Vulnerability | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

It seems like there isn't any end to Android security flaws. After the discovery of the Stagefright vulnerability that allowed hackers to infect Millions of Android devices with just a maliciously-crafted message… Researchers have now warned of another critical security hole in Google's Android mobile operating system platform that impacts over 55 percent of all Android users . Security researchers at IBM have discovered a new privilege escalation vulnerability in the Android platform that could allow " a malicious app with no privileges the ability to become a 'super app' and help the cybercriminals own the device. " Dubbed the Android serialization vulnerability, assigned CVE-2015-3825 , affects Android versions 4.3 and above, including the latest build of Android M. The vulnerability resides in a component of Android's platform called OpenSSLX509Certificate , which can be exploited by an Android app to compromise the system_server process and gain powerful syste...

We have talked a lot about car hacking. Recently researchers even demonstrated how hackers can remotely hijack Jeep Cherokee to control its steering, brakes and transmission. Now, researchers have discovered another type of car hack that can be used to unlock almost every car or garage door. You only need two radios, a microcontroller and a battery, costing barely under $30, to devise what's called RollJam capable to unlock any car or garage at the click of a button, making auto hacking cars so simple that anyone can do it. The recent hack takes advantage of the same vulnerable wireless unlocking technology that is being used by the majority of cars manufacturers. These wireless unlocking systems are Keyless entry systems that enable the car owner to unlock his car just by pressing a button sitting at his workplace remotely ( within a range of 20 metres ). What RollJam does and How? RollJam steals the secret codes, called Rolling Code, that is gene...

Security researchers have developed a Flying Drone with a custom-made tracking tool capable of sniffing out data from the devices connected to the Internet – better known as the Internet-of-things. Under its Internet of Things Map Project , a team of security researchers at the Texas-based firm Praetorian wanted to create a searchable database that will be the Shodan search engine for SCADA devices. Located More Than 1600+ Devices Using Drone To make it possible, the researchers devised a drone with their custom built connected-device tracking appliance and flew it over Austin, Texas in real time. During an 18 minute flight, the drone found nearly 1,600 Internet-connected devices , of which 453 IoT devices are made by Sony and 110 by Philips. You can see the full Austin map here . How did They locate Internet of Things Devices? The researchers located all ZigBee-enabled smart devices and networks and then started expanding their research. "When [I...

Android users are busy fighting with Stagefright vulnerability while the popular mobile operating system faces another critical security vulnerability, dubbed as " Certifi-Gate ". Millions of Android devices could be hacked exploiting a plugin that comes pre-installed on your Android devices by the manufacturers. Most of the Android device manufacturers pre-install ' Remote Support Tool (mRST) ' plugin onto their phones that are intended to help users, such as RSupport or TeamViewer . But, a critical Certifi-Gate security vulnerability in this mRTS plugin allows malicious applications to gain illegitimate privileged access rights, even if your device is not rooted. "Certifi-Gate" Android security vulnerability According to Israeli researchers at Check Point, Ohad Bobrov and Avi Bashan, Certifi-Gate Android vulnerability lies in the way Google's partners (manufacturers) use certificates to sign remote support tools. Remote support tools often hav...

Earlier this week, Mozilla Security researcher Cody Crews discovered a malicious advertisement on a Russian news site that steals local files from a system and upload them to a Ukrainian server without the user ever knowing. The malicious advertisement was exploiting a serious vulnerability in Firefox's PDF Viewer and the JavaScript context in order to inject a script capable of searching sensitive files on user's local file systems . Mozilla versions of Firefox that do not contain the PDF Viewer, such as Firefox for Android, are not affected by the " Same origin violation and local file stealing via PDF reader " vulnerability. The exploit does not execute any arbitrary code but injects a JavaScript payload into the local file context, allowing the script to search for and upload potentially user's sensitive local files. All an attacker need to do is load the page with this exploit and sit back and relax. The exploit will silently steal files in t...

