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Kernel Backdoor found in Gadgets Powered by Popular Chinese ARM Maker

Kernel Backdoor found in Gadgets Powered by Popular Chinese ARM Maker

May 12, 2016
How to Hack an Android device? It is possibly one of the most frequently asked questions on the Internet. Although it's not pretty simple to hack Android devices and gadgets, sometimes you just get lucky to find a backdoor access. Thanks to Allwinner, a Chinese ARM system-on-a-chip maker, which has recently been caught shipping a version of Linux Kernel with an incredibly simple and easy-to-use built-in backdoor. Chinese fabless semiconductor company Allwinner is a leading supplier of application processors that are used in many low-cost Android tablets, ARM-based PCs, set-top boxes, and other electronic devices worldwide. Simple Backdoor Exploit to Hack Android Devices All you need to do to gain root access of an affected Android device is… Send the text " rootmydevice " to any undocumented debugging process. The local privileges escalation  backdoor code for debugging ARM-powered Android devices managed to make its way in shipped firmware after fir
Subgraph OS — Secure Linux Operating System for Non-Technical Users

Subgraph OS — Secure Linux Operating System for Non-Technical Users

Mar 04, 2016
Information security and privacy are consistently hot topics after Edward Snowden revelations of NSA's global surveillance that brought the world's attention towards data protection and encryption as never before. Moreover, just days after Windows 10 's successful launch last summer, we saw various default settings in the Microsoft's newest OS that compromise users' privacy , making a large number of geeks, as well as regular users, migrate to Linux. However, the problem is that majority of users are not friendly to the Linux environment. They don't know how to configure their machine with right privacy and security settings, which makes them still open to hacking and surveillance. However, this gaping hole can be filled with a  Debian-based  Security-focused Linux operating system called Subgraph OS: A key solution to your Privacy Fear. Subgraph OS is a feather weighted Linux flavor that aims to combat hacking attacks easier, even on fai
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
NeoKylin: China's Linux OS that Seriously Looks Like Windows XP

NeoKylin: China's Linux OS that Seriously Looks Like Windows XP

Sep 25, 2015
Do You Know:  China has planned to eliminate all foreign Technologies and Services by 2020, just like Google and Facebook . And it seems China in some years would be an entirely independent IT economy; building homegrown Mobile and computer devices, Operating Systems, Applications, Browsers and almost everything existing in the IT ecosystem. Well, China was not at all happy when Microsoft finally announced the end of official support for Windows XP. At the time, Windows holded 91% of total market share, compared to just for Mac OS X and just 1% for Linux. However, China wasn't interested to pay either for extended support for Windows XP or for switching to Windows 8. So, they decided to develop their own Operating System. Yes, China has developed a Desktop Operating System named " NeoKylin " ( and ' Kylin ' in Chinese ), tagged as a substitute to Windows XP by Quartz , who got an opportunity to have a hands-on experience of its "community version" OS. NeoKylin
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Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Is This Security-Focused Linux Kernel Really UnHackable?

Is This Security-Focused Linux Kernel Really UnHackable?

Sep 19, 2015
Can you name which Operating System is most Secure ? ...Windows, Mac, Linux or any particular Linux Distribution? Yes, we get that! It's not an easy thing to pick. Besides Windows, Even the so-called ultra-secure Linux Distros were found to be vulnerable to various critical flaws in past years. Because, almost all Linux Distros use the same Kernel, and the most number of cyber attacks target the Kernel of an operating system. So, It doesn't matter which Linux distribution you use. The kernel is the core part an operating system, which handles all the main activities and enforces the security mechanisms to the entire operating system. Making an Operating System secure requires that vulnerabilities shall not exist in the Kernel, which is the communicating interface between the hardware and the user.  To overcome the above situation, Security Researchers, Mathematicians and Aviation gurus from Boeing and Rockwell Collins joined a team of dedicated NIC
Meet Linux's New Fastest File-System – Bcachefs

Meet Linux's New Fastest File-System – Bcachefs

Aug 22, 2015
First announced over five years ago, ex-Google engineer Kent Overstreet is pleasured in announcing the general availability of a new open-source file-system for Linux, called the Bcache File System (or Bcachefs ). Bcachefs is a Linux kernel block layer cache that aims at offering a speedier and more advanced way of storing data on servers. Bcachefs promises to provide the same performance and reliability as the consecrated EXT4 and XFS file systems while having features of the ZFS and Btrfs file systems . Features that Bcachefs Supports Bcachefs supports all the features of a modern file-system, including: Checksumming to ensure data integrity Compression to save space Caching for quick response Copy-on-Write (COW) that offers the ability for a single file to be accessed by multiple parties at once What's coming next for Bcachefs It seems that some of the features in Bcachefs are limited or missing, which includes: Snapshots Erasure codi
NetUSB Driver Flaw Exposes Millions of Routers to Hacking

NetUSB Driver Flaw Exposes Millions of Routers to Hacking

May 20, 2015
A simple but shockingly dangerous vulnerability has been uncovered in the NetUSB component, putting Millions of modern routers and other embedded devices across the globe at risk of being compromised by hackers. The security vulnerability, assigned CVE-2015-3036 , is a remotely exploitable kernel stack buffer overflow flaw resides in Taiwan-based KCodes NetUSB . NetUSB is a Linux kernel module that allows for users to flash drives, plug printers and other USB-connected devices into their routers so that they can be accessed over the local network. NetUSB component is integrated into modern routers sold by some major manufacturers including D-Link, Netgear, TP-Link, ZyXEL and TrendNet. The security flaw, reported by Stefan Viehbock of Austria-based SEC Consult Vulnerability Lab, can be triggered when a client sends the computer name to the server deployed on the networking device (TCP port 20005) in order to establish a connection. However, if a connecting comp
20-Year Old Vulnerability in LZO Compression Algorithm Went to Planet Mars

