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If you're using Chrome on Android, you can now sign-in to your Google account and some of the other Google services by simply using your fingerprint, instead of typing in your password every time. Google is rolling out a new feature, called " local user verification ," that allows you to log in to both native applications and web services by registering your fingerprint or any other method you've set up to unlock your Android device, including pins, pattern or password. The newly introduced mechanism, which has also been named "verify it's you," takes advantage of Android's built-in FIDO2 certified security key feature that Google rolled out earlier this year to all devices running Android version 7.0 Nougat or later. Besides FIDO2 protocol, the feature also relies on W3C WebAuthn (Web Authentication API) and FIDO Client to Authenticator Protocol (CTAP), which are designed to provide simpler and more secure authentication mechanism that sit

If you are in Kazakhstan and unable to access the Internet service without installing a certificate, you're not alone. The Kazakhstan government has once again issued an advisory to all major local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) asking them to make it mandatory for all their customers to install government-issued root certificates on their devices in order to regain access to the Internet services. The root certificate in question, labeled as " trusted certificate " or " national security certificate ," if installed, allows ISPs to intercept and monitor users' encrypted HTTPS and TLS connections, helping the government spy on its citizens and censor content. In other words, the government is essentially launching a "man in the middle" attack on every resident of the country. But how installing a "root certificate" allow ISPs to decrypt HTTPS connection? For those unaware, your device and web browsers automatically trust digi

The need for vCISO services is growing. SMBs and SMEs are dealing with more third-party risks, tightening regulatory demands and stringent cyber insurance requirements than ever before. However, they often lack the resources and expertise to hire an in-house security executive team. By outsourcing security and compliance leadership to a vCISO, these organizations can more easily obtain cybersecurity expertise specialized for their industry and strengthen their cybersecurity posture. MSPs and MSSPs looking to meet this growing vCISO demand are often faced with the same challenge. The demand for cybersecurity talent far exceeds the supply. This has led to a competitive market where the costs of hiring and retaining skilled professionals can be prohibitive for MSSPs/MSPs as well. The need to maintain expertise of both security and compliance further exacerbates this challenge. Cynomi, the first AI-driven vCISO platform , can help. Cynomi enables you - MSPs, MSSPs and consulting firms

Security researchers have discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in a popular IPTV middleware platform that is currently being used by more than a thousand regional and international online media streaming services to manage their millions of subscribers. Discovered by security researchers at CheckPoint , the vulnerabilities reside in the administrative panel of Ministra TV platform, which if exploited, could allow attackers to bypass authentication and extract subscribers' database, including their financial details. Besides this, the flaws could also allow attackers to replace broadcast and steam any content of their choice on the TV screens of all affected customer networks. Ministra TV platform, previously known as Stalker Portal, is a software written in PHP that works as a middleware platform for media streaming services for managing Internet Protocol television (IPTV), video-on-demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT) content, licenses and their subscribers. Deve

Just like 'login with Google,' 'login with Facebook,' Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media site, you would now be able to quickly sign-up and log into third-party websites and apps using your Apple ID. What's the difference? Well, Apple claims that signing-in with Apple ID would protect users' privacy by not disclosing their actual email addresses to the 3rd-party services and also limiting personal information to the minimum necessary data. While announcing 'Sign in with Apple' today at WWDC, the company revealed that the feature has been designed to randomly generate a new unique email address for each different service a user sign-up with, and will forward all emails to your primary email ID, internally. "It [randomly generate emails] is a smart jab against spam: Not only will you be able to turn off spammy email more easily, but you'll also be able to see who exactly is sharing and selling your email widely when that random a

After Facebook and Twitter, Google becomes the latest technology giant to have accidentally stored its users' passwords unprotected in plaintext on its servers—meaning any Google employee who has access to the servers could have read them. In a blog post published Tuesday, Google revealed that its G Suite platform mistakenly stored unhashed passwords of some of its enterprise users on internal servers in plaintext for 14 years because of a bug in the password recovery feature. G Suite, formerly known as Google Apps, is a collection of cloud computing, productivity, and collaboration tools that have been designed for corporate users with email hosting for their businesses. It's basically a business version of everything Google offers. The flaw, which has now been patched, resided in the password recovery mechanism for G Suite customers that allows enterprise administrators to upload or manually set passwords for any user of their domain without actually knowing their

A team of security researchers at Microsoft discovered a potentially serious vulnerability in the Bluetooth-supported version of Google's Titan Security Keys that could not be patched with a software update. However, users do not need to worry as Google has announced to offer a free replacement for the affected Titan Security Key dongles. In a security advisory published Wednesday, Google said a "misconfiguration in the Titan Security Keys Bluetooth pairing protocols" could allow an attacker who is physically close to your Security Key (~within 30 feet) to communicate with it or the device to which your key is paired. Launched by Google in August last year, Titan Security Key is a tiny low-cost USB device that offers hardware-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for online accounts with the highest level of protection against phishing attacks. Titan Security Key, which sells for $50 in the Google Store, includes two keys—a USB-A security key with NFC, and a

