Privacy | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

I think you'll agree with me when I say: It's quite hard to maintain anonymity on the Internet using the slow Tor network. Or is it? Well, it turns out, you may soon boost your online anonymity dramatically with the help of a new high-speed anonymity network. A group of six academics have developed a Tor network alternative for users that allows high-speed anonymous web surfing, reinforcing the privacy of Internet users worldwide. The network is dubbed: HORNET: High-speed Onion Routing at the Network Layer Many anonymising networks, including The Onion Router (or TOR) network, are often slow because the data passing through the networks is encrypted a many numbers of times. However, the high-speed onion routing network HORNET is capable of handling anonymous traffic at speeds of more than 93 Gbps  while maintaining privacy. The new anonymous network is built by researcher Chen Chen of Carnegie Mellon University , along with Daniele Enri

Anonymity is something that seems next to impossible in this era of government surveillance. Even Tor and VPNs are no longer seem to be enough to protect user privacy. Once your IP address is discovered, your Game Over! However, a method have been devised that not only allow users to anonymously connect to public Wi-Fi network, but also let them connect from about 2.5 Miles away . Security researcher Benjamin Caudill has developed a device that adds an extra layer of anonymity to whistleblowers, journalists, dissidents and, of course, criminals. Dubbed ProxyHam , it's a " hardware proxy " that allows users to connect to a long-distance public Wi-Fi network over an unidentifiable low-frequency radio channels, making it more difficult for government agencies and spies to unearth the real identity and source of the Internet traffic. How Proxyham is made?  Proxyham is comprised of a WiFi-enabled Raspberry Pi computer , along with a three antennas setu

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released its annual report card of tech companies for 2015 based upon how much they keep your personal data secure from government snoops. And the Worst Companies Award goes to… At&T WhatsApp Verizon Yes, you heard right! WhatsApp is one of the three worst companies at protecting its users' data so if you are concerned about your data privacy, you should think twice before using WhatsApp. The EFF released its latest Who Has Your Back report based on 5 basic criteria that included: Follows Industry Accepted Best Practices Tells Users About Government Data Demands Discloses Policies on Data Retention Discloses Government Content Removal Requests Pro-user Public Policy: opposes backdoors The prominent privacy advocacy group analysed 24 companies in total, and among them AT&T, Verizon and WhatsApp came out to be the worst companies at protecting its users' data. Where Verizon met two criteria of the EFF&#

It has been known from year 2013 that commands we have been whispering to Siri are being stored on Apple servers for up to two years for analysis, but this news might be the most shocking development yet. Apple admits that its Siri — an intelligent personal assistant for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices — is collecting and also transmitting users voice data to 3rd party companies, which was disclosed in an unsurprising revelation two weeks back on Reddit. FallenMyst , a Reddit user claimed to had recently started a new job with a company called Walk N' Talk Technologies, where job profile requires her to listen voice data collected from Apple, Microsoft users and check for incorrect interpretations. " I get to listen to sound bites [sic] and rate how the text matches up with what is said in an audio clip and give feedback on what should be improved. " Fallenmyst wrote. " Guys, I'm telling you, if you've said it to your phone, it's been recorded…and

Biometric security systems that involve person's unique identification (ID), such as Retinal, IRIS, Fingerprint or DNA, are still evolving to change our lives for the better even though the biometric scanning technology still has many concerns such as information privacy, and physical privacy. In past years, Fingerprint security system , which is widely used in different applications such as smartphones and judicial systems to record users' information and verify person's identity, were bypassed several times by various security researches, and now, IRIS scanner claimed to be defeated . Don't worry! It's not like how they do it in movies, where an attacker needs to pull authorized person's eye out and hold it in front of the eye scanner. Instead, now hackers have finally found a simple way to bypass IRIS Biometric security systems using images of the victims. The same security researcher Jan Krissler , nicknamed Starbug , from the famous Chaos Co

