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Unlike specially crafted malware specifically developed to take advantage of Windows operating system platform, cyber attackers have started creating cross-platform malware for wider exploitation. Due to the rise in popularity of Mac OS X and other Windows desktop alternatives, hackers have begun designing cross-platform malware modularly for wide distribution. Cross-platform malware is loaded with specialized payloads and components, allowing it to run on multiple platforms. One such malware family has recently been discovered by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, which run on all the key operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Stefan Ortloff, a researcher from Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team, first discovered the Linux and Windows variants of this family of cross-platform backdoor, dubbed Mokes , in January this year. Now, the researcher today confirmed the existence of an OS X variant of this malware family, explaining a technical breakd

Internet of Things (IoT) is the latest buzz in the world of technology, but they are much easier to hack than you think. Until now we have heard many scary stories of hacking IoT devices , but how realistic is the threat? Just think of a scenario where you enter in your house, and it's sweltering, but when you head on to check the temperature of your thermostat, you find out that it has been locked to 99 degrees. And guess what? Your room thermostat is demanding $300 in Bitcoins to regain its control. Congratulations, Your Thermostat has been Hacked! This is not just a hypothetical scenario; this is exactly what Ken Munro and Andrew Tierney of UK-based security firm Pen Test Partners have demonstrated at the DEFCON 24 security conference in Las Vegas last Saturday. Two white hat hackers recently showed off the first proof-of-concept (PoC) ransomware that infects a smart thermostat. Ransomware is an infamous piece of malware that has been known for locking up comput

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Breaking News for Today: Antivirus company Avast Software is planning to acquire Dutch rival AVG Technologies for $1.3 Billion in cash. Avast announced today that it would buy Amsterdam-based AVG Technologies for $25 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.3 Billion in an aim to expand its presence in the emerging markets. With more than 230 Million users worldwide, Avast provides free and paid security software packages for both PCs as well as mobile devices to businesses and individuals. The deal between the two popular security software companies will provide Avast with 400 Million endpoints -- devices that have some form of Avast or AVG application installed. Around 160 Million of those are mobile. However, AVG technologies was in controversies for updating its policy that clearly said that the company will be allowed to collect and sell users' "non-personal data" to online advertisers in order to "make money" from their "free of

In Brief: Introducing  RansomWhere , a free generic ransomware detection tool for Mac OS X users that can identify ransomware-like behavior by continually monitoring the file-system for the creation of encrypted files by suspicious processes. This ransomware detection tool helps to block the suspicious processes and waits for the user to decide whether to allow or stop the process. Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years... so rapidly that it might have already hit someone you know. With hundred of thousands of ransomware samples emerging every day, it is quite difficult for traditional signature-based antivirus products to keep their signature database up-to-date. So, if signature-based techniques are not enough to detect ransomware infection , then what else can we do? Some Antivirus companies have already upgraded their security solutions that detect suspicious behaviors like the sequential accessing of a large number of files, using encryption algori

Apple Mac Computers are considered to be much safer than Windows computers at keeping out the viruses and malware, but the new Exploit discovered by researchers again proves it indeed quite false. Last year, The Hacker News reported a deadly simple exploit that completely bypassed one of the core security features in Mac OS X known as Gatekeeper . Apple released a patch in November, but now the same security researcher who discovered the original Gatekeeper bypass vulnerability said he found an equally obvious workaround. Patrick Wardle, ex-NSA staffer and head of research at security intelligence firm Synack, said the security patch released by Apple was " incredibly weak " and that the update was " easy to bypass " in minutes. Gatekeeper's Failure Once Again Introduced in July of 2012, Gatekeeper is Apple's anti-malware feature designed to block untrusted, dodgy apps from running, keeping Mac OS X systems safe from malware. Ho

If you have installed Trend Micro's Antivirus on your Windows computer, then Beware. Your computer can be remotely hijacked, or infected with any malware by even through a website – Thanks to a critical vulnerability in Trend Micro Security Software. The Popular antivirus maker and security firm Trend Micro has released an emergency patch to fix critical flaws in its anti-virus product that allow hackers to execute arbitrary commands remotely as well as steal your saved password from Password Manager built into its AntiVirus program. The password management tool that comes bundled with its main antivirus is used to store passwords by users and works exactly like any other password manager application. Even Websites Can Hack Into Your Computer Google's Project Zero security researcher, Tavis Ormandy, discovered the remote code execution flaw in Trend Micro Antivirus Password Manager component, allowing hackers to steal users' passwords. In short, o