Google is giving you more control over how long you want the tech company to hold on to your location history and web activity data. Google has introduced a new, easier, privacy-focused auto-delete feature for your Google account that will allow you to automatically delete your Location History and Web and App Activity data after a set period of time. Google's Location History feature, if enabled, allows the company to track locations that you have visited, while Web and App Activity tracks websites you have visited and apps you have used. Until now, Google allowed you to either altogether disable the Location History and Web and App Activity feature or manually delete all or part of that data, providing no controls for regular deletion so that users can manage their data efficiently. However, an AP investigation last year revealed that even if you turn off the Location History feature in all your accounts, Google services on Android and iPhone devices continue to trac

A team of security researchers has claims to have found a publicly-accessible database that exposes information on more than 80 million U.S. households—nearly 65 percent of the total number of American households. Discovered by VPNMentor's research team lead by hacktivists Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, the unsecured database includes 24GB of extremely detailed information about individual homes, including their full names, addresses, ages, and birth dates. The massive database which is hosted on a Microsoft cloud server also contains coded information noted in "numerical values," which the researchers believe correlates to homeowners' gender, marital status, income bracket, status, and dwelling type. Fortunately, the unprotected database does not contain passwords, social security numbers or payment card information related to any of the affected American households. The researchers verified the accuracy of some data in the cache, but they did not download the

Facebook expects to face a massive fine of up to $5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as the result of an investigation into its privacy policies—that's about one month's revenue for the social media giant. To be clear the amount of fine is not what the FTC has announced or hinted yet; instead, it's an estimated due that Facebook disclosed on Wednesday in its first quarter 2019 financial earnings report. In its earnings report, Facebook said the company had set $3 billion aside in anticipation of the settlement with the FTC, who launched a probe into Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica scandal . The probe centers around the violation of a 2011 agreement Facebook made with the FTC that required the social media to gain explicit consent from users to share their data. The FTC launched an investigation into Facebook last year after it was revealed that the company allowed Cambridge Analytica access to the personal data of around 50 million Face

Facebook has been caught practicing the worst ever user-verification mechanism that could put the security of its users at risk. Generally, social media or any other online service asks users to confirm a secret code or a unique URL sent to the email address they provided for the account registration. However, Facebook has been found asking some newly-registered users to provide the social network with the passwords to their email accounts, which according to security experts is a terrible idea that could threaten privacy and security of its users. First noticed by Twitter account e-Sushi using the handle @originalesushi, Facebook has been prompting users to hand over their passwords for third-party email services, so that the company can "automatically" verify their email addresses. However, the prompt only appears for email accounts from certain email providers which Facebook considers to be suspicious. "Tested it myself registering 3 times with 3 differe

Major data breaches and cyber attacks are occurring at an alarming rate, and if you are still not using a VPN and password manager app, you are seriously out of excuses. Not just VPN software and a password manager, cybersecurity experts also recommend using antivirus and backup solutions to protect your computers and precious data stored on them. Unfortunately, to cover these bases, one would typically have to spend at least $30 per month. However, here we have great news for millions of The Hacker News readers. Cybersecurity companies partnered with THN Deal Store have exclusively launched a new subscription package called — The Vault — that slashes the price for top security apps everyone needs to use. At just $9.99 monthly subscription, you can now get licenses for four award-winning cybersecurity apps: Dashlane Password Manager Panda Antivirus Software Degoo Online Backup — 2TB of Secure Cloud Storage NordVPN — One of the best VPN service providers in 2019

Holy moly, Facebook is again at the center of a new privacy controversy after revealing today that its platform mistakenly kept a copy of passwords for "hundreds of millions" users in plaintext. What's more? Not just Facebook, Instagram users are also affected by the latest security incident. So, if you are one of the affected users, your Facebook or Instagram password was readable to some of the Facebook engineers who have internal access to the servers and the database. Though the social media company did not mention exactly what component or application on its website had the programmatic error that caused the issue, it did reveal that the company discovered the security blunder in January this year during a routine security check. In a blog post published today, Facebook's vice president of engineering Pedro Canahuati said an internal investigation of the incident found no evidence of any Facebook employee abusing those passwords. "To be clear, t

Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed details of two newly identified Magecart attacks targeting online shoppers of bedding retailers MyPillow and Amerisleep . Magecart is an umbrella term researchers gave to at least 11 different hacking groups that are specialized in implanting malware code on e-commerce websites with an intent to steal payment card details of their customers silently. Magecart made headlines last year after attackers conducted several high-profile cyber attacks against major international companies including British Airways , Ticketmaster , and Newegg . Magecart hackers use a digital payment card skimmer, a few lines of malicious Javascript code they insert into the checkout page of hacked websites and designed to captured payment information of customers in real time and then send it to a remote attacker-controlled server. Earlier this year, Magecart attackers also compromised nearly 277 e-commerce websites in a supply-chain attack by inserting its

