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Apple has finally released iOS 12.1.4 software update to patch the terrible Group FaceTime privacy bug that could have allowed an Apple user to call you via the FaceTime video chat service and hear or see you before you even pick up the call without your knowledge. The Facetime bug (CVE-2019-6223) was discovered by 14-year-old Grant Thompson of Catalina Foothills High School while he was trying to set up a Group FaceTime session with his friends. Thompson reported the bug to the company a week before it made headlines across the internet, forcing Apple to temporarily disable the group calling feature within FaceTime. In its advisory published Thursday, Apple described the bug as "a logic issue existed in the handling of Group FaceTime calls," that also impacted the group FaceTime calling feature on Apple's macOS Mojave 10.14.2. Along with Thompson, Apple has also credited Daven Morris of Arlington, Texas, in its official advisory for reporting this bug. Acc

Using an Android device? Beware! You have to remain more caution while opening an image file on your smartphone—downloaded anywhere from the Internet or received through messaging or email apps. Yes, just viewing an innocuous-looking image could hack your Android smartphone—thanks to three newly-discovered critical vulnerabilities that affect millions of devices running recent versions of Google's mobile operating system, ranging from Android 7.0 Nougat to its current Android 9.0 Pie. The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2019-1986, CVE-2019-1987, and CVE-2019-1988, have been patched in Android Open Source Project (AOSP) by Google as part of its February Android Security Updates . However, since not every handset manufacturer rolls out security patches every month, it's difficult to determine if your Android device will get these security patches anytime sooner. Although Google engineers have not yet revealed any technical details explaining the vulnerabilities, t

In today's digital world, where connectivity is rules all, endpoints serve as the gateway to a business's digital kingdom. And because of this, endpoints are one of hackers' favorite targets.  According to the IDC,  70% of successful breaches start at the endpoint . Unprotected endpoints provide vulnerable entry points to launch devastating cyberattacks. With IT teams needing to protect more endpoints—and more kinds of endpoints—than ever before, that perimeter has become more challenging to defend. You need to improve your endpoint security, but where do you start? That's where this guide comes in.  We've curated the top 10 must-know endpoint security tips that every IT and security professional should have in their arsenal. From identifying entry points to implementing EDR solutions, we'll dive into the insights you need to defend your endpoints with confidence.  1. Know Thy Endpoints: Identifying and Understanding Your Entry Points Understanding your network's

The developers behind the privacy-minded Zcash cryptocurrency have recently discovered and patched a highly dangerous vulnerability in the most secretive way that could have allowed an attacker to coin an infinite number of Zcash (ZEC). Yes, infinite… like a never-ending source of money. Launched in October 2016, Zcash is a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that claims to be more anonymous than Bitcoin, as the sender, recipient, and value of transactions remain hidden. In a blog post published today, the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company—the startup behind Zcash—revealed that one of its employees, Ariel Gabizon, discovered the vulnerability in its code on 1st March 2018, the night prior to his talk at the Financial Cryptography conference almost a year ago. Gabizon contacted Sean Bowe, a Zcash Company's cryptographer, immediately after discovering the counterfeiting vulnerability, as dubbed by the team, and the team decided to keep the flaw secret in order to avoid the risk o

You've always been warned not to share remote access to your computer with any untrusted people for many reasons—it's basic cyber security advice, and common sense, right? But what if I say, you should not even trust anyone who invites or offers you full remote access to their computers? Security researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point have discovered more than two dozen vulnerabilities in both open-source RDP clients and Microsoft's own proprietary client that could allow a malicious RDP server to compromise a client computer, reversely. RDP, or Remote Desktop Protocol, allows users to connect to remote computers. The protocol is usually used by technical users and IT administrators to remotely connect to other devices on the network. RDP was initially developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system, but there are several open source clients for the RDP protocol that can be used on Linux as well as Unix systems. Check Point researchers recently

