Senator Chides FBI for Weak Advice on Mobile Security
1 min read
Summary
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently briefed staff on the US Capitol on improving the security of their mobile devices after a stolen contacts list from the personal phone of the White House Chief of Staff was used to send fake messages and calls to US lawmakers.
However, one of the Senate’s most tech-savvy lawmakers argues that more needs to be done to implement greater security protections that are pre-built into most consumer mobile devices, highlighting the lack of comprehensive advice currently given out by the FBI.
Ron Wyden highlighted the need to update FBI training to recommend measures such as opting out of data brokers, using ad blockers, and disabling tracking IDs on mobile devices, as well as implementing anti-spyware defences that are built into both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android phone software, such as Lockdown Mode and Advanced Protection Mode.
Lockdown and Advanced Protection modes mitigate many cyber vulnerabilities and should be enabled as the default setting for US lawmakers and their staff, said the International Computer Science Institute’s Nicholas Weaver.