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Github accounts compromised in massive Brute-Force attack using 40,000 IP addresses

Github accounts compromised in massive Brute-Force attack using 40,000 IP addresses

Nov 21, 2013
Popular source code repository service GitHub has recently been hit by a massive Password Brute-Force attack that successfully compromised some accounts,  GitHub has urged users to set up two-factor authentication for their accounts and has already reset passwords for compromised accounts. " We sent an email to users with compromised accounts letting them know what to do ," " Their passwords have been reset and personal access tokens, OAuth authorizations, and SSH keys have all been revoked. "  However, GitHub uses the  bcrypt  algorithm to hash the passwords , which is extremely resilient against brute force attacks because it takes an inordinate amount of time to encrypt each password. In a blog post , GitHub engineer Shawn Davenport said that a brute force attack from around 40,000 IP addresses revealed some commonly used passwords . These addresses were used to slowly brute force weak passwords. In addition to normal strength requirements like length or cha
Hacker stole $100,000 from Users of California based ISP using SQL Injection

Hacker stole $100,000 from Users of California based ISP using SQL Injection

Oct 22, 2013
In 2013 we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of hack attacks attempted against banks, credit unions and utility companies using various techniques including  DDoS attack , SQL injection, DNS Hijacking and Zero-Day Flaws. SQL Injection is one of the most common security vulnerabilities on the web and is successful only when the web application is not sufficiently secured. Recently a hacking Group named ' TeamBerserk ' claimed on Twitter that, they have stolen $100,000 by leveraging user names and passwords taken from a California ISP Sebastian (Sebastiancorp.com)to access victims' bank accounts. A video proof was uploaded on the Internet, shows that how hackers used a SQL injection attack against the California ISP Sebastian to access their customers' database includes  e-mail addresses, user names and clear text passwords and then using the same data to steal money from those customers. Let's see what SQL Injection is and how ser
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
New Phishing attack targets Italian Postal and Financial service again

New Phishing attack targets Italian Postal and Financial service again

Oct 21, 2013
A phishing attack is a complex combination of technology and psychology. There are numerous ways in which people are being made fools and they can be conned by hitting on unsecured website links. Sophos experts detected this week an intriguing case of phishing against the Italian postal service Poste Italiane , the scheme attracted the researcher's attention due the reuse of an old social engineering trick. The brand Poste Italiane includes postal, Financial and payment services in its product portfolio and was considered top brand victims by recent F-Secure Threat report. The number of attacks against Poste Italiane is remarkable, the purpose is always to induce its customers into unwittingly submitting their credentials to fake login sites. In the recent attack criminals sent the classic email containing an HTML attachment which the recipient is enticed into opening. " To activate the "Security web Postepay " you need to : - Downlo
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability enables Root User to Hackers by resetting the clock

Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability enables Root User to Hackers by resetting the clock

Aug 30, 2013
Do you think, because you're using an Apple Mac , your data is safe from hackers ? Well, it is not true, there are dozens of security weaknesses and today Researchers have made it easier to exploit Apple Mac OS X, that allows penetration testers and hackers to gain root access. The flaw remained unmatched by Apple for the last five months, dubbed CVE-2013-1775 , the flaw allowed attackers to bypass normal password authentication procedures by resetting the computer clock to January 1, 1970. The reason that specific date is required is because it represents the beginning of time to the operating system and some applications that run on it. When the SUDO command is used in combination with a clock reset, the computer can be tracked into providing root access without a password. Metasploit authors have come up with a brand new module that makes the bug even easier to exploit , renewing interest in the problem. The module gains a session with root permissions as long as the use
Anonymous hackers exposes details of U.S FEMA contractors