Gone are the days when you had to wait in a queue to get your Bank passbook updated. With the implementation of automated machines in Banks, it's now a game of seconds to update your passbook yourself. Bank Passbook is a copy of the customer's account in the books of the bank which includes client's current account balance and transaction details (deposits and withdrawals). But, Are these Automated Machines holding your Financial Information Hack-Proof? Last year, Major Indian Banks rolled out a barcode based passbook printers called ' Swayam ' which can be operated by customers themselves. 17-year-old Indian bug hunter, Indrajeet Bhuyan , found that the barcode technology used by more than 3000 Indian Banking Branches, including State Bank of India , UCO Bank and Canara Bank , is vulnerable to information disclosure. To use Swayam, the s elf-service passbook printing machine , the customers need just to feed their passbook into the machine, which will read the barcod...

Over a year ago I wrote an article on The Hacker News that warned of serious security concerns created by the iPhone and Android's Fingerprint authentication . Till now hackers were impersonated simply by lifting prints off the side of a phone and gaining unauthorized access to user's phone and thus data. However, security researchers have now discovered four new ways to attack Android devices to extract user fingerprints remotely without letting the user know about it. The attack, which the researchers dubbed the " Fingerprint Sensor Spying attack ," could be used by hackers to " remotely harvest fingerprints in a large scale, " Yulong Zhang, one of the researchers told ZDNet. Remotely Hacking Android Fingerprints FireEye researchers Tao Wei and Yulong Zhang presented their research in a talk titled, Fingerprints on Mobile Devices: Abusing and Leaking , at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, where they outlined new wa...

Poor Android users are facing a terrible, horrible, and awful week. Few days ago, Trend Micro security researchers uncovered a Android crashing vulnerability in the widely used mobile operating system, impacting the majority of Android devices in use. The report follows another significant Stagefright vulnerability that was revealed by separate researchers, who warned that nearly 950 Million Android phones can be hijacked by sending a simple text message or via malicious Android app or specially crafted web pages. EXPLOIT TO TRAP ANDROID DEVICES IN ENDLESS REBOOTS Now, the security researchers have discovered a dangerous security bug in the Android operating system that they claim can "brick" your phone, making it unresponsive and completely useless. The new vulnerability, CVE-2015-3823 , can be exploited by potential hackers to cause your Android device to endless Reboot, and is similar to the Stagefright bug in that the flaw exists in the 'media...

High-tech Sniper Rifles can be remotely hacked to shoot the wrong target – Something really scary and unpredictable. Yes, Hackers can remotely gain access to the $13,000 TrackingPoint sniper rifles that run Linux and Android operating system and have Wi-Fi connections. So then they can either disable the gun or choose a wrong target. A married pair of security researchers have proved that anything connected to the Internet can ultimately be hacked, whether computer systems, cars or… GUNS . According to the duo, the Tracking Point's self-aiming rifle sights, better known as the ShotView targeting system, is vulnerable to WiFi-based attacks that could allow your enemy to redirect bullets to new targets of their choice. Hacking $13,000 Self-aiming Rifles to Shoot wrong target Runa Sandvik and her husband Michael Auger are planning to present their findings on exploiting two of the $13,000 self-aiming rifles at the Black Hat hacking conference . In the hack, the duo demonstrates...

Bad week for Android. Just days after a critical Stagefright vulnerability was revealed in the widely popular mobile platform, another new vulnerability threatens to make most Android devices unresponsive and practically unusable to essential tasks. Security researchers at Trend Micro have developed an attack technique that could ultimately crash more than 55 percent of Android phones , almost making them completely unresponsive and useless to perform very basic functions, including to make or receive calls. The dangerous security flaw affects any device running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and later, including the latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop , potentially putting hundreds of millions of Android users vulnerable to hackers. The flaw surfaced two days after Zimperium researchers warned that nearly 950 Million Android phones can be hijacked by sending a simple text message. Dubbed Stagefright , the vulnerability is more serious because it required no end-user interaction at...

