Antivirus | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

To improve performance and reduce crashes caused by third-party software on Windows, Google Chrome, by mid-2018, will no longer allow outside applications to run code within its web browser. If you are unaware, many third-party applications, like accessibility or antivirus software, inject code into your web browser for gaining more control over your online activities in order to offer some additional features and function properly. However, Google notes that over 15 percent of Chrome users running third-party applications on their Windows machines that inject code into their web browsers experience crashes—and trust me it's really annoying. But don't you worry. Google now has a solution to this issue. In a blog post published Thursday on Chromium Blog, Google announced its plan to block third-party software from injecting code into Chrome—and these changes will take place in three steps: April 2018 — With the release of Chrome 66, Google will begin informing use

Guess what's more expensive than counterfeit United States passports, stolen credit cards and even guns on the dark web? It's digital code signing certificates. A recent study conducted by the Cyber Security Research Institute (CSRI) this week revealed that stolen digital code-signing certificates are readily available for anyone to purchase on the dark web for up to $1,200. As you may know, digital certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign computer applications and software, and are trusted by your computer for execution of those programs without any warning messages. However, malware author and hackers who are always in search of advanced techniques to bypass security solutions have been abusing trusted digital certificates during recent years. Hackers use compromised code signing certificates associated with trusted software vendors in order to sign their malicious code, reducing the possibility of their malw

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

An anti-malware detection service provider and premium security firm has been accused of leaking terabytes of confidential data from several Fortune 1000 companies, including customer credentials, financial records, network intelligence and other sensitive data. However, in response to the accusations, the security firm confirmed that they are not pulling sensitive files from its customers; instead, it's up to companies—who are accidentally (but explicitly) sharing their sensitive data to leverage an optional cloud-based anti-malware service. On Wednesday, Information security firm DirectDefense published a blog post, claiming that they found a major issue with endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution offered by US-based company Carbon Black, alleging that the company is leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive files from its customers. Carbon Black is a leading incident response and threat hunting company that offers security products to nearly thirty of the larg

Microsoft is making every effort to make its Windows operating system more secure and advanced than ever before by beefing up its security practices and hardening it against hackers and cyber attacks in its next release. With the launch of its Windows 10 Creator Update (also known as RedStone 3), which is expected to release sometime between September and October 2017, Microsoft is planning to release lots of security features in an effort to prevent major global malware crisis. Just a few days ago, we reported about Microsoft's plan to build its EMET or Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit into the kernel of the upcoming Windows 10 to boost the security of your computer against complex threats such as zero-day vulnerabilities. Also, the tech giant has planned to remove the SMBv1 (Server Message Block version 1) — a 30-year-old file sharing protocol which came to light last month after the devastating WannaCry outbreak — from the upcoming Windows 10 (1709) Redstone 3

Russian antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab is so upset with US software giant Microsoft that the security firm has filed more antitrust complaints against the company. The antivirus firm initially filed a lawsuit late last year against Microsoft with Russian Federal Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) over alleged abuse of Microsoft's dominant position in the desktop market to push its own antivirus software with Windows 10 and unfair competition in the market. Microsoft ships Windows 10 with its own security software Windows Defender, which comes enabled it by default with the operating system. While Microsoft has made some changes in Windows Defender since the initial complaint, Kaspersky Lab is not satisfied with the changes, filing more antitrust complaints against the software giant, this time with the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office. Kaspersky Accuses Microsoft of Unfair Competitive Practices The antivirus firm told European antitrust regulators that Mi

Microsoft's own antivirus software made Windows 7, 8.1, RT and 10 computers, as well as Windows Server 2016 more vulnerable. Microsoft has just released an out-of-band security update to patch the crazy bad bug discovered by a pair of Google Project Zero researchers over the weekend. Security researchers Tavis Ormandy announced on Twitter during the weekend that he and another Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich discovered "the worst Windows remote code [execution vulnerability] in recent memory." Natalie Silvanovich also published a  proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code that fits in a single tweet. The reported RCE vulnerability , according to the duo, could work against default installations with "wormable" ability – capability to replicate itself on an infected computer and then spread to other PCs automatically. According to an advisory released by Microsoft, the remotely exploitable security flaw (CVE-2017-0290) exists in Microsoft

Many people believe that they are much less likely to be bothered by malware if they use a Mac computer, but is it really true? Unfortunately, No. According to the McAfee Labs , malware attacks on Apple's Mac computers were up 744% in 2016, and its researchers have discovered nearly 460,000 Mac malware samples, which is still just a small part of overall Mac malware out in the wild. Today, Malware Research team at CheckPoint have discovered a new piece of fully-undetectable Mac malware, which according to them, affects all versions of Mac OS X, has zero detections on VirusTotal and is "signed with a valid developer certificate (authenticated by Apple)." Dubbed DOK , the malware is being distributed via a coordinated email phishing campaign and, according to the researchers, is the first major scale malware to target macOS users. The malware has been designed to gain administrative privileges and install a new root certificate on the target system, which allows

Popular antivirus service Webroot mistakenly flagged core Windows system files as malicious and even started temporarily removing some of the legit files, trashing user computers around the world. The havoc caused after the company released a bad update on April 24, which was pulled after approximately 15 minutes. But that still hasn't stopped some PCs from receiving it, causing serious issues for not just individuals, but also companies and organizations relying on the software. Webroot even Blocked Facebook According to the reports by many customers on social media and Webroot's forum , hundreds and even thousands of systems were broken down after antivirus software flagged hundreds of benign files needed to run Windows and apps that run on top of the operating system. The faulty update even caused the antivirus to incorrectly block access to Facebook after flagging the social network service as a phishing website, preventing users from accessing the social netw

