Hacking Windows 8 | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A cybersecurity professional today demonstrated a long-known unpatched weakness in Microsoft's Azure cloud service by exploiting it to take control over Windows Live Tiles , one of the key features Microsoft built into Windows 8 operating system. Introduced in Windows 8, the Live tiles feature was designed to display content and notifications on the Start screen, allowing users to continuously pull up-to-date information from their favorite apps and websites. To make it easier for websites to offer their content as Live Tiles, Microsoft had a feature available on a subdomain of a separate domain, i.e., " notifications.buildmypinnedsite.com ," that allowed website admins to automatically convert their RSS feeds into a special XML format and use it as a meta tag on their websites. The service, which Microsoft had already shut down, was hosted on its own Azure Cloud platform with the subdomain configured/linked to an Azure account operated by the company. However,...

Microsoft has heavily criticized Google and its 90-days security disclosure policy after the firm publicly revealed two zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system one after one just days before Microsoft planned to issue a patch to kill the bugs. But, seemingly Google don't give a damn thought. Once again, Google has publicly disclosed a new serious vulnerability in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 before Microsoft has been able to produce a patch, leaving users of both the operating systems exposed to hackers until next month, when the company plans to deliver a fix. DISCLOSURE OF UNPATCHED BUGS, GOOD OR BAD? Google's tight 90-days disclosure policy seems to be a good move for all software vendors to patch their products before they get exploited by the hackers and cybercriminals. But at the same time, disclosing all critical bugs along with its technical details in the widely used operating system like Windows 7 and 8 doesn't appears to be a righ...

"A boxer derives the greatest advantage from his sparring partner…" — Epictetus, 50–135 AD Hands up. Chin tucked. Knees bent. The bell rings, and both boxers meet in the center and circle. Red throws out three jabs, feints a fourth, and—BANG—lands a right hand on Blue down the center. This wasn't Blue's first day and despite his solid defense in front of the mirror, he feels the pressure. But something changed in the ring; the variety of punches, the feints, the intensity – it's nothing like his coach's simulations. Is my defense strong enough to withstand this? He wonders, do I even have a defense? His coach reassures him "If it weren't for all your practice, you wouldn't have defended those first jabs. You've got a defense—now you need to calibrate it. And that happens in the ring." Cybersecurity is no different. You can have your hands up—deploying the right architecture, policies, and security measures—but the smallest gap in your defense could let an attacker land a kn...

Google has once again released the details of a new privilege escalation bug in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system before Microsoft planned to patch the bug, triggering a new quarrel between the two tech giants. This is second time in less than a month when the Google's security research team known as Project Zero released details of the vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system, following its 90-day public disclosure deadline policy. Google Project Zero team routinely finds vulnerabilities in different products from different companies. The vulnerabilities then get reported to the affected software vendors and if they do not patch the flaws in 90 days, Google automatically makes the vulnerability along with its details public. DISCLOSURE OF TWO SECURITY HOLES IN LESS THAN A MONTH Two weeks back, Google Project Zero team disclosed details of an elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability  affecting Windows 8.1 that may have allowed hackers to modify cont...