Hacker News | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

At Black Hat security conference this year Cody Brocious demonstrated that How a simple Dry erase marker allows him to open an Onity hotel room door lock with an Arduino, which is totally James Bond. This is just kind of scary on multiple levels, the least being that dry erase markers are one of the most ordinary, non-suspicious objects we can think of. Watch the video below and be afraid – be very afraid. It has been refined to such a state where there are no dangling bits that come out of the marker, with a tip that looks totally normal sans any wires. All you need to do is touch the tip of the market to the door port, and you would have gained entry without mentioning a secret password. The story didn't stop there with Onity, the electronic door specialist in question, stepping in to introduce several measures to secure the doors. Brocious created a proof-of-concept device to show to security experts and press, but it was a bit crude. In order to build and test all of this yoursel

A group of hackers identifying itself as " Ghost Shell " said that he has leaked some 120,000 pieces of information from 100 universities across the globe including Harvard University and the University of Cambridge.  Today reports says that Servers at the University of Tokyo and four other major universities in Japan have apparently been attacked by hackers, and same hacker release IDs and passwords from databases. Officials at the University of Tokyo confirmed that the e-mail addresses, names and telephone numbers of people who appear to be students and professors were leaked. The information was stored on four computer servers at the university. The university has closed the sites from which the information was stolen. Officials at Kyoto and Tohoku universities said they had not confirmed whether personal information had been leaked. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has launched an investigation into the domestic cases following consul

Follow this real-life network attack simulation, covering 6 steps from Initial Access to Data Exfiltration. See how attackers remain undetected with the simplest tools and why you need multiple choke points in your defense strategy. Surprisingly, most network attacks are not exceptionally sophisticated, technologically advanced, or reliant on zero-day tools that exploit edge-case vulnerabilities. Instead, they often use commonly available tools and exploit multiple vulnerability points. By simulating a real-world network attack, security teams can test their detection systems, ensure they have multiple choke points in place, and demonstrate the value of networking security to leadership. In this article, we demonstrate a real-life attack that could easily occur in many systems. The attack simulation was developed based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework, Atomic Red Team,  Cato Networks ' experience in the field, and public threat intel. In the end, we explain why a holistic secur

IRAN state official has said that Cyber attackers have targeted Iranian infrastructure and communications companies, disrupting the Internet across the country. " Yesterday we had a heavy attack against the country's infrastructure and communications companies which has forced us to limit the Internet ," Iran the world's no. 5 oil exporter, has tightened cyber security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes was planted by arch-adversaries Israel or the United States. Last week, the Islamic republic cut citizens' access to Gmail and the secure version of Google Search. Gmail has since been restored. Since sites such as Youtube and Facebook were used to organise mass anti-government protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2009, the Iranian government has maintained one of the world's largest internet filters, blocking access to thousands of sites and IP address

Researchers have discovered a new type of Man-in-the-Browser (MItB) attack that is Website independent, and does not target specific Websites, but instead collects data submitted to all sites. Trusteer have discovered a new Man in the Browser (MitB) scam that can collects data submitted to all websites without the need for post-processing. According to Trusteer's CTO Amit Klein: " In comparison, uMitB does not target a specific web site. Instead, it collects data entered in the browser at all websites and uses "generic" real time logic on the form submissions to perform the equivalent of post-processing. This attack can target victims of new infections as well as machines that were previously infected by updating the existing malware with a new configuration. The data stolen by uMitB malware is stored in a portal where it is organized and sold ." In a YouTube video, the company demonstrated how the attack could happen. The video showed how a user could enter personal a