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in the official Apple's App Store and iTunes Store, affecting millions of Apple users. Vulnerability-Lab Founder and security researcher Benjamin Kunz Mejri discovered an Application-Side input validation web vulnerability that actually resides in the Apple App Store invoice module and is remotely exploitable by both sender as well as the receiver. The vulnerability, estimated as high in severity, has been reported to Apple Security team on June 9, 2015 and the company patched the issue within a month. How the vulnerability works? By exploiting the flaw, a remote hacker can manipulate the name value ( device cell name ) by replacing it with a malicious script code. Now, if the attacker buys any product in the App Store or iTunes Store, the internal app store service takes the device value ( which is actually the malicious code ) and generates the invoice which is then sends to the seller account. This results in...

Do you own a Smartwatch ? If yes, then how safe it is? There are almost 100 percent chances that you own a vulnerable Smartwatch. Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard is warning users of smartwatches including Apple Watch and Samsung Gear that their wearable devices are vulnerable to cyber attacks. In a study, HP's Fortify tested today's top 10 smartwatches for security features, such as basic data encryption, password protection and privacy concerns. The most shocking part of the study was that –  Not even a Single Smartwatch Found to be 100 percent Safe Security experts found that 100 percent of wearable devices contained at least one serious security vulnerability that could make the devices vulnerable to hackers. With the increase in the adoption of smartwatches, manufacturers need to pay closer attention to the customers' security because these wearable devices could potentially open doors to new threats to personal and sensitive informat...

How many Zero-Days do you think could hit Microsoft today? Neither one nor two; this times its Four. The Hewlett-Packard's Zero-Day Initiative (ZDI) has disclosed four new zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that could be exploited to remotely execute malicious code on victim's machine. All the four zero-days originally were reported to Microsoft, affecting Internet Explorer on the desktop. However, later it was discovered that the zero-day vulnerabilities affected Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Phones as well. Each of the four zero-day flaws affects different components of the browser, and all are remotely exploitable through typical drive-by attacks. Four Zero-day vulnerabilities Disclosed by ZDI Here are the zero-day vulnerabilities, as reported by ZDI: ZDI-15-359: AddRow Out-Of-Bounds Memory Access Vulnerability ZDI-15-360: Use-After-Free Remote Code Execution Vulnerability ZDI-15-361: Use-After-Free Rem...

WordPress has just released the new version of its content management system (CMS), WordPress version 4.2.3 , to fix a critical security vulnerability that could have been exploited by hackers to take over websites, affecting the security of its Millions of sites. WordPress version 4.2.3 resolves a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaw that could allow any user with the Contributor or Author role to compromise a website, Gary Pendergast of the WordPress team wrote in a blog post on Thursday. Cross-site scripting is actually a vulnerability in the Web applications' code that opens up the target website to attacks. The vulnerability is one of the most favorite and commonly used flaws by cyber criminals. According to the company, the vulnerability could allow hackers to embed maliciously-crafted HTML, JavaScript, Flash, or other code to bypass WordPress's kses protection by fooling users into executing a malicious script on their computer system. This, in turn, le...

A simple but highly critical vulnerability recently disclosed in the most widely used OpenSSH software allows attackers to try thousands of password login attempts per connection in a short period. OpenSSH is the most popular software widely used for secure remote access to Linux-based systems. Generally, the software allows 3 to 6 Password login attempts before closing a connection, but a new vulnerability lets attackers perform thousands of authentication requests remotely . OpenSSH servers with keyboard-interactive authentication enabled , including FreeBSD Linux, can be exploited to carry out the brute force attack on OpenSSH protocol, a security researcher with online alias KingCope explained in a blog post . Exploit for the Vulnerability RELEASED  Hackers could widely exploit the vulnerability because the keyboard-interactive authentication is by default enabled on most of the systems. Researcher has also released a proof-of-concept exploit code, whi...

