Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

PLUS: Debian supports Chinese chips ; Hong Kong’s Christmas Karaoke crackdown; Asahi admits it should have prevented hack; And more! APAC in Brief Google and Apple last week started to allow developers of mobile applications to distribute their wares through third-party app stores and accept payments from alternative payment providers.…

Chocolate Factory fixes issue, pays only $5K A researcher has exposed a flaw in Google's authentication systems, opening it to a brute-force attack that left users' mobile numbers up for grabs.…

Don't ignore this nasty zero day exploit says TAG A nasty bug in Samsung's mobile chips is being exploited by miscreants as part of an exploit chain to escalate privileges and then remotely execute arbitrary code, according to Google security researchers.…

Azure Blob Storage, AWS, and Twilio keys all up for grabs An analysis of widely used mobile apps offered on Google Play and the Apple App Store has found hardcoded and unencrypted cloud service credentials, exposing millions of users to major security problems.…

And Qualcomm addresses 'permanent denial of service' flaw in its stuff Google released 46 fixes for Android in its August security patch batch, including one for a Linux kernel flaw in the mobile OS that can lead to remote code execution (RCE).…

Note to self: Lenders don’t need the contact list on your mobile device Almost 300 apps, downloaded by around 15 million users, have been pulled from the Google Play and Apple App stores over claims they promised quick loans at reasonable rates but then used extortion and other predatory schemes against borrowers.…

Also, US media hit with JavaScript supply chain attack, while half of govt employees use out-of-date mobile OSes in brief A quartet of malware-laden Android apps from a single developer have been caught with malicious code more than once, yet the infected apps remain on Google Play and have collectively been downloaded more than one million times. …

Web giant shocked, shocked, to find misuse of data going on in here Google plans to extend its rework of web ad technology – the optimistically named Privacy Sandbox – to Android devices in an effort to limit the misuse of data in its mobile ecosystem.…