A new group of hackers, known as Bangladesh Hackers group called " 3xp1r3 cyber army "  has emerged from a collection of Arab countries and it looks like their call to cyber arms is based upon the controversial Nakoula Basseley film, Innocence of Muslims. They deface more than 1000 websites to show their protest against the movie. Hackers write message on deface page," Islam means Peace. We, the Muslims want peace all over the world. But you don't want to be stay in peace. Don't think us weak. We are more more and more stronger than you that you cannot imagine. By creating this video you have just insulted our "Islam" and our beloved Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) and break the peace between you and us. Now we are in your cyber space to destroy it. We will hit you until you stop hitting us and want marcy for your did. " Recently the six major American banks suffered denial-of-service attacks, in which  " Mrt. Izz ad-Din alQasssam Cyber Fighters 

Computer hackers claiming to be from the Anonymous network took over the official website of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare. The attacks come just days after police on Monday raided a Stockholm-based webhosting company, PRQ, and a video was posted on YouTube - allegedly made on behalf of the hacker group Anonymous - warning Swedish authorities of repercussions. Hacktivist network Anonymous has warned that Sweden's Riksbank will suffer a cyber-attack on Wednesday night.  " It's come to our attention that Swedish government raided PRQ servers in order to shut down numerous file sharing and torrent websites ," " This has gone too far. This is unacceptable. Anonymous says this stops right now. You don't fuck with The Internet… Today we hit their wallets hard. "  wrote the Anonymous group on 4chan. The Riksbank is taking the threat seriously: " We recognize this as a public threat against websites and we are always trying to keep the web as safe as possible. We have

" Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer ." From last 3 months Google users were surprised to see this unusual notification at the top of their Gmail inbox, Google home page or Chrome browser. These warnings are not being shown because Google's internal systems have been compromised or because of a particular attack. " The company said that since it started alerting users to malicious probably state-sponsored activity on their computers in June, it has picked up thousands more instances of cyberattacks than it anticipated. "  NYtimes said. Google will now start sending out these messages to tens of thousands more people, as its methods for detecting suspicious activity have improved. Mike Wiacek, a manager on Google's information security team, said that since then, Google has improved its knowledge on attack methods and the groups behind them, and has started pushing out new alerts on Tuesday - as evidenced b

Blue Coat systems has undertaken detailed research into the use of 'malnets' by criminals to help support their various attacks in order to uncover the best ways to take down these systems. Botnet infections are commonly spread though compromised websites seeded with malicious scripts and promoted via black hat SEO tactics such as link farms. These malware networks, or malnets, pose a growing threat, The company said the number of malnets now stands at more than 1,500, an increase of 300% in the past six months, and it expects they will be, "responsible for two-thirds of all malicious cyberattacks in 2012." According to Blue Coat, the largest known malnet is Shnakule, which has used up to 5,005 malicious hosts or servers at any given time, depending on the capabilities needed at any given moment by its operators. Blue Coat believes that Shnakule is controlled by a single gang, and it's been used to serve up just about every type of known attack, including &quo

Hacker groups that are against the controversial Cybercrime Prevention Law for its effect on the country's freedom of expression defaced 11 more government websites since 11 p.m. Monday A message which said, " Hacked by M4N1L4 PR1D3, PHILIPPINE CYBER ARMY AND -=TheFamilyPride=- ," appeared on the homepage of PNP's Police Community Relations Group (PCRG). "Private X" and "Anonymous Philippines" hacked websites of the Department of Interior and Local Government, the One-Stop Information Shop for Technologies in the Philippines of the Department of Science and Technology, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Philippine Nuclear Institute, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, Tourism website of the City of San Fernando, Optical Media Board, Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team, Department of Health's Smoke Free Philippines, Marina Industry Authority and the Maritime Training Council. The Twitter account of the Department of Social Welfare and Services was

More than 4.5 million DSL modems have been compromised as part of a sustained hacking campaign in Brazil, with the devices spreading malware and malicious web address redirects. According to the malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab in Brazil, Fabio Assolini. The vulnerability exploited by attackers allowed the use of a script to steal passwords and remotely access the configuration of modems. The attacks was described as " One firmware vulnerability, two malicious scripts, three hardware manufacturers, 35 malicious DNS servers, thousands of compromised ADSL modems, millions of victims. " According to Kaspersky, the Brazilian attackers sought to steal users' banking credentials by redirecting users to false versions of popular sites like Facebook or Google and prompting them to install malware. Some 40 DNS servers were set up outside Brazil too in order to serve forged requests for domain names belonging to Brazilian banks. Nakedsecurity writes,-- The first thing users ma