U.S. and European law enforcement agencies have shut down a highly sophisticated piece of the botnet that had infected more than 12,000 computers worldwide , allowing hackers to steal victims' banking information and other sensitive data. The law enforcement agencies from the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union conducted a joint operation to get rid of the botnet across the globe and seized the command-and-control server that had been used to operate the nasty Beebone (also known as AAEH ) botnet . What's a Botnet? A botnet is a network of large number of computers compromised with malicious software and controlled surreptitiously by hackers without the knowledge of victims. Basically, a "botnet" is a hacker's "robot" that does the malicious work directed by hackers. Hackers and Cyber Criminals have brushed up their hacking skills and started using Botnets as a cyber weapon to carry out multiple crimes such as DDoS attacks

The computer giant Lenovo has released a tool to remove the dangerous "SuperFish" adware program that the company had pre-installed onto many of its consumer-grade Lenovo laptops sold before January 2015. The Superfish removal tool comes few days after the story broke about the nasty Superfish malware that has capability to sneakily intercept and decrypt HTTPS connections, tamper with pages in an attempt to inject advertisements. WE JUST FOUND 'SUPERFISH' - LENOVO The Chinese PC maker attempted to push the perception that Superfish software was not a security concern and avoid the bad news with the claim that it had "stopped Superfish software at beginning in January". However, Lenovo has now admitted that it was caught preloading a piece of adware that installed its own self-signing Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) proxy service that hijacked HTTPS connections. " We did not know about this potential security vulnerability until yesterday ," Lenovo said

A new surge of malware has been discovered which goes on to infect hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and allegedly steals users' social and banking site credentials. Few days back, a list of 5 million combinations of Gmail addresses and passwords were leaked online. The search engine giant, Google said that Gmail credentials didn't come from the security breaches of its system, rather the credentials had been stolen by phishing campaigns and unauthorized access to user accounts. Just now, we come across another similar incident where cyber criminals are using a malware which has already compromised thousands of Windows users worldwide in an effort to steal their Social Media account, Online account and Banking account Credentials. A Greek Security Researcher recently discovered a malware sample via a spam campaign (caught in a corporate honeypot), targeting large number of computers users rapidly. He investigated and posted a detailed technical analyses of

Researchers have warned users of Android devices to avoid app downloads from particularly unauthorized sources, since a new and sophisticated piece of malware is targeting Android users through phishing emails . The malware, dubbed SandroRAT , is currently being used by cybercriminals to target Android users in Poland via a widely spread email spam campaign that delivers a new variant of an Android remote access tool (RAT). The emails masquerade itself as a bank alert that warns users of the malware infection in their mobile device and offers a fake mobile security solution in order to get rid of the malware infection. The mobile security solution poses as a Kaspersky Mobile Security , but in real, it is a version of SandroRAT, a remote access tool devised for Android devices, whose source code has been put on sale on underground Hack Forums since December last year. A mobile malware researcher at McAfee, Carlos Castillo, detailed the new variant of Android remot

Malware is nothing but a malicious files which is stored on an infected computer system in order to damage the system or steal sensitive data from it or perform other malicious activities. But security researchers have uncovered a new and sophisticated piece of malware that infects systems and steals data without installing any file onto the targeted system. Researchers dubbed this  persistent malware as Poweliks , which resides in the computer registry only and is therefore not easily detectable as other typical malware that installs files on the affected system which can be scanned by antivirus or anti-malware Software. According to Paul Rascagneres , Senior Threat Researcher, Malware analyst at GData software, due to the malware's subsequent and step-after-step execution of code, the feature set was similar to a stacking principles of Matryoshka Doll approach. Paul has made a number of name ripping malware and bots to uncover and undermine cyber crimes. He won last

