Think you deleted that embarrassing WhatsApp message you sent? Think again

By Graham Cluley

At the end of last month, to the undoubted delight of many users, WhatsApp began rolling out a long craved-for feature: the ability to “unsend” those messages that you almost instantly regret as soon as you hit the Send button.

The feature, which was rolled out on the latest versions of WhatsApp for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and desktop, simply requires the regretful messenger to tap and hold on the offending message, choose “Delete” and then select “Delete for everyone”.

As long as you did this within seven minutes (and the recipient was also running the latest version of WhatsApp) the message would be successfully deleted, the company promised.

But, if there’s one thing we should all have learnt from our years on the internet, once you say something somewhere – it’s very hard to take it back and pretend it never happened.

And there’s good reason to not get too excited about WhatsApp’s new “Delete for everyone” option.

Although it promises to zap the embarrassing messages you’ve already sent to one of your contacts, the truth is that they may not actually be gone at all.

Within days of the new feature being incorporated into WhatsApp, the Android Jefe blog found a way to read “deleted” messages.

On Android, WhatsApp messages are stored in the device’s notification list – regardless of whether they are subsequently deleted by their sender or not. All a user has to do if they wish to remind themselves of a “deleted” message that they have been sent, is check the notification log where the first 100-or-so characters are stored.

If that’s too much of a palaver, there are even apps in the Google Play store that will provide a simple clickable link to to the notification history.

It’s important to stress that Android Jefe did find some limitations in its method of viewing “deleted” WhatsApp messages:

·         Only messages that have already been seen or interacted with can be retrieved from the notification log. This does include any interaction with a WhatsApp notification, so the message itself does not have to have been opened.

·         Only text sent via WhatsApp can be “undeleted” in this way, and even then it is limited to the first 100 characters or so. The notification log will not contain any images that you were sent.

·         Only messages that generated a notification will have created an entry in the notification log – logically enough. In other words, if you were chatting on WhatsApp at the time the message was sent a notification will probably not have been created.

Nonetheless, it feels like this discovery is a timely reminder for all of us that once we send a message it is effectively out of our control. Always think hard before pressing “Send”!

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, Android Jefe also found a way to “delete” WhatsApp messages up to 7 days (rather than 7 minutes!) after they were sent, by simply fiddling with their smartphone’s clock.

https://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/11/16/whatsapp-deleted-messages/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eset%2Fblog+%28ESET+Blog%3A+We+Live+Security%29

Americans’ unease about cybercrime towers over conventional crimes

 Americans are more concerned about possibly falling victim to a crime made possible by the internet than any one “conventional” crime, a recent poll has shown.

As many as 67% of adult Americans are anxious, be it frequently or occasionally, about “having their personal, credit card or financial information stolen by computer hackers”, according to the annual Crime poll conducted by Gallup. Fear of identity theft came in a close second at 66%.

Meanwhile, the next worst-feared crime – having one’s car stolen or broken into – came in a distant third in the 13-item worry list, raising concern on the part of 38% of a random sample of 1,028 respondents queried between October 5–11.

Indeed, Gallup itself was quick to note that “since 2009, Americans’ anxiety about identity theft has consistently topped their fears about other crimes by at least 19 percentage points”.

It was in that year that Gallup began to canvass Americans’ sentiments on identity theft, with the concerns about this crime consistently between 66-70% ever since. The question regarding hackers stealing personal information was added to the survey this year, “though prior surveys included questions on narrower cybercrime-related issues”.

The high level of fear of cybercrime dovetails with the self-reported rates of victimization, as 25% of the respondents reported that their personal information or that of their household member has been stolen by hackers over the past 12 months. When it comes to identity theft, the same was true for 16% of those asked.

These findings also echo those of ESET’s own research, which revealed that Americans believe “criminal hacking into computer systems” is now a top risk to their health, safety and prosperity.

In a survey conducted this summer, ESET researchers Stephen Cobb and Lysa Myers found that US adults rated criminal hacking as more of a risk than other significant hazards, including climate change, nuclear power, and hazardous waste.

Yet again, reports of a conventional form of crime, “money or property was stolen from you or another member of your household”, only came in third on 12 percent.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported an average of 280,000 complaints a year from 2000-2016, Gallup noted.