Do you know, apart from United States National Security Agency (NSA) , Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and law enforcement, a few advertising companies are also monitoring unsuspecting users' cell phone data with the help of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) called Drones. Yes it's True! A Singapore-based advertising firm AdNear , which described itself as "the leading location intelligence platform," is using a number of small drones flying around the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles since early February in order to track Wi-Fi and cellular transmission signals. ADNEAR DRONES TRACKS YOU EVERYWHERE The drones have ability to sniff out device' cellular or wireless Internet signals, which is then identify by device ID. Using this gathered information, the drones track each and every movements and behaviors of individual users. Generally, the reason behind spying on people's cell phone signals is the company's interest to deliver hyper-targe

Is Your Smart TV Spying On You?  You just need to make sure you don't hold any private conversations in front of the internet-connected TV. IS SMART TV GETTING TOO SMART? Smart TVs are connected to the Internet, and they are capable of collecting and transmitting our data. Samsung's Smart TV uses voice recognition technology to enable voice commands, but its privacy policy defined by the company says " if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be captured and transmitted to a third party. " In other words, Samsung's Voice Recognition feature is always listening you, unless you deactivate it. So these internet-enabled smart devices can be exploited to reveal a wealth of personal. " In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. " Samsung S

Back in November, Mozilla teamed-up with Tor Project under a new initiative called Polaris , in order to help reduce finite number of Tor connections occurring at the same time by adding high-capacity Tor middle relays to the Tor network , and now the company is ready with its first Tor Middle relays. The Firefox maker has given the Tor network a high-capacity middle relays with the launch of 12 relays , all located in the United States, that will help distribute user traffic; the Tor browser is a great way to keep prying eyes from tracking you. Mozilla is one of the most trusted companies on the internet, particularly when it comes to user privacy. The partnership of Mozilla and Tor aimed at providing more privacy features to Firefox browser, and increased Tor network support. The Polaris Privacy Initiative was an effort of Mozilla, the Tor Project and the Center of Democracy and Technology — an advocacy group for digital rights, in order to help build more privacy

We are all aware of the mass surveillance conducted by the government agencies on us. From our phone calls, emails to web activities, chats and social network activities, everything has been interrupted by the law enforcements. And now they have crossed every limits by using a new way to spy on you. Guess What? Dozens of US law enforcement agencies are quietly taking advantage of the technology that allows them to effectively "see" through walls of buildings to monitor people's activity . This has once again raised privacy questions. Privacy has become just a word as there's nothing private left, not even our homes. According to a recent report from USA Today , over 50 law enforcement agencies, including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Marshals, have secretly been using the new radars for the past two years, but it came to light just last month during a court hearing in Denver . The device, dubbed Range-R , sends out radio waves that can d

Are you worried about your privacy? Its Obvious because of a Hacker or the government could be snooping in your emails, voice or video calls. The Famous Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom , who introduced legendary Megaupload and Mega file sharing services to the World, has now released its latest encrypted communication software for video calling, messaging and chat. Kim Doctom's file-sharing site Mega has launched the public beta of its end-to-end encrypted video and audio chat service called " MegaChat ", which the company says gives better protection than alternatives such as Skype and Google Hangouts. MegaChat is currently free to use and right now just provides browser-based audio and video calls, but Mr. Dotcom said on Twitter "Text chat and video conferencing will follow soon," HOW TO USE MEGACHAT Create a Mega account. Simply log in via the web browser and click on the Conversations icon provided on the left-hand side  Contacts will need their own M

Your Instagram is not as Private as You Think. Millions of private Instagram photos may have been exposed publicly on the web until the company patched a privacy hole this weekend. Instagram team was unaware of a security vulnerability from long time which allowed anyone with access to an image's URL to view the photo, even those shared by users whose accounts are set to "private." In other words, If a private user shares an Instagram post with another service, such as Twitter or Facebook as part of the upload process, that shared photo will remain viewable to the public despite its privacy settings. The flaw was first reported by  David Yanofsky  at Quartz and Instagram acknowledged the issue last week before patching the flaw. In a statement to Quartz, an Instagram representative said: ' If you choose to share a specific piece of content from your account publicly, that link remains public but the account itself is still private, ' The Instagram vulnera