It's 2019, and just opening an innocent looking office document file on your system can still allow hackers to compromise your computer. No, I'm not talking about yet another vulnerability in Microsoft Office, but in two other most popular alternatives— LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice —free, open source office software used by millions of Windows, MacOS and Linux users. Security researcher Alex Inführ has discovered a severe remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in these two open source office suites that could be triggered just by opening a maliciously-crafted ODT (OpenDocument Text) file. The attack relies on exploiting a directory traversal flaw, identified as CVE-2018-16858, to automatically execute a specific python library bundled within the software using a hidden onmouseover event. To exploit this vulnerability, Inführ created  an ODT file with a white-colored hyperlink (so it can't be seen) that has an "onmouseover" event to trick victim

Many of you might have this question in your mind: "Is it illegal to test a website for vulnerability without permission from the owner?" Or… "Is it illegal to disclose a vulnerability publicly?" Well, the answer is YES, it's illegal most of the times and doing so could backfire even when you have good intentions. Last year, Hungarian police arrested a 20-year-old ethical hacker accused of finding and exploiting serious vulnerabilities in Magyar Telekom, the largest Hungarian telecommunication company, who is now facing up to 8 years in prison. According to local Hungarian media , the defender first discovered a severe vulnerability in Magyar Telekom systems in April 2018 and reported it to the company officials, who later invited him to a meeting. Reportedly, the hacker then traveled to Budapest for the meeting, which didn't go well as he expected, and apparently, the company did not permit him to test its systems further. However, the man conti

Late last year when an unknown group of hackers stole secret access tokens for millions of Facebook accounts by taking advantage of a flaw in its website, the company disclosed the incident and informed its affected users. Similarly, when Twitter was hit by multiple vulnerabilities ( #1 , #2 , #3 ) in the last few months, the social media company disclosed those incidents and informed its affected users. And Guess What? Google is going to shut down its social media network Google+ in April this year after admitting two security flaws in its platform that exposed private data of hundreds of thousands of users to third-party developers. It turns out that Apple also possibly suffered a privacy breach late last year due to a bug in its platform that might have exposed some of your iCloud data to other users, but the company chose to keep the incident secret... maybe because it was not worth to disclose, or perhaps much more complicated. Last week, Turkish security researcher Me

It is 2019, and millions of computers still either have at least one outdated application installed or run outdated operating systems, making themselves vulnerable to online threats and known security vulnerabilities/exploits. Security vendor Avast has released its PC Trends Report 2019 revealing that millions of users are making themselves vulnerable to cyber attacks by keeping outdated versions of popular applications on their computers. Probably the most overlooked vectors for any cyber attack is out-of-date programs, which most of the times, is the result of the users' laziness and company's administrators ignoring the security updates in a business environment as they can't afford the downtime. According to the report [ PDF ],  Adobe Shockwave tops the list of software that most user left outdated on their PCs, followed by VLC Media Player, Skype, Java Runtime Environment , 7-Zip File Manager, and Foxit Reader. The outdated software applications often provide an ope

Here we have great news for all iPhone Jailbreak lovers and concerning one for the rest of iPhone users. A Chinese cybersecurity researcher has today revealed technical details of critical vulnerabilities in Apple Safari web browser and iOS that could allow a remote attacker to jailbreak and compromise victims' iPhoneX running iOS 12.1.2 and before versions. To do so, all an attacker needs to do is trick iPhoneX users into opening a specially crafted web page using Safari browser, that's it. However, finding flaws and creating a working exploit to carry out such attacks is not as easy as it may sound for every iOS hacker. Discovered by security researcher Qixun Zhao of Qihoo 360's Vulcan Team, the exploit takes advantage of two security vulnerabilities that were first demonstrated at TianfuCup hacking contest held in November last year and then was later responsibly reported to the Apple security team. Zhao today released some details of and a proof-of-concep