Roberto Suggi Liverani , founder of the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) New Zealand chapter discover a vulnerability in Cisco CallManager AKA Unified Communications Manager. It is a software-based call-processing system developed by Cisco Systems. He described on his blog " During a security review, I have found a quick way to perform PIN brute force attack against accounts registered with a Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager). " Researcher target the HTTP GET requests used by CallManager to initiate the login process. :  https://x.x.x.x/ccmpd/pdCheckLogin.do?name=undefined He Demonstrated the idea with Burp Suite (Penetration testing Framework). He showed the html form parameter used for login as shown below: https://x.x.x.x/ccmpd/login.do?sid=_sid_value_&userid=_userid_&pin=_PIN_ The sid token is required to perform the PIN brute force attack. So first get a valid sid token value and then you can brute force  userid and pin usin

The White House acknowledged Monday that one of its computer networks was hit by a cyber attack, but said there was no breach of any classified systems and no indication any data was lost. Including systems used by the military for nuclear commands were breached by Chinese hackers. A conservative newspaper that has been regularly critical of the Obama administration, called The Washington Free Beacon, first published the report on Sunday and said that the attackers were linked to the Chinese government. One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing's most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks. Disclosure of the cyber attack also comes amid heightened tensions in Asia, as the Pentagon moved two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups and Marine amphibious units near waters by Japan's Senkaku islands. The official called the incident a " spear-phishing " a

According to reports, some of the United States biggest financial institutions  including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Bancorp were hit by a series of cyber attacks last week, by a group claiming Middle Eastern ties, that caused Internet blackouts and delays in online banking. The banks suffered denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers barrage a website with traffic until it is overwhelmed and shuts down. Such attacks, while a nuisance, are not technically sophisticated and do not affect a company's computer network or, in this case, funds or customer bank accounts. Hacktivists, calling themselves " Mrt. Izz ad-Din alQasssam Cyber Fighters ," attacked Wells Fargo and posted on Pastebin that U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are next. The group said it had attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. It also pledged to continue to attack American credit and financial instit

A Romanian researcher - Radu Drăgușin  found that 100000 usernames and passwords of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was stored in plaint-text on a publicly accessible FTP server. According to him, on Sept. 18 he first discovered a log with usernames and passwords in plaintext, publicly available via IEEE's FTP server for at least a month. He informed them of his find yesterday, and evidently the organization is addressing the issue. On the FTP server, according Dragusin were the logfiles for the offers and ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org - Total data to approximately 376 million HTTP requests. Including 411,308 log entries with login and password in plain text. Among the users who's information was exposed are researchers at NASA, Stanford, IBM, Google, Apple, Oracle and Samsung. IEEE's membership of over 340,000 is roughly half American (49.8 percent as of 2011). " IEEE suffered a data breach which I discovered on September 18. For a few da

A security issue has been reported in phpMyAdmin, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system. The security issue is caused due to the distribution of a compromised phpMyAdmin source code package containing a backdoor, which can be exploited to e.g. execute arbitrary PHP code. One of the SourceForge.net mirrors, namely cdnetworks-kr-1, was being used to distribute a modified archive of phpMyAdmin, which includes a backdoor. This backdoor is located in file server_sync.php and allows an attacker to remotely execute PHP code. Another file, js/cross_framing_protection.js, has also been modified. SourceForge.Net is the world's largest open source software development website. A very large impact on the domestic users with this incident. The vulnerability has been cataloged as being a critical one. A screenshot as shown of a system containing a malicious backdoor that was snuck into the open-source phpMyAdmin package. On official website in issue &qu