Any occasion that captures public attention – regardless of how sensitive – comes out to be an opportunity for spammers and hackers to snatch users' personal information and spread malware , and the tragedy of the crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is no exception. According to the U.S. intelligence officials, Malaysia Airline Flight MH17, a Boeing 777 aircraft carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, was struck by a ground-to-air missile. So far, it's unclear, whether the missile was launched by the Russian military or pro-Russian separatist rebels. Ukraine and the insurgents blamed each other. Spammers and cybercriminals are quick to take advantage of the tragedy and started spreading malware through the social media websites, abusing the mystery behind the crash of Malaysia Airline Flight MH17. Researchers at the anti-virus firm Trend Micro came across some suspicious tweets written in Indonesian language. The cybercriminals are using the trending #MH17 to lu

Security researchers have uncovered a new Stuxnet like malware, named as " Havex ", which was used in a number of previous cyber attacks against organizations in the energy sector. Just like Famous Stuxnet Worm , which was specially designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear project, the new trojan Havex is also programmed to infect industrial control system softwares of SCADA and ICS systems, with the capability to possibly disable hydroelectric dams, overload nuclear power plants, and even can shut down a country's power grid with a single keystroke. According to security firm F-Secure who first discovered it as Backdoor:W32/Havex.A. , it is a generic remote access Trojan ( RAT ) and has recently been used to carry out industrial espionage against a number of companies in Europe that use or develop industrial applications and machines. SMARTY PANTS, TROJANIZED INSTALLERS To accomplish this, besides traditional infection methods such as exploit kits and spam emails,

Today, the estimated number of known computer threats like viruses, worms, backdoors, exploits, Trojans, spyware, password stealer, and other variants of potentially unwanted software range into millions. It has the capability to create several different forms of itself dynamically in order to thwart antimalware programs. Users of the biggest online artwork community, DevianART with Global Alexa Rank 148, are targeted by the potentially unwanted software programs -- delivered by the advertisements on the website, Stop Malvertising reported on Sunday. A Potentially Unwanted Application (PUA) is a program that may not be intentionally malicious, but can negatively affect the performance and reliability of the system by distributing spyware or adware that can cause undesirable behavior on the computer. Some may simply display annoying advertisements, while others may run background processes that cause your computer to slow down. However, unlike malware, users themselves co

We have seen cybercriminals targeting PCs with Ransomware malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a ransom amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it. To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have already started creating malicious software programs for android devices. Last month, we reported about a new Police Ransomware malware that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone. But, the malware just lock the mobile screen and a loophole in the its implementation allowed users to recover their device and data stored on SDcard. Now, in an effort to overcome this, threat actors have adopted encryption in the development of mobile Ransomware malwares. Recently, the security firm ESET has discovered a new Android ransomware, dubbed as Android/Simplocker.A , that has ability to encrypt the files on the device SD card and then demand a ransom from the victim

Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious money making schemes for cybercriminals and it was most likely to be known when last year Cryptolocker ransomware targeted millions of computers worldwide. Recently, security researchers at the Antivirus firm TrendLabs have unearthed another sophisticated variant of the ransomware malware which is employing  Windows PowerShell  in an effort to encrypt files on the victims' computer. The firm detected the variant as TROJ_POSHCODER.A . Windows PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. It provides full access to COM and WMI, enabling administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems as well as WS-Management and CIM enabling management of remote Linux systems and network devices. It is believed that cybercriminals have used this feature of Windows just in order to make

If you are dealing in cryptocurrency Bitcoin and have Microsoft's Security Essentials (MSE) installed on your system, then you could be infected by a virus called " DOS/STONED " from the Bitcoin BlockChain. With a number of high-profile cases of fraud, theft, and technical incompetence against the bitcoins, it seems like cyber criminals are looking to scam unsuspecting customers. Blockchain is Bitcoin's most popular bitcoin wallet and block explorer. It is a central part of the Bitcoin system that includes a log file in which all bitcoin transactions are recorded. It stores the wallet data in encrypted form and runs on privately owned dedicated hardware. In an discussion on the Microsoft discussion boards, a user go by the name ' edc678 ' claimed that  Microsoft's Security Essentials  is showing alerts of the signature of the STONED virus in the Bitcoin BlockChain, which could only allow an attacker to write small chunk of text to accomp