The non-profit organization behind TOR – the largest online anonymity network that allows people to hide their real identity online – has launched an early alpha version of Sandboxed Tor Browser 0.0.2 . Yes, the Tor Project is working on a sandboxed version of the Tor Browser that would isolate the Tor Browser from other processes of the operating system and limit its ability to interact or query low-level APIs that can lead to the exposure of real IP addresses, MAC addresses, computer name, and more. Sandboxing is a security mechanism for separating running programs. When an application is sandboxed, its process runs in a separate environment from the underlying operating system, so that errors or security issues in that application can not be leveraged to affect other parts of the OS. Sandbox applications are enabled in their own sequestered area and memory, where they can be worked on without posing any threat to other applications or the operating system. Major modern br

Another blow to the Tor Project : One of the Tor Project's earliest contributors has decided to quit the project and shut down all of the important Tor nodes under his administration. Lucky Green was part of the Tor Project before the anonymity network was known as TOR. He probably ran one of the first 5 nodes in the TOR network at its inception and managed special nodes inside the anonymity network. However, Green announced last weekend that "it is no longer appropriate" for him to be part of the Tor Project, whether it is financially or by providing computing resources. TOR, also known as The Onion Router , is an anonymity network that makes use of a series of nodes and relays to mask its users' traffic and hide their identity by disguising IP addresses and origins. The TOR network is used by privacy-conscious people, activists, journalists and users from countries with strict censorship rules. Crucial and Fast TOR Nodes to be Shut Down Soon Alongs

" Talent has no Age Limit " That's what I said for a 10-year-old Finnish boy on our official Facebook page while sharing his recent achievement with our readers i.e. Winning $10,000 bug bounty from Instagram . Last Tuesday when we at The Hacker News first acknowledged this talented boy and the flaw he discovered in image-sharing social network Instagram, I did not have an idea that the Facebook post would get an enormous response from our followers, encouraging me to introduce Jani to our website readers too. Those who aren't aware, Jani from Helsinki recently reported an Instagram bug to Facebook that allowed him to delete other Instagram users' comments just by entering a malicious code into the app's comment field. " I would have been able to eliminate anyone's comment from Instagram, even Justin Bieber, " Jani told a local newspaper. Jani responsibly disclosed the vulnerability details to Facebook, who owns Instagram, in February and

In Brief What if we could Predict when a cyber attack is going to occur before it actually happens and prevent it? Isn't it revolutionary idea for Internet Security? Security researchers at MIT have developed a new Artificial Intelligence-based cyber security platform, called ' AI2 ,' which has the ability to predict, detect, and stop 85% of Cyber Attacks with high accuracy. Cyber security is a major challenge in today's world, as government agencies, corporations and individuals have increasingly become victims of cyber attacks that are so rapidly finding new ways to threaten the Internet that it's hard for good guys to keep up with them. A group of researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are working with machine-learning startup PatternEx to develop a line of defense against such cyber threats. The team has already  developed an Artificial Intelligence system that can detect 85 percent of attacks by

In Brief Chrome apps and extensions make things easier, but they can also do terrible things like spy on web users and collect their personal data. But, now Google has updated its browser's User Data Policy requiring all Chrome extension and app developers to disclose what data they collect. Furthermore, developers are prohibited from collecting unnecessary browsing data and must also use encryption when handling sensitive information from users. Around 40 percent of all Google Chrome users have some kind of browser extensions, plugins or add-ons installed, but how safe are they? The company plans to enforce developers starting this summer, to "ensure transparent use of the data in a way that is consistent with the wishes and expectations of users." Google is making its Chrome Web Store safer for its users by forcing developers to disclose how they handle customers' data. Google's new User Data Policy will now force app developers, who use the Chrome We

Two Google engineers have developed a draft version of an API called WebUSB that would allow you to connect your USB devices to the Web safely and securely, bypassing the need for native drivers. WebUSB – developed by Reilly Grant and Ken Rockot – has been introduced to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Incubator Community Group (W3C WICG), is build to offer a universal platform that could be adopted by browser makers in future versions of their software. Connecting USB Devices to the Web WebUSB API allows USB-connected devices, from keyboards, mice, 3D printers and hard drives to complex Internet of Things (IoTs) appliances, to be addressed by Web pages. The aim is to help hardware manufacturers have their USB devices work on any platform, including Web, without having any need to write native drivers or SDKs for a dedicated platform. Besides controlling the hardware, a Web page could also install firmware updates as well as perform other essential tasks. Howev