The poll was conducted in the wake of a massive data breach at US credit checking company Equifax, which occurred from May through July 2017 but didn’t make headlines until Equifax’s confirmation of the incident on September 7.

This breach, which saw hackers make off with the data of 143 million people, was itself preceded by reports of a rash of other high-profile data breaches in recent years.

The hacking of infidelity site Ashley Madison – while not the largest, it was unprecedented given the nature of the site’s service – affected 37 million people. The list of US-based businesses to have suffered major data breaches in recent years includes home improvement retailer Home Depot in 2014 and retail giant Target in late 2013.

Arguably, Yahoo has eclipsed them all, having suffered from two massive breaches in recent years, including one in 2013 that turned out last month to have affected all three billion user accounts on the service.

All told, the prevalence of large-scale security incidents – and the extensive media coverage thereof – are seen as having contributed to the Americans’ worry of cybercrime.

https://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/11/14/americans-unease-cybercrime/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eset%2Fblog+%28ESET+Blog%3A+We+Live+Security%29

InterSystems reconnu comme Challenger dans le Quadrant Magique 2017 de Gartner pour les Systèmes de gestion de bases de données opérationnelles

Le rapport récompense InterSystems pour le Caractère complet de sa vision et son Aptitude à concrétiser sa stratégie

Dans un groupe comportant une trentaine de fournisseurs, InterSystems est l’une des deux sociétés technologiques à avoir été reprises comme “Challenger” dans la dernière version du Quadrant Magique Gartner. Produit concerné: sa base de données hautes performances Caché. Ce classement  “Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems” (OPDBMS)  évalue les sociétés et leurs produits en fonction des critères de “caractère complet de vision”  et de leur “aptitude à l’exécuter”. Depuis 2013, première année de sa publication, ce rapport annuel a toujours positionné Intersystems comme Challenger ou comme Leader.

Le quadrant des Challengers identifie les sociétés qui font preuve d’une “forte aptitude à concrétiser”, selon les termes utilisés par Gartner, et qui procurent stabilité, simplicité d’installation et de support, ainsi que des performances robustes. Le rapport souligne également la solidité des fonctions et la loyauté de la clientèle d’InterSystems, ainsi que la popularité de la société, le degré réduit de défaillances et la qualité globale du support.

Le classement est effectué sur base d’une évaluation approfondie, structurée en 200 points, et d’une enquête auprès de plus de 50 clients des solutions base de données de chacune des sociétés candidates. Caché est utilisé par 6 des 10 principales banques d’investissement dans le monde, ainsi que dans le secteur des soins de santé, de la distribution et dans bien d’autres secteurs d’activité.

Gartner a par ailleurs annoncé un nouvel outil, baptisé Peer Insights, qui permet aux clients d’attribuer eux-mêmes une note aux sociétés sur base de leur propre expérience. InterSystems a obtenu le meilleur classement — avec une note de 4,8 sur 5 –- parmi toutes les sociétés figurant dans le Quadrant  Magique. Les 10 autres fournisseurs repris dans le Quadrant  Magique de cette année incluent notamment Microsoft, Google, Oracle et IBM. Selon  Peer Insight, InterSystems se distigue par ses services de support technique.

“Le Quadrant Magique de Gartner de cette année reconnaît la puissance de notre plate-forme de données, sa fonctionnalité et sa flexibilité, ainsi que notre engagement en faveur du support à la clientèle”, déclare Paul Grabscheid, vice-président Stratégie d’InterSystems. “Avec le lancement récent d’InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, nous allons encore progresser dans cette voie en proposant aux clients, tant nouveaux qu’existants, des technologies robustes leur permettant de créer des solutions critiques, riches en données.”

Annoncé en septembre de cette année, InterSystems IRIS est une solution unifiée et complète qui procure un ensemble cohérent et exhaustif de composants, couvrant la gestion des données, l’interopérabilité, le traitement transactionnel et le décisionnel. La plate-forme de données, conçue pour supporter des solutions critiques recourant massivement aux données, sera disponible au début 2018.

Le Quadrant Magique 2017 pour Systèmes de gestion de bases de données opérationnelles peut être consulté via le site www.InterSystems.com/Magic. Pour toute information complémentaire concernant InterSystems IRIS, consultez le site www.InterSystems.com/IRIS.