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Google on Monday revealed that almost 200,000 app submissions to its Play Store for Android were either rejected or remediated to address issues with access to sensitive data such as location or SMS messages over the past year. The tech giant also said it blocked 333,000 bad accounts from the app storefront in 2023 for attempting to distribute malware or for repeated policy violations. "In 2023, we prevented 2.28 million policy-violating apps from being published on Google Play in part thanks to our investment in new and improved security features, policy updates, and advanced machine learning and app review processes," Google's Steve Kafka, Khawaja Shams, and Mohet Saxena said . "To help safeguard user privacy at scale, we partnered with SDK providers to limit sensitive data access and sharing, enhancing the privacy posture for over 31 SDKs impacting 790K+ apps." In comparison, Google  fended off 1.43 million bad apps  from being published to the Play Sto

The threat actor known as SideWinder has added a new custom tool to its arsenal of malware that's being used in phishing attacks against Pakistani public and private sector entities. "Phishing links in emails or posts that mimic legitimate notifications and services of government agencies and organizations in Pakistan are primary attack vectors of the gang," Singapore-headquartered cybersecurity company Group-IB  said  in a Wednesday report. SideWinder, also tracked under the monikers Hardcore Nationalist, Rattlesnake, Razor Tiger, and T-APT-04, has been active since at least 2012 with a primary focus on Pakistan and other Central Asian countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Last month, Kaspersky  attributed  to this group over 1,000 cyber attacks that took place in the past two years, while calling out its persistence and sophisticated obfuscation techniques. The threat actor's modus operandi involves the use of spear-phishing

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is a strategic framework that helps organizations continuously assess and manage cyber risk. It breaks down the complex task of managing security threats into five distinct stages: Scoping, Discovery, Prioritization, Validation, and Mobilization. Each of these stages plays a crucial role in identifying, addressing, and mitigating vulnerabilities - before they can be exploited by attackers.  On paper, CTEM sounds great . But where the rubber meets the road – especially for CTEM neophytes - implementing CTEM can seem overwhelming. The process of putting CTEM principles into practice can look prohibitively complex at first. However, with the right tools and a clear understanding of each stage, CTEM can be an effective method for strengthening your organization's security posture.  That's why I've put together a step-by-step guide on which tools to use for which stage. Want to learn more? Read on… Stage 1: Scoping  When you're defin