WhatsApp, owned by Meta, is rolling out a new privacy feature called “Protect IP Address in Calls.” This feature masks users’ IP addresses from other parties by relaying calls through WhatsApp’s servers.
Privacy! What About Quality?
In other words, when you enable this feature, your calls will no longer go directly to the other person but will instead be routed through WhatsApp’s servers.
This means that the other person will not be able to see your IP address, which can help to protect your privacy and location.
WhatsApp says this feature is primarily geared towards users concerned about their privacy. However, it’s important to note that enabling this feature may result in a slight decrease in call quality.
We Need More Privacy Centric Developments
Okta, a popular identity and access management provider, disclosed a security breach on Friday that affected 134 customers.
The company said that an unauthorized intruder gained access to its systems and was able to access session tokens that could be used for session hijacking attacks.
Okta has since revoked the session tokens and disabled the compromised service account. It has also blocked personal Google profiles within enterprise versions of Google Chrome.
In a separate incident, ServiceNow, a cloud-based platform for automating IT service management, IT operations management, and IT business management, announced on its support site that misconfigurations within the platform could result in “unintended access” to sensitive data.
ServiceNow said that the misconfigurations were related to the Simple List widget, an interface widget that pulls data from tables and uses them in dashboards.
It has since taken steps to fix the misconfigurations. However, the company recommended that customers review their access control lists and public widgets to ensure they are appropriately configured.
Misconfigured System Leading to Privacy Invasion
The Okta and ServiceNow security incidents are both related to misconfigurations. However, the misconfigurations were in different parts of the applications and had different consequences.
In the Okta incident, the misconfiguration allowed the threat actor to access session tokens. The threat actor was able to hijack the legitimate Okta sessions of affected customers.
In the ServiceNow incident, the misconfiguration allowed unauthenticated users to access sensitive data by exploiting the misconfiguration, unauthenticated users could access sensitive data such as IT tickets, internal classified knowledge bases, and employee details.
Google Gave Some Good News Previously
Google announced a slew of new privacy, safety, and security features at its annual developer conference, Google I/O. These features included:
- Improved data control and transparency.
- AI-powered Safe Browsing.
- Content Safety API expansion.
- Context about Image.
- Spam View in Google Drive.
These features protect users from cyber threats and give them more control over their data.
Privacy in Communication and Everything Else!
We are in a world where digital presence is hard to conceal. Although the regulatory bodies and the companies that govern compliance and regulations adhere to them strictly, the consistent effort to safeguard each one’s data is crucial.
Meta and Google are always on the verge of making maximum efforts to prioritize user safety despite facing backlash from EU regulations. The question is not whether efforts are made or not, but why is everybody not making this effort and trying to secure data before everything else?
Think and be wary about your privacy!
Anas Hasan
November 10, 2023
6 months ago