20-Year Old Vulnerability in LZO Compression Algorithm Went to Planet Mars

Jun 27, 2014
A 20 year old critical subtle integer overflow vulnerability has been discovered in Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO), an extremely efficient data compression algorithm that focuses on decompression speed, which is almost five times faster than zlib and bzip compression algorithms. Lempel-Ziv-Oberhumer (LZO) was developed in 1994 by Markus Oberhumer and currently it is one of the most popular and widespread compression algorithm used in the Linux kernel , some Samsung Android mobile devices, other embedded devices and several open-source libraries including OpenVPN, MPlayer2, Libav, FFmpeg. 20 YEAR OLD VULNERABILITY IN LZO ALGORITHM Don A. Bailey, founder and CEO of Lab Mouse Security, who disclosed the technical details of the buffer overrun vulnerability in LZO/LZ4 algorithm, explains that if an attacker carefully craft a piece of compressed data that would run malicious code when the software attempted to decompress it. According to advisory, if buffers of 16MB or more
Linux Kernel Vulnerable to Privilege Escalation and DoS Attack

Linux Kernel Vulnerable to Privilege Escalation and DoS Attack

Jun 07, 2014
Multiple flaws have been identified in Linux Kernel and related software could allow hackers to hack your Linux machines, shared hosting and websites hosted on them. PRIVILEGE ESCALATION VULNERABILITY IN LINUX KERNEL A privilege escalation vulnerability has been identified in the widely used Linux kernel that could allow an attackers to take the control of users' system. On Thursday, the most popular distributor of open source Linux OS, Debian warned about this vulnerability (CVE-2014-3153) in a security update, along with some other vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel that may lead to a denial of service attack. The most critical one is the flaw (CVE-2014-3153) discovered by Pinkie Pie which resides in the futex subsystem call of Linux Kernel 2.6.32.62/3.2.59/3.4.91/3.10.41/3.12.21/3.14.5 versions , leaving a queued kernel waiter on the stack, which can be exploited to potentially execute arbitrary code with kernel mode privileges. " Pinkie Pie discovered an
Latest Kali Linux 1.0.7 Offers Persistent Encrypted Partition on USB Stick

Latest Kali Linux 1.0.7 Offers Persistent Encrypted Partition on USB Stick

May 28, 2014
There is a good news for all Security researchers, Penetration testers and Hackers. The developers of one of the most advance open source operating system for penetration testing, ' KALI Linux ' have announced yesterday the release of its latest version of Kali Linux 1.0.7 with some interesting features. Kali Linux is an open source Debian-based distribution for penetration testing and forensics that is maintained and funded by Offensive Security, a provider of world-class information security training and penetration testing services. In the beginning of this year, Offensive Security released Kali Linux 1.0.6 with Kernel version 3.12, and also added the Self Destruct feature that allows Kali users to encrypt the full hard disk to make the data inaccessible in an emergency case by entering a secret password at boot time. This latest Kali Linux 1.0.7 version added some more features to the last version, along with many new penetration testing and hacking too
Pwn Pad Android device, Network hacking machine launched

Pwn Pad Android device, Network hacking machine launched

Feb 23, 2013
Security tools company Pwnie Express is making a network hacking focused Android device called the Pwn Pad . The device is based on the Google Nexus 7 specs, with USB-based Bluetooth, Ethernet and WiFi to gauge the security of a network beyond what Google's tablet can manage on its own. Pwn Pad  will be introduced at the RSA security conference in San Francisco next week and Pwnie Express is also releasing the Pwn Pad source code. This will allow hackers to download the software and get it up and running on other types of Android phones and tablets. " Every pen tester we know has a phone and a tablet and a laptop, but none of them has been able to do pen-testing from the tablet ," says Dave Porcello, Pwnie Express's CEO said to  wired . Most interesting part is that, first time the most popular wireless hacking tools like Aircrack-ng and Kismet introduced on an Android device.  The complete list of the tool available  in this suite are:  Wireless Tools: Aircrac
Ubuntu Linux is a spyware ?

Ubuntu Linux is a spyware ?

Dec 08, 2012
Creator of the GNU Project & Free Software Foundation's Leader Richard Stallman has called out Ubuntu as being "spyware". Why ?  Because the operating system sends data to Ubuntu maker Canonical when a user searches the desktop. How ? Due to the Amazon search capabilities that have been integrated into Ubuntu's  Unity desktop environment with the Dash. First introduced in Ubuntu 12.10. Surveillance Program ?  Stallman equates the Amazon search integration into the Ubuntu desktop as having installed surveillance code. He said, " Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) " Stallman's post , " The ads are not the core of the problem ," " The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it doe
New Linux Rootkit Attacks Internet Users

New Linux Rootkit Attacks Internet Users

Dec 02, 2012
Security researchers have discovered what appears to be an experimental Linux rootkit designed to infect its highly select victims during a classic drive-by website attack. The malware allows hackers to inject code directly in any infected web page. The new malware, discovered on November 13 of this year, was written especially for servers that run Debian Squeeze and NGINX, on 64 bits. About Rootkit :  Rootkit.Linux.Snakso.a is designed to infect the Linux kernel version 2.6.32-5-amd64 and adds an iframe to all served web pages by the infected Linux server via the nginx proxy.  Based on research, the rootkit may have been created by a Russia-based attacker. The recently discovered malware is very dangerous because it does not infect a specific website. It infects the entire server and this can endanger all websites hosted on that server. Drive-by-downloads expose web surfers to malicious code that attempt to exploit unpatched software vulnerabilities in the web visitor&#
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