A critical, but easily exploitable personal information disclosure vulnerability has been discovered in the widely popular online marketplace AliExpress website that affects its millions of users worldwide. The reported vulnerability could allow anyone to steal personal information of hundreds of millions of AliExpress users without knowing their account passwords. AliExpress is an online marketplace owned by Chinese E-Commerce giant Alibaba.com , which offers more than 300 Million active users from more than 200 countries and regions to order items in bulk or one at a time at low wholesale prices. Amitay Dan , an Israeli application security researcher working at Cybermoon.cc, reported the vulnerability to The Hacker News after providing full disclosure of the flaw to the AliExpress team and Israeli media. According to the Proof-of-Concept video and screenshots provided by the security researcher to The Hacker News , AliExpress website allows logged in user to add

The popular ride-sharing service Uber has been hit by various controversies lately, but now the things gone even worse for the company when a security researcher made a worrying discovery this week and claims, " Uber's app is literally malware. " The ride-hailing company is in disputes of handling privacy of its customers data. A Phoenix-based security researcher Joe Giron found that a surprising amount of users' data is being collected by the company's mobile application for Android. Researcher, who runs a cyber security firm in Arizona , just reverse-engineered the code of Uber's Android application and come to the conclusion that it is a malware. He discovered that the app " calls home " and sends data back to the company. But this excessive amount of access to users' data is not the sort of app data a taxi company should have access to in the first place. It really seems strange and unnecessary to collect. " Christ man! Why the hell woul

Like Facebook and Google, Twitter will soon be collecting your smartphone data in order to provide a " more personal Twitter experience " by serving targeted advertisements. The popular microblogging service Twitter said Wednesday that it will start collecting information about the other applications its users have installed onto their smartphones or tablet in a bid to better target ads and content, which some users may consider as another threat to their online privacy. In the Security and Privacy section of its support site, Twitter says that it will be " collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in ." The company has updated its app with this new feature for iOS platform on Wednesday, and Android will integrate this new feature in the next week. The app update is opt-out , which means Twitter will start collecting information from users aut

China's number one — and the world's 3rd largest — smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi , which is trying to make inroads into India's booming mobile phone market, was found secretly sending users' personal data , including IMEI numbers, phone numbers and text messages to the web servers back to Beijing in China. INDIA AND TAIWAN vs XIAOMI This issue raised higher concerns across many countries, proactively in India, Singapore and Taiwan. The Indian Air Force (IAF) — among the largest in the world — warned its employees and their belongings that their private information was being shipped over to servers in China, and asked them to avoid using Xiaomi smartphones due to security risk. Taiwanese Government underlined similar concerns before Xiaomi's launch in India. Xiaomi is facing an investigation in Taiwan for alleged cyber security threat, as a result of which last month the Taiwanese government decided to ban the company due to several privacy controversies. When i

Apple's latest desktop operating system, known as Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite , sends location and search data of users without their knowledge to Apple's remote servers by default whenever a user queries the desktop search tool Spotlight, which questions users' privacy once again. The technology firm faced criticism on Monday when users came to know about the company's About Spotlight & Privacy which clearly states that anyone who uses the Spotlight feature in either Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or its newly launched mobile operating system iOS 8 will have their location and search information passed back to Apple's servers to process. APPLE COLLECTS USERS' DATA AND FORWARDS IT TO MICROSOFT AS WELL On one hand, where Apple decided to enable hard drive encryption by default, despite the FBI requests not to do so. But on the other, the company is itself putting its users' privacy on risk. The same data Apple collects from the users' searched te

Lots of Linux distributions are offered free of cost on the Internet by a number of companies, non-commercial organizations and by many individuals as well, and now, the notorious Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has announced their own Linux distribution known as SEANux . A Linux distribution is a coordinated collection of software consisting of a customized version of the kernel together with hundreds of open source (i.e., free) utilities, installers, programming languages and application programs. Some of the most popular distributions are Fedora (formerly Red Hat), SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Kali Linux, Tails OS and Mint Linux. SEA (Syrian Electronic Army) is the same group of hackers who made the headlines in past year by launching advance phishing attacks against media organisations, usually Western media outlets. The group is reportedly aligned with president Bashar al-Assad and had purposely targeted social media accounts of a number of high-profile media outlets inclu