No More Ransom, so is the Ransomware Threat. Launched less than a year ago, the No More Ransom (NMR) project has increased its capacity with new partners and new decryption tools added to its now global campaign to combat Ransomware. Started as a joint initiative by Europol, the Dutch National Police, Intel Security and Kaspersky Lab, No More Ransom is an anti-ransomware cross-industry initiative to help ransomware victims recover their data without having to pay ransom to cyber criminals. The online website not just educates computer users to protect themselves from ransomware, but also provides a collection of free decryption tools. Since December, more than 10,000 victims from all over the world have been able to decrypt their locked up devices without spending a penny, using ransomware decryption tools available free of charge on this platform. Statistics show that most of the website visitors were from Russia, the Netherlands, the U.S., Italy, and Germany. The pla

Hackers targeted at least 8 ATMs in Russia and stole $800,000 in a single night, but the method used by the intruders remained a complete mystery with CCTV footage just showing a lone culprit walking up to the ATM and collecting cash without even touching the machine. Even the affected banks could not find any trace of malware on its ATMs or backend network or any sign of an intrusion. The only clue the unnamed bank's specialists found from the ATM's hard drive was — two files containing malware logs. The log files included the two process strings containing the phrases: "Take the Money Bitch!" and "Dispense Success." This small clue was enough for the researchers from the Russian security firm Kaspersky, who have been investigating the ATM heists, to find malware samples related to the ATM attack. In February, Kaspersky Labs reported that attackers managed to hit over 140 enterprises, including banks, telecoms, and government organizations, in th

Security researchers have discovered a new variant of Dridex – one of the most nefarious banking Trojans actively targeting financial sector – with a new, sophisticated code injection technique and evasive capabilities called " AtomBombing ." On Tuesday, Magal Baz, security researcher at Trusteer IBM  disclosed new research, exposing the new Dridex version 4, which is the latest version of the infamous financial Trojan and its new capabilities. Dridex is one of the most well-known Trojans that exhibits the typical behavior of monitoring a victim's traffic to bank sites by infiltrating victim PCs using macros embedded in Microsoft documents or via web injection attacks and then stealing online banking credentials and financial data. However, by including AtomBombing capabilities, Dridex becomes the first ever malware sample to utilize such sophisticated code injection technique to evade detection. What is "AtomBombing" Technique? Code injection te

What could be more exciting for hackers than exploiting a vulnerability in a widely used software without having to struggle too much? One such easy-to-exploit, but critical vulnerability has been discovered in ESET's antivirus software that could allow any unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code with root privileges on a Mac system. The critical security flaw, tracked as CVE-2016-9892, in ESET Endpoint Antivirus 6 for macOS was discovered by Google Security Team's researchers Jason Geffner and Jan Bee at the beginning of November 2016. As detailed in the full disclosure , all a hacker needs to get root-level remote code execution on a Mac computer is to intercept the ESET antivirus package's connection to its backend servers using a self-signed HTTPS certificate, put himself in as a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacker, and exploit an XML library flaw. The actual issue was related to a service named esets_daemon, which runs as root. The service

Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years, so rapidly that it might have already hit you or someone you know. With hundred of thousands of ransomware variants emerging every day, it is quite difficult for traditional signature-based antivirus tools 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? The solution is RansomFree . Boston-based cyber security firm Cybereason has released RansomFree — a real-time ransomware detection and response software that can spot most strains of Ransomware before it starts encrypting files and alert the user to take action. RansomFree is a free standalone product and is compatible with PCs running Windows 7, 8 and 10, as well as Windows Server 2010 R2 and 2008 R2. Instead of regularly updated malware signatures to fight the bad programs, RansomFree uses "behavioral and proprietary deception" techniques to detect ne

How many Internet-connected devices do you have in your home? I am surrounded by around 25 such devices. It's not just your PC, smartphone, and tablet that are connected to the Internet. Today our homes are filled with tiny computers embedded in everything from security cameras, TVs and refrigerators to thermostat and door locks. However, when it comes to security, people generally ignore to protect all these connected devices and focus on securing their PCs and smartphones with a good antivirus software or a firewall application. What if any of these connected devices, that are poorly configured or insecure by design, get hacked? It would give hackers unauthorized access to your whole network allowing them to compromise other devices connected to the same network, spy on your activities and steal sensitive information by using various sophisticated hacks. There have already been numerous cases of attackers hacking home appliances, industrial control, automotive, medic

If you have visited any popular mainstream website over the past two months, your computer may have been infected — Thanks to a new exploit kit discovered by security researchers. Researchers from antivirus provider ESET released a report on Tuesday stating that they have discovered an exploit kit, dubbed Stegano , hiding malicious code in the pixels of banner advertisements that are currently in rotation on several high profile news websites. Stegano originally dates back to 2014, but since early October this year, cyber crooks had managed to get the malicious ads displayed on a variety of unnamed reputable news websites, each with Millions of daily visitors. Stegano derived from the word Steganography , which is a technique of hiding messages and content inside a digital graphic image, making the content impossible to spot with the naked eye. In this particular malvertising campaign, operators hide malicious code inside transparent PNG image's Alpha Channel, which def