Anonymous hackers exposes details of U.S FEMA contractors

Jul 18, 2013
Anonymous hackers claimed yesterday that they have broken into a server used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and leaked the database  ( password : fema ) includes - names, addresses and other information of FEMA contractors, private defense contractors, federal agents and local authorities. Hack was performed in response to Homeland Security training exercises that centered on a fictional version of the hacker collective.FEMA, under the Department of Homeland Security, conducts an National Level Exercise (NLE) each year. " This is a message from some of us, to FEMA, to various world governments and to their complicit corporate lackeys who dwell in the shadows as well as to the 2.5 billion regular people who use the internet and have found that their right to privacy has been utterly destroyed. " hackers said. The dump contains a table of user IDs and MD5 hashes of corresponding passwords and leaked mailing addresses connected to some of the
Using Tumblr app on iPhone ? Reset you Tumblr password now

Using Tumblr app on iPhone ? Reset you Tumblr password now

Jul 17, 2013
Tumblr posted a blog post Tuesday night warning users to change their passwords and released a very important security update for iOS users after identifying a breach that compromised their passwords. It seems that, under certain circumstances, the prior versions of the iPhone and iPad apps would allow an individual with malicious intent to sniff or intercept passwords as they are in transit across a local network. The problem arose because the iPad and iPhone apps fail to log users in through a secure server.  The vulnerability does not seem to have affected Tumblr's Android app. The company urged users to download the latest version of the Tumblr app, which is available in the Apple iTunes Store. The company did not provide further details on the breach. It's also good practice to use different passwords across different services by using an app like 1Password or LastPass. It doesn't appear that any passwords got in the hands of malicious individuals, though you
Japanese Game maker Club Nintendo's 24,000 accounts Hacked

Japanese Game maker Club Nintendo's 24,000 accounts Hacked

Jul 08, 2013
Japanese video game maker Nintendo recently revealed that one of its main fan sites Club Nintendo got hacked and Out of 15.5 million login attempts in brute-force process, almost 24,000 user accounts have been hijacked early last month. Nintendo said it first became aware of the illicit logins on Tuesday evening after a large number of access errors on the site. However the security team believe that the hackers obtained the logins and passwords from an outside resource. The fan site, Club Nintendo, allows 3DS and Wii owners, as well as other fans of Nintendo games and hardware to answer survey questions and register their products. Members can do all this in exchange for "coins" or points. These can later be traded for other goods or services on the site. The site is open to users from all over the world, about four million of which are located in Japan. These accounts contain secure data of users' real names, addresses, phone numbers and email information. " The
Cracking iPhone Hotspot password in 50 Seconds

Cracking iPhone Hotspot password in 50 Seconds

Jun 20, 2013
The ability to turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot is a fantastically useful little tool in and of itself. When setting up a personal hotspot on their iPad or iPhone, users have the option of allowing iOS to automatically generate a password. According to a new study by Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany, iOS-generated passwords use a very specific formula one which the experienced hacker can crack in less than a minute. Using an iOS app written in Apple's own Xcode programming environment, the team set to work analyzing the words that Apple uses to generate its security keys . Apple's hotspot uses a standard WPA2 -type process, which includes the creation and passing of pre-shared keys (PSK). They found that the default passwords are made up of a combination of a short dictionary words followed by a series of random numbers and this method actually leaves them vulnerable to  brute force attack . The word list Apple uses contains approximately 52,500
Another day, Another verified Twitter Account Hacked

Another day, Another verified Twitter Account Hacked

May 14, 2013
Another day, Another verified twitter account with over 900,000 followers hacked by 'Colin'. Hacker hacked into a Sky News Twitter account earlier today, and left a semi-permanent mark on the internet's consciousness. The mysterious Colin soon began to trend on Twitter as #ColinWasHere hashtag. However, the tweet which simply said " Colin was here " - has now been deleted, with Sky blaming the tweet on a hack. The post was retweeted more than 7,500 times before it was removed half an hour later. The Syrian Electronic Army in the recent past has been accused of hacking social media feeds of a number of well known Twitter handles, such as AP , The Guardian and even for some bizarre reason, the satire news agency ' The Onion ' UPDATE:  The Sky News press office has informed that Colin was, in fact, " a 'disaster recovery' test message which accidently went live " and that "no Colin was harmed in the making of this message".
'The Onion' Twitter Account Hacked via Phishing Attack