Symantec is looking into claims more of its products' source code has been leaked online, following a similar incident earlier this year. This time source code from Norton Utilities 2006 was reportedly leaked on The Pirate Bay by Anonymous member STUN. " As you all see its fully 7z packed content, whats in it!? The loosely Source Code of Norton Utilities 2006 made by one of the worse security vendors on planet earth, Symantec! Also as many of you know this was planned back before Sabu was arrested. Yeah McAfee you suck too! " says the accompanying text. The security vendor then admitted its servers had been hacked, but maintained it was unlikely its customers were affected by the leak. Symantec said it was investigating it. "Symantec is one of the most visible targets in the world for cyber attacks on a daily basis. We take each and every claim very seriously and have a process in place for investigating each incident," a spokesperson said, in an emailed statement sent to

Clicking one wrong link can cause malicious code to execute, which could do anything from infecting your computer with malware to, apparently, wiping your phone data completely. At the Ekoparty security conference, researcher Ravi Borganokar demonstrated at the Ekoparty security conference in Argentina last week, that how a single line of HTML code could be used to run a factory reset or even clear the SIM card on certain Samsung phones. Malicious hackers can hide a code in a web page that will trigger a full factory reset of Samsung's best-selling Galaxy S3 smartphone, deleting contacts, photographs, music, apps and other valuable data. The devastating flaw lies in Samsung's dialling software, triggered by the tel protocol in a URL. It isn't applicable to all the company's Android handsets, but those that are vulnerable can have their PIN changed or be wiped completely just by visiting a web page or snapping a bad QR code, or even bonking up against the wrong wireless N

iPhone 5  is vulnerable to the same attack that successfully breached an iPhone 4S at the mobile Pwn2Own hacker contest held this week at the EUSecWest event in Amsterdam . As we reported that Joost Pol and Daan Keuper won the mobile Pwn2Own contest by compromising a fully patched iPhone 4S device and stealing contacts, browsing history, photos and videos from the phone. The vaunted security of the iPhone (4S) took an epic fail tumble during the event when they was able to build an exploit for a vulnerability in WebKit to beat Apple's code-signing features and the MobileSafari sandbox. The same bug is present in the iOS6 Golden Master development code base, which means iPhone 5 is  also vulnerable to the same exploit. Apple iPads and iPod Touch devices are also vulnerable. " We specifically chose this one because it was present in iOS 6, which means the new iPhone coming out today will be vulnerable to this attack ," Pol said. The duo won $30,000 for their effor

Oracle suffered with serious vulnerability in the authentication protocol used by some Oracle databases. This Flaw enable a remote attacker to brute-force a token provided by the server prior to authentication and determine a user's password. A researcher - Esteban Martinez Fayo, a researcher with AppSec tomorrow will demonstrate a proof-of-concept attack. Martinez Fayo and his team first reported the bugs to Oracle in May 2010. Oracle fixed it in mid-2011 via the 11.2.0.3 patch set, issuing a new version of the protocol. " But they never fixed the current version, so the current 11.1 and 11.2 versions are still vulnerable ," Martinez Fayo says, and Oracle has no plans to fix the flaws for version 11.1. The first step in the authentication process when a client contacts the database server is for the server to send a session key back to the client, along with a salt. The vulnerability enables an attacker to link a specific session key with a specific password hash. Th

Virgin Mobile customers beware: Your phone number is the key to your personal information. According to independent developer Kevin Burke, who warned Virgin Mobile USA customers about a glaring security hole in the phone company's account login protocol said, " If you are one of the six million Virgin subscribers, you are at the whim of anyone who doesn't like you. " Virgin Mobile USA users manage their account by logging in through an online portal, which requires a mobile number and a 6-digit pin. Once inside, customers can check their call records, change the handset associated with their number, and update their personal details. In a blog post on Monday, Kevin Burke detailed how the username and password system used by Virgin Mobile to let users access their account information, is inherently weak and open to abuse. " It is trivial to write a program that checks all million possible password combinations, easily determining anyone's PIN inside of one day