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Researchers on Thursday discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in the widely used command-line shell GNU Bourne Again Shell ( Bash ), dubbed " Shellshock " which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide, and may already have been exploited in the wild to take over Web servers as part of a botnet that is currently trying to infect other servers as well. BOTNET ATTACK IN THE WILD The bot was discovered by the security researcher with the Twitter handle @yinettesys , who reported it on Github and said it appeared to be remotely controlled by miscreants, which indicates that the vulnerability is already being used maliciously by the hackers. The vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271) , which came to light on Wednesday, affects versions 1.14 through 4.3 of GNU Bash and could become a dangerous threat to Linux/Unix and Apple users if the patches to BASH are not applied to the operating systems. However, the patches for the vulnerabil

Users might have praised the technology companies for efforts to encrypt their latest devices that would prevent law enforcement agencies' hands on users' private data, but the FBI is not at all happy with Apple and Google right now. The Federal Bureau of Investigation director, James Comey , said Thursday he was " very concerned " over Apple and Google using stronger or full encryption in their Smartphones and Tablets that makes it impossible for law enforcement to collar criminals. According to Comey, the Silicon Valley tech giants are "marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law." " There will come a day – well it comes every day in this business – when it will matter a great, great deal to the lives of people of all kinds that we be able to with judicial authorization gain access to a kidnapper's or a terrorist or a criminal's device, " Comey told reporters . " I just want to make sure we

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

A Critical remotely exploitable vulnerability has been discovered in the widely used Linux and Unix command-line shell, known as Bash , aka the GNU Bourne Again Shell , leaving countless websites, servers, PCs, OS X Macs, various home routers, and many more open to the cyber criminals. Earlier today, Stephane Chazelas publicly disclosed the technical details of the remote code execution vulnerability in Bash which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide. REMOTELY EXPLOITABLE SHELLSHOCK The vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271) affects versions 1.14 through 4.3 of GNU Bash and being named as Bash Bug , and Shellshock by the Security researchers on the Internet discussions. According to the technical details, a hacker could exploit this bash bug to execute shell commands remotely on a target machine using specifically crafted variables. " In many common configurations, this vulnerability is exploitable over the network, " Stephane said. This 22-ye

The official website of the popular cross-platform JavaScript library jQuery (jquery.com) has been compromised and redirecting its visitors to a third-party website hosting the RIG exploit kit , in order to distribute information-stealing malware. JQuery is a free and open source JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML. It is used to build AJAX applications and other dynamic content easily. The popular JavaScript library is used by 30 percent of websites, including 70 percent of the top 10,000 most visited websites. James Pleger , Director of Research at Risk management software company RiskIQ , reported yesterday that the attack against jQuery.com web servers launched for a short period of time on the afternoon of September 18th. So, the users who visited the website on September 18th may have infected their system with data-stealing malware by redirecting users to the website hosting RIG. Pleger urged those who visited the site durin

The developers of one of the most advance open source operating system for penetration testing, ' KALI Linux ' have announced yesterday the release of a new Kali project, known as NetHunter , that runs on a Google Nexus device. Kali Linux is an open source Debian-based operating system for penetration testing and forensics, which is maintained and funded by Offensive Security, a provider of world-class information security training and penetration testing services. It comes wrapped with a collection of penetration testing and network monitoring tools used for testing of software privacy and security. After making its influence in hacker and security circles, Kali Linux has now been published with Kali Nethunter, a version of the security suite for Android devices. The tool is a mobile distribution designed to compromise systems via USB when installed and run on an Android phone. Kali Linux NetHunter project provides much of the power to Nexus users, those runni

TripAdvisor's  Online travel booking and review website  Viator  has reportedly been hit by a massive data breach at its  that may have exposed payment card details and account credentials of its customers, affecting an estimated 1.4 million of its customers. The San Francisco-based Viator, acquired by TripAdvisor – the world's largest travel site – for £122 million ( US$ 200 million ) back in July, admitted late on Friday that the intruders have hacked into some of its customers' payment card accounts and made unauthorized charges. The data breach was discovered in the bookings made through Viator's websites and mobile offerings that could potentially affect payment card data. Viator said that the company has hired forensic experts to figure out the extent of the breach. Meanwhile, the company has begun notifying its affected customers about the security breach as said by the travel outfit in a press release . " On September 2, we were informed by