Besides TikTok, many apps such as LinkedIn and Google News are stealing clipboard data. Why would that happen?



On June 25, 2020, it was reported that the Chinese short movie sharing application TikTok was ``

stealing clipboard data ' ' without notice to the user, but many applications after that have similar behavior The fact that he is doing is becoming apparent one after another. Therefore, How-To Geek, an IT news site, explains 'Why data is stolen by smartphone apps?'

PSA: All Apps Can Read Your iPhone and Android Clipboard
https://www.howtogeek.com/680147/psa-all-apps-can-read-your-iphone-and-android-clipboard/

A developer preview version of the latest OS ' iOS 14 ' for iPhone was released on June 23, 2020, and a new privacy protection function 'TikTok is stealing information in user's clipboard Was discovered. In response, TikTok immediately announced an update to the app, making changes to the feature in question.

TikTok changes ``specification for stealing and reading text entered in other apps without user's permission''-GIGAZINE



Meanwhile, Donald Morton, founder of urspace, a service that coordinates posts on business-specific SNS LinkedIn and software development platform Github, said on Twitter ``LinkedIn is copying the contents of the clipboard every time you enter 'TikTok has just been spoiled for the very same reason.'



When playing a movie posted by Mr. Morton, every time Mr. Morton inputs one character, a message ``Linked In pasted from another device (LinkedIn pasted from another device)'' pops up at the top of the screen. I understand.



Morton then confirmed that a similar phenomenon occurred with the online bulletin board Reddit app.



In addition, according to the British general newspaper Telegraph, apps such as Google News, Call of Duty Mobil, AccuWeather, Overstock, AliExpress, Patreon also have 'a function to read the contents copied to the clipboard without the user's permission'. It is.

About this, How-To Geek says, 'If you copy something to the clipboard, the app can read the contents of the clipboard without having to manually select 'Paste', but this is by design.' I pointed out.

For example, if you copy the URL on the iPhone and then open the browser, it may open the site for that URL automatically without pasting the URL in the URL input field. Similarly, if you copy the tracking number and then open the package delivery service application, the delivery information of the package purchased on Amazon etc. will be displayed. These functions are included in iPad OS and Android of iPad as well as iOS of iPhone.

How-To Geek says, 'Unlike contacts, photos, location, etc., apps don't have to ask for permission before reading clipboard data. This is just technically possible and can be done on iOS or Android. There is nothing to stop it,' he said, pointing out that the ability to automatically open URLs is a real problem that people have been told about stealing the contents of the clipboard.



On top of that, How-To Geek added, 'The ability to notify us of a clipboard read reminded us how much information the app is getting from our smartphone. We copy the personal information & I was reminded that it is important to be careful when pasting & scrutinizing apps to install.”

According to How-To Geek, iOS and Android do not maintain the clipboard history like Windows, and only the last copied data is stored in the clipboard. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the risk of data leakage from the clipboard by copying the appropriate character string immediately after the necessary copy and paste work is completed.

Also, most password manager apps have a function that automatically erases the contents of the clipboard, so it was effective to review the settings of such apps.

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in Software,   Security, Posted by log1l_ks