to privacy. Phones and applications are just programmed to perform commands, but technology is leveraged as another way for the government, companies, and whomever else to listen in on our conversations, spy on us, and invade our privacy.
If you would like to discuss further, please leave a comment or ask a question. I'd love to chat with my readers and hear your thoughts. Thank you for dropping in and remember ToBeSecured! Also, my social media handles are located in the footer of this page or any page you visit on my website.
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