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The Real Message About the WikiLeaks Vault 7 Documents

March 9, 2017

The New York Times was one of the first publications to report on the massive release of CIA documents by WikiLeaks. It was also in error originally reporting that the encryption was compromised for some popular apps such as Signal and WhatsApp. The documents actually show that the CIA has the ability to compromise Android devices, iPhones and even the Samsung Smart TV. It's been a few days since the release and researchers are digging deeper into the impact of the information. Apple and Google have already announced that most of the identified vulnerabilities have been patched.

As the New York Times reports, the real message is to make sure all your devices are updated. As an example, the WikiLeaks documents identify a bunch of vulnerabilities for Android 4.0 and earlier. Give me a break. The current version of Android is 7.0. If you're still using a 4.0 device then you probably deserve to be hacked. The unfortunate reality is that around 30% of Android users are still running vulnerable operating systems. The same can be said for iOS devices. The identified vulnerabilities deal with iOS 8.2 and earlier. Almost 80% of users are running iOS 10. The real message … update, update, update.

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