'The Onion' Twitter Account Hacked via Phishing Attack

May 12, 2013
The hacktivist group Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) briefly took over the Twitter account of the satirical news publication The Onion, posting a series of anti-Israeli joke stories and an anti-Obama meme image. In a post on The Onion tech team's GitHub blog , the fake news site explains that the Syrian Electronic Army didn't wrestle control of its Twitter account using some advanced hacker scheme. The hack attack penetrated the publication with at least three methods of phishing attacks, where a false e-mail redirected people to a fake Website which then asked for Google Apps credentials. Previously the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has shanghaied its way into the official Twitter feeds of AP and the Guardian, using the former to post a tweet falsely claiming that there had been an explosion at the white House. Exposing details about an attack is not the normal approach companies take after they are hacked. The New York Times revealed earlier this year how Chinese hackers breac
Hacking Instagram Accounts using OAuth vulnerability

Hacking Instagram Accounts using OAuth vulnerability

May 02, 2013
' Nir Goldshlager ' known as Facebook hacker and founder of Break Security  , who reported many critical bugs in Facebook OAuth mechanism in past few months, today disclose a critical  vulnerability in Instagram Oauth that allow an attacker to hack any account. Succesful hack allows attacker to access private photos, ability to delete victim's photos and to edit comments and also the ability to post new photos. Hacker explained that there are two ways to hack Instagram accounts using OAuth, first via Hijack Instagram accounts using the Instagram OAuth or Hijack Instagram accounts using the Facebook OAuth Dialog. During his bug hunting Nir found loopholes in Instagram's security parameters i.e redirect_uri , that allows  attacker to pass the access token to his own domain with mx as suffix i.e code straight to breaksec.com.mx . POC :  https://instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=33221863eec546659f2564dd71a8a38d&redirect_uri=https://breaksec
Yahoo! Blind SQL Injection could lead to data leakage

Yahoo! Blind SQL Injection could lead to data leakage

Apr 26, 2013
It seems that 2013 is the " Data Leakage Year "! Many customers' information and confidential data have been published on the internet coming from government institutions, famous vendors, and companies too. Ebrahim Hegazy(@Zigoo0) an Egyptian information security advisor who found a high severity vulnerability in " Avira license daemon " days ago, is on the news again, but this time for finding and reporting Blind SQL Injection vulnerability in one of Yahoo! E-marketing applications. SQL Injection vulnerabilities are ranked as Critical vulnerabilities, because if used by Hackers it will cause a database breach which will lead to confidential information leakage. A time based blind SQL Injection web vulnerability is detected in the official Yahoo! TW YSM Marketing Application Service. The vulnerability allows remote attackers to inject own SQL commands to breach the database of that vulnerable application and get access to the user data.
Phishers hijacking Facebook Pages using apps

Phishers hijacking Facebook Pages using apps

Mar 08, 2013
Another phishing campaign come in action recently targeting Facebook accounts and company pages with millions of followers. Phishers continue to devise new fake apps for the purpose of harvesting confidential information. Not a new method, but very creative phishing example in Facebook hacking scene, where hacker host a phishing page on Facebook app sub domain itself. Designed very similar to Facebook Security team with title ' Facebook Page Verification ' and using Facebook Security Logo as shown in the screenshot posted above. Phishing app URL: https://apps.facebook.com/verify-pages/ Application hosted on:   https://talksms.co.uk/ The phishing page asking users to enter Page URL and Page Name that victim own and his Facebook login email ID with password. Once victim trapped in hacker web, the phisher records your information. Another interesting fact is that, the phishing domain https://talksms.co.uk/ is a HTTPS site with with verified SSL from GeoTrust
Hackers breach Twitter and 250,000 accounts compromised

