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It's only been a week since Apple officially announced iOS 13, the new version of its iPhone mobile operating system and we already have the first update, iOS 13.1, among us. This update fixes some bugs that were found in the first version as well as adding some improvements regarding its usual performance. Well, this new improvement has not been rid of problems, some of which are serious enough to jeopardize the security of user data.
I have iOS 13 and a downloaded keyboard, am I in danger?
And what is this iOS 13.1 problem? Well, it is a security hole that allows keyboard application manufacturers to collect user data, by collecting letter keystrokes without the user's own warning. In addition, all this data was collected on the servers of the applications in question, being stored, for example, credit card numbers and bank accounts, addresses, personal telephones and texts of an intimate nature that the user was writing through those applications. It should be remembered that keyboard applications are usually quite popular among mobile phone users since they allow the sending of special emojis, among other aspects of personalization.
The iPhone user, if he uses a third-party keyboard from a company he does not know, can check if the full access permission of the keyboard has been activated in the following way: he will have to enter his iPhone settings, then to the section ' General ', from there to' Keyboards' and, finally, 'Keyboards'. Another alternative that you can carry out until Apple releases a new iOS update that fixes this error would be to uninstall the keyboard applications that we are using.
Will Apple fix this new security flaw?
Among the most popular keyboard applications that we can find for our iPhone are those of Gboard (owned by Google and a tool pre-installed in the vast majority of Android phones), Swiftkey and Grammarly. These applications can be run as independent applications or give them special permission to communicate with other applications that we have installed on our smartphone, thus providing additional functions that enrich the user experience. An iOS 13.1 bug, however, gave these apps 'full access' even without the user giving their consent.
Apple has announced that it will fix the problem in an upcoming software update, as the problem only affects third-party applications (their own application cannot access the keystroke data) or tools that can request full access to your iPhone. Full access to a keyboard application is an open door to the collection of intimate data, so we suggest mobile users to take extreme advantage of the permissions they give to this type of utility.
Gboard, the Google keyboard, collects the searches we do with its keyboard It is evident that with Google we are not going to have problems since it is a fairly reliable company but we cannot say the same of other small companies that swarm in the stores of Applications.