Just in time… Some cybersecurity experts this week arguing over Twitter in favor of not using HTTPS and suggesting software developers to only rely on signature-based package verification, just because APT on Linux also does the same. Ironically, a security researcher just today revealed details of a new critical remote code execution flaw in the apt-get utility that can be exploited by a remote, man-in-the middle attacker to compromise Linux machines. The flaw, apparently, once again demonstrates that if the software download ecosystem uses HTTPS to communicate safely, such attacks can easily be mitigated at the first place. Discovered by Max Justicz, the vulnerability (CVE-2019-3462) resides in the APT package manager, a widely used utility that handles installation, update and removal of software on Debian, Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions. According to a blog post published by Justicz and details shared with The Hacker News, the APT utility doesn't properly

Almost half of the fight travelers around the world were found exposed to a critical security vulnerability discovered in online flight ticket booking system that allowed remote hackers to access and modify their travel details and even claim their frequent flyer miles. Israeli network security researcher Noam Rotem discovered the vulnerability when he booked a flight on the Israeli airline ELAL, successful exploitation of which just required victim's PNR (Passenger Name Record) number. The vulnerability resided in the widely used online flight booking system developed by Amadeus, which is currently being used by nearly 141 international airlines, including United Airlines, Lufthansa and Air Canada. After booking a flight with ELAL, the traveler receives a PNR number and a unique link that allows customers to check their booking status and related information associated with that PNR. Rotem found that merely by changing the value of the "RULE_SOURCE_1_ID" param

Check Point researchers have discovered multiple security vulnerabilities in Fortnite, a massively popular online battle game, one of which could have allowed remote attackers to completely takeover player accounts just by tricking users into clicking an unsuspectable link. The reported Fortnite flaws include a SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS) bug, a web application firewall bypass issue, and most importantly an OAuth account takeover vulnerability. Full account takeover could be a nightmare, especially for players of such a hugely popular online game that has been played by 80 million users worldwide, and when a good Fortnite account has been sold on eBay for over $50,000. The Fortnite game lets its players log in to their accounts using third-party Single Sign-On (SSO) providers, such as Facebook, Google, Xbox, and PlayStation accounts. According to the researchers, the combination of cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw and a malicious redirect issue on the Epic Games&

A security researcher has discovered multiple one-click client-side vulnerabilities in the some of the world's most popular and widely-used web hosting companies that could have put millions of their customers as well as billions of their sites' visitors at risk of hacking. Independent researcher and bug-hunter Paulos Yibelo, who shared his new research with The Hacker News, discovered roughly a dozen serious security vulnerabilities in Bluehost, Dreamhost, HostGator, OVH, and iPage, which amounts to roughly seven million domains. Some of the vulnerabilities are so simple to execute as they require attackers to trick victims into clicking on a simple link or visiting a malicious website to easily take over the accounts of anyone using the affected web hosting providers. Critical Flaws Reported in Popular Web Hosting Services Yibelo tested all the below-listed vulnerabilities on all five web hosting platforms and found several account takeover, cross-scripting, and in

A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered and reported in the Microsoft's Windows operating system that, under a certain scenario, could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Windows machine. Discovered by security researcher John Page (@hyp3rlinx), the vulnerability was reported to the Microsoft security team through Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) Program over 6 months ago, which the tech giant has refused to patch, at least for now. The vulnerability, which has not been assigned any CVE number, actually resides within the processing of a vCard file—a standard file format for storing contact information for a person or business, which is also supported by Microsoft Outlook. According to the researcher, a remote attacker can maliciously craft a VCard file in a way that the contact's website URL stored within the file points to a local executable file, which can be sent within a zipped file via an email or delivered separately via drive-b

Security researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities in Systemd, a popular init system and service manager for most Linux operating systems, that could allow unprivileged local attackers or malicious programs to gain root access on the targeted systems. The vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2018-16864, CVE-2018-16865, and CVE-2018-16866, actually resides in the "systemd-journald" service that collects information from different sources and creates event logs by logging information in the journal. The vulnerabilities, which were discovered and reported by security researchers at Qualys, affect all systemd-based Linux distributions, including Redhat and Debian , according to the researchers. However, some Linux