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You probably have come across many websites that let you install browser extensions without ever going to the official Chrome web store. It's a great way for users to install an extension, but now Google has decided to remove the ability for websites to offer "inline installation" of Chrome extensions on all platforms. Google announced today in its Chromium blog that by the end of this year, its Chrome browser will no longer support the installation of extensions from outside the Web Store in an effort to protect its users from shady browser extensions. "We continue to receive large volumes of complaints from users about unwanted extensions causing their Chrome experience to change unexpectedly — and the majority of these complaints are attributed to confusing or deceptive uses of inline installation on websites," says ​James Wagner, Google's extensions platform product manager. Google's browser extensions crackdown will take place in three ph...

Lenovo has recently rolled out security patches for a severe vulnerability in its Fingerprint Manager Pro software that could allow leak sensitive data stored by the users. Fingerprint Manager Pro is a utility for Microsoft Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 operating systems that allows users to log into their fingerprint-enabled Lenovo PCs using their fingers. The software could also be configured to store website credentials and authenticate site via fingerprint. In addition to fingerprint data, the software also stores users sensitive information like their Windows login credentials—all of which are encrypted using a weak cryptography algorithm. According to the company, Fingerprint Manager Pro version 8.01.86 and earlier contains a hard-coded password vulnerability, identified as CVE-2017-3762 , that made the software accessible to all users with local non-administrative access. "Sensitive data stored by Lenovo Fingerprint Manager Pro, including users' Windows logon credentials...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

If you receive an email that looks like it's from one of your friends, just beware! It's possible that the email has been sent by someone else in an attempt to compromise your system. A security researcher has discovered a collection of vulnerabilities in more than 30 popular email client applications that could allow anyone to send spoofed emails bypassing anti-spoofing mechanisms. Discovered by security researcher Sabri Haddouche , the set of vulnerabilities, dubbed MailSploit , affects Apple Mail (macOS, iOS, and watchOS), Mozilla Thunderbird, several Microsoft email clients, Yahoo Mail, ProtonMail, and others. Although most of these affected email client applications have implemented anti-spoofing mechanisms, such as DKIM and DMARC, MailSploit takes advantage of the way email clients and web interfaces parse "From" header. Email spoofing is an old-school technique, but it works well, allowing someone to modify email headers and send an email with the fo...

There is terrible news for all OnePlus lovers. Your OnePlus handset, running OxygenOS—the company's custom version of the Android operating system, is collecting way more data on its users than it requires. A recent blog post published today by security researcher Christopher Moore on his website detailed the data collection practice by the Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone maker, revealing that OxygenOS built-in analytics is regularly sending users' telemetry data to OnePlus' servers. Collecting basic telemetry device data is a usual practice that every software maker and device manufacturers do to identify, analyse and fix software issues and help improve the quality of their products, but OnePlus found collecting user identification information as well. Moore simply started intercepting the network traffic to analyse what data his OnePlus device sends to its servers, and found that the data collected by the company included: User' phone number MAC addresse...

If you are an iPhone user and use Uber app, you would be surprised to know that widely popular ride-hailing app can record your screen secretly. Security researcher Will Strafach recently revealed that Apple selectively grants (what's known as an " entitlement ") Uber a powerful ability to use the newly introduced screen-recording API with intent to improve the performance of the Uber app on Apple Watch. The screen-recording API allows the Uber app to record user's screen information even when the app is closed, giving Uber access to all the personal information passing through an iPhone screen. What's more?  The company's access to such permission could make this data vulnerable to hackers if they, somehow, able to hijack Uber's software. "It looks like no other third-party developer has been able to get Apple to grant them a private sensitive entitlement of this nature," Strafach told Gizmodo , who first reported about the issue. ...

'Do I really need to give this website so much about me?' That's exactly what I usually think after filling but before submitting a web form online asking for my personal details to continue. I am sure most of you would either close the whole tab or would edit already typed details (or filled up by browser's auto-fill feature) before clicking 'Submit' — Isn't it? But closing the tab or editing your information hardly makes any difference because as soon as you have typed or auto-filled anything into the online form, the website captures it automatically in the background using JavaScript, even if you haven't clicked the Submit button. During an investigation, Gizmodo has discovered that code from NaviStone used by hundreds of websites, invisibly grabs each piece of information as you fill it out in a web form before you could hit 'Send' or 'Submit.' NaviStone is an Ohio-based startup that advertises itself as a service to u...

Quantum Computers – Boon or Bane? Quantum computers can perform operations much more quickly and efficiently even with the use of less energy than conventional computers, but that's bad news for encryption — a process which scrambles data according to a massively complex mathematical code. In theory, quantum computers can break almost all the existing encryption algorithms used on the Internet today due to their immense computing power. Quantum computers are not just in theories; they're becoming a reality. With countries like China that holds the top two position in the world's most powerful supercomputers (Sunway TaihuLight and Tianhe-2), followed by the United States' Titan, the day is not far when Quantum computers will work on an industrial scale. Although it's hard to move quantum computing to an industrial scale, it has become a matter of concern for the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the fact that...

If your computer's security relies on Windows BitLocker Hard Drive Encryption software, then Beware! Because anyone with physical access to your PC can still access your files within few seconds. All an attacker need to do is hold SHIFT+F10 during Windows 10 update procedure. Security researcher Sami Laiho discovered this simple method of bypassing BitLocker, wherein an attacker can open a command-line interface with System privileges just by holding SHIFT+F10 while a Windows 10 PC is installing a new OS build. The command-line interface (CLI) then grants the attacker full access to the computer's hard drive, even when the victim has enabled BitLocker disk encryption feature. Laiho explains that during the installation of a new build (Windows 10 upgrade), the operating system disables BitLocker while the Windows PE installs a new image of the main Windows 10 OS. "The installation [Windows 10 upgrade] of a new build is done by reimaging the machine and the im...

Almost 20,000 Tesco Bank customers have had their money stolen from their accounts after the banking arm of UK's biggest retailer fall victim to a hacking attack this weekend. As a result of the hack, Tesco Bank has frozen online transactions in an attempt to protect its customers from, what it described as, the " online criminal activity. " However, customers can still use their debit and credit cards for cash withdrawals and card-based payments. Tesco Bank has not disclosed any details of the cyber attack or how accounts had been compromised, but Benny Higgins, chief executive of Tesco, confirmed that the hack affected 40,000 of its 136,000 accounts, half of which had already been used to withdraw money fraudulently over the weekend. The bank would not disclose the total amount stolen from the accounts, but confirmed that the amount stolen was a " big number but not a huge number. " If you have been affected by this incident, don't worry! Higgins has apo...

Should you put a tape or a sticker over the lens of your laptop's webcam? Yes, even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and FBI Director James Comey do that. Covering your laptop's webcam might be a hell cheap and good idea to guard against hackers and intruders who might want to watch your private life and environment through your devices. In fact, Comey recently came out defending his own use of tape to cover his personal laptop's webcam. People Are Responsible for Their Safety, Security & Privacy During a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, when Comey was asked that he still put tape over his cameras at home, he replied: "Heck yeah, heck yeah. And also, I get mocked for a lot of things, and I am much mocked for that, but I hope people lock their cars… lock your doors at night. I have an alarm system. If you have an alarm system you should use it, I use mine." Comey went on to explain that it was common practice at ...

How many of you know the fact that your daily e-mails are passaged through a deep espionage filter? This was unknown until the whistleblower Edward Snowden broke all the surveillance secrets, which made privacy and security important for all Internet users than ever before. I often get asked "How to send encrypted email?", "How can I protect my emails from prying eyes?" and "Which is the best encrypted email service?". Although, there are a number of encryption tools that offers encrypted email service to ensure that no one can see what you are sending to someone else. One such tool to send encrypted emails is PGP ( Pretty Good Privacy ), an encryption tool designed to protect users' emails from snooping. However, setting up a PGP Environment for non-tech users is quite a difficult task, so more than 97% of the Internet users, including government officials, are still communicating via unencrypted email services i.e. Gmail, Ya...

The US government's $6 Billion firewall is nothing but a big blunder. Dubbed EINSTEIN , the nationwide firewall run by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not as smart as its name suggests. An audit conducted by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has claimed that the firewall used by US government agencies is failing to fully meet its objectives and leaving the agencies open to zero-day attacks. EINSTEIN, which is officially known as the US' National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS) and has cost $5.7 Billion to develop, detects only 6 percent of today's most common security vulnerabilities and failed to detect the rest 94 percent. How bad is EINSTEIN Firewall in reality? In a series of tests conducted last year, Einstein only detected 29 out of 489 vulnerabilities across Flash, Office, Java, IE and Acrobat disclosed via CVE reports published in 2014, according to a report [ PDF ] released by the GAO late las...

Some things online can never change like -- Terrible Passwords by Humans . When it's about various security measures to be taken in order to protect your Internet security, like installing a good anti-virus or running Linux on your system doesn't mean that your work gets over here, and you are safe enough from online threats. However, even after countless warnings, most people are continuously using deadly-simple passwords, like '123456' or 'password,' to safeguard their most sensitive data. Evidence suggests that weak passwords are as popular now as they ever were, and the top 25 passwords of 2015 are very easy to guess. Password management firm SplashData on Tuesday released its annual " Worst Passwords List ". The 2015 list almost resembled the 2014 list of the worst password, but there are some interesting new entries, including the Star Wars-inspired ' solo ,' and ' starwars .' Also Read:  Best Password Manager —...

A new research showed that Scripting languages, in general, give birth to more security vulnerabilities in web applications, which raised concerns over potential security bugs in millions of websites. The app security firm Veracode has released its State of Software Security: Focus on Application Development report ( PDF ), analyzing more than 200,000 separate applications from October 1, 2013, through March 31, 2015. The security researchers crawled popular web scripting languages including PHP, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, .NET, C and C++, Microsoft Classic ASP, Android, iOS, and COBOL, scanning hundreds of thousands of applications over the last 18 months. Also Read:  A Step-by-Step Guide — How to Install Free SSL Certificate On Your Website Researchers found that PHP – and less popular Web development languages Classic ASP and ColdFusion – are the riskiest programming languages for the Internet, while Java and .NET are the safest. Here's the Top 10 List: ...

Adobe is Finally Killing FLASH, but not actually. Adobe Flash made the Internet a better place with slick graphics, animation, games and applications, but it never stood a chance of surviving in the same world as HTML5. Of course, Flash has plagued with various stability and security issues , which is why developers had hated the technology for years. So, now it's time to say GoodBye to Adobe Flash Professional CC, and Welcome Adobe Animate CC . Meet the new Flash, Adobe Animate CC , same as the old Flash, and still insecure mess. Adobe Animate CC Embraces HTML5 Adobe has officially announced that "over a third of all content created in Flash Professional today uses HTML5," so the company is acknowledging the shift with the new name. Adobe Animate CC — Adobe's Premier Web animation tool for developing HTML5 content . Yes, that's what the company has the focus on. The application – mostly looks like an update to the Fla...

Recently, Chinese iOS developers have discovered a new OS X and iOS malware dubbed XcodeGhost that has appeared in malicious versions of Xcode, Apple's official toolkit for developing iOS and OS X apps. The hack of Apple's Xcode involves infecting the compiler with malware and then passing that malware onto the compiled software. This is a unique approach because the hack does not attempt to inject attack code into a single app, and then try and sneak that past Apple's automated and human reviewers. Instead, the malicious code is infected on Xcode itself, which is used by software developers to craft and develop the apps for iOS and OS X operating system. The primary behavior of XcodeGhost in infected iOS apps is to collect information on devices and upload that data to command and control (C2) servers. Once the malware has established a foothold on infected devices, it has the ability to phish user credentials via fake warning boxes, open specific URLs in a ...

Remember when it took only 13 characters to crash Chrome browser instantly? This time, it takes 16-character simple URL string of text to crash Google Chrome instantly. Yes, you can crash the latest version of Chrome browser with just a simple tiny URL. To do this, all you need to do is follow one of these tricks: Type a 16-character link and hit enter Click on a 16-character link Just put your cursor on a 16-character link Yes, that's right. You don't even have to open or click the malformed link to cause the crash, putting the cursor on the link is enough to crash your Chrome. All the tricks mentioned above will either kill that particular Chrome tab or kill the whole Chrome browser. The issue was discovered by security researcher Andris Atteka , who explained in his blog post that just by adding a NULL char in the URL string could crash Chrome instantly. Atteka was able to crash the browser with a 26 character long string, which is given b...

Just one day after Microsoft released its new operating system, over 14 Million Windows users  upgraded their PCs to Windows 10 . Of course, if you are one of the Millions, you should aware of Windows 10's Wi-Fi Sense feature that lets your friends automatically connects to your wireless network without providing the Wi-Fi password. Smells like a horrible Security Risk! It even triggered a firestorm among some security experts, who warned that Wi-Fi Sense is a terrible and dangerous feature and that you should disable it right away. Even some researchers advised Windows 10 users to rename their Wi-Fi access points. Before discussing the risks of Wi-Fi Sense, let's first know how it works. Also Read:  How to Fix 35+ Windows 10 Privacy Issues With Just One Click . How Windows 10 Wi-Fi Sense works? Windows 10 Wi-Fi Sense feature allows you to share your Wi-Fi password with your friends or contacts, as well as lets you automatically connect to netwo...