A security researcher has discovered a critical vulnerability in the latest version of Apple's OS X Yosemite  that could allow anyone to obtain unrestricted root user privileges with the help of code that fits in a tweet. The privilege-escalation vulnerability initially reported on Tuesday by German researcher Stefan Esser , could be exploited by to circumvent security protections and gain full control of Mac computers. The most worrying part is that this critical vulnerability is yet to be fixed by Apple in the latest release of its operating system. This could make it easier for hackers to surreptitiously infect Macs with rootkits and other types of persistent malware. Thanks to an environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE Apple added to the code of OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Apple Mac OS X Vulnerability Gives Full Control of your Mac This environment variable specifies where in the file system an operating system component called the OS X dynamic linker dyld ...

What if you get 1 Million Frequent Flyer Miles for Free? Yes, 1 Million Air Miles… …I think that would be enough for several first-class trips to Europe or up to 20 round-trips in the United States. Two Computer Hackers have earned more than 1 Million frequent-flyer miles each from United Airlines for finding multiple security vulnerabilities in the Airline's website. Back in May this year, Chicago-based ' United Airlines ' launched a bug bounty program and invited security researchers and bug hunters to find and report security vulnerabilities in its websites, software, apps and web portals. Jordan Wiens , a security researcher from Florida and one of two bounty winners, tweeted last week that he earned United Airlines' top reward of 1 Million Miles for finding a flaw that could have allowed a hacker to seize control of one of the airline's websites. Wiens is not allowed to disclose the technical details regarding the vulnerabilities, but ...

Really a bad weekend for Internet users. Three previously unknown critical zero-day vulnerabilities were revealed in Adobe's Flash Player over the weekend, thanks to Hacking team data Breach in which 400GB of internal data were leaked over the Internet. Now, a new zero-day vulnerability has been reported in Oracle's Java that is reportedly being exploited in the wild by hackers to target government armed forces. Cybercriminals are actively exploiting the Java-based zero-day flaw in an attempt to target U.S. defense agencies and members of NATO, Trend Micro security researchers warned in a blog post published Sunday. According to researchers, the vulnerability affects only the latest version of Java, version 1.8.0.45. Though the older Java versions, Java 1.6 and 1.7 are not at all affected by this zero-day exploit. So far, there isn't many details disclosed about the Java zero-day bug, considering a patch is yet to be released by Oracle. Although hackers are exploi...

Another Flash zero-day exploit has emerged from the hundreds of gigabytes of data recently leaked from Hacking Team , an Italian surveillance software company that is long been accused of selling spying software to governments and intelligence agencies. The critical zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash is a Use-After-Free() programming flaw ( CVE-2015-5122 ) which is similar to the CVE-2015-5119 Flash vulnerability patched last week and allows an attacker to hijack vulnerable computers. Adobe says the cyber criminals are apparently already exploiting this vulnerability for which no patch exists yet. However, it's second time in a single week when the company is working on a fix for the zero-day vulnerability in its Flash Player software. Flash Zero-Day Flaw in the Wild The Exploit code for this flaw is already available online, allowing an attacker to remotely execute malicious code on victims' computers and install malware, Adobe said in an advisory pub...

The mysterious security vulnerability in the widely used OpenSSL code library is neither HeartBleed nor FREAK, but it's critical enough to be patched by sysadmins without any delay. OpenSSL Foundation released the promised patch against a high severity vulnerability in OpenSSL versions 1.0.1n and 1.0.2b, resolving a certificate forgery issue in the implementations of the crypto protocol. The critical vulnerability could allow man-in-the-middle attackers to impersonate cryptographically protected websites, virtual private networks, or e-mail servers, and snoop on encrypted Internet traffic. The vulnerability, ( CVE-2015-1793 ), is due to a problem lies in the certificate verification process. An error in its implementation skipped some security checks on new, untrusted certificates. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker could circumvent certificate warnings that enable them to force applications into treating an invalid certificate as a legitimate Certificat...