Hackers breach Twitter and 250,000 accounts compromised

Feb 02, 2013
In recent The Hacker News updates, we have reported about some major hacking events and critical vulnerabilities i.e Cyber attack and spying on The New York Times and Wall Street Journal by Chinese Hackers,  Security Flaws in UPnP protocol , Botnet attack hack 16,000 Facebook accounts, 700,000 accounts hacked in Africa and new android malware that infect more that 620,000 users . Today Twitter also announced that they have recorded some unusual access patterns that is identified as unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. Unknown hackers breach Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts " the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords " said Bob Lord ,Director of Information Security, at Twitter. For security reasons twitter have reset passwords and revoked session tokens
Hundreds of SSH Private Keys exposed via GitHub Search

Hundreds of SSH Private Keys exposed via GitHub Search

Jan 25, 2013
GitHub is a source code repository which lets developers work on programs together as a team, even when they are in different locations. Each repository on the site is a public folder designed to hold the software code that a developer is working on. This Tuesday GitHub announced a major upgrades to the site's search engine, " Finding great code on GitHub just got a whole lot easier, ". Yesterday few twitter users pointed out that there is no shortage of embedded private SSH keys and passwords that can easily be found via GitHub new feature. If you upload security information (keys/passwords etc) to a public repository, new search feature will allow anyone to find them. Today, GitHub's search function stopped working , though the site didn't acknowledge the cause. Updated message is " Search remains unavailable. The cluster is recovering slowly and we continue to monitor its progress. We'll provide further updates as they become available
5 Checks You Must Run To Ensure Your Network Is Secure

5 Checks You Must Run To Ensure Your Network Is Secure

Jan 10, 2013
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days each year – it's happening. Whether you are awake or asleep, in a meeting or on vacation, they are out there probing your network, looking for a way in. A way to exploit you; a way to steal your data, a place to store illegal content, a website they can deface, or any of a hundred other ways to mess with you for the simple joy of it all. And they can do this with relative ease, even in an automated fashion, with simple tools that are readily available to all. I'm talking about network scanners. The bad guys use them all day every day to assess networks around the world because a network scanner is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to find the cracks in your armor. If you want to see your network the same way an attacker would, then you want to use a network scanner. Network scanners perform automated tests of systems over the network. They don't require agents or any other software to be installed on the "target"
Hacking Facebook Passwords like changing your own Password

Hacking Facebook Passwords like changing your own Password

Jan 08, 2013
Hacker found a way to hack and change your password like, just he used to change his own password. Confused ? Recently Facebook fix a very critical vulnerability on the tip of ' Sow Ching Shiong ' , an independent vulnerability researcher. Flaw allows anyone to reset the password of any Facebook user without knowing his last password. At Facebook, there is an option for compromised accounts at " https://www.facebook.com/hacked " , where Facebook ask one to change his password for further protection. This compromised account recovery page, will redirect you to another page at " https://www.facebook.com/checkpoint/checkpointme?f=[userid]&r=web_hacked " . Researcher notice that the URL of the page having a parameter called "f" which represents your user ID and replacing the user ID with victim's user ID allow him to get into next page where attacker can reset the password of victim without knowing his last password. The  Vulnera
Password reset Vulnerability in Facebook Employees Secure Files Transfer service

Password reset Vulnerability in Facebook Employees Secure Files Transfer service

Jan 07, 2013
Many be many of you are not aware about this, but Facebook having a Secure Files Transfer service for their Employees at https://files.fb.com  and Hacker reported a very critical password reset vulnerability. Nir Goldshlager , a researcher told ' The Hacker News ' that how he defeat Facebook 's Secure Files Transfer service and help Facebook by reporting them about this issue in a responsible non-disclosure way till patch. After analyzing the site, he found that the script Facebook is using is actually " Accellion Secure File Sharing Service " script and so next he download the demo version of service from Accellion website and explore the source codes and file locations. He found that, there is a user registration page also available in source, that was also on files.fb.com. Unfortunately Facebook had removed the Sign up option (link) from homepage, but forget to remove the registration page from its actual location i.e (/courier/web/1000@/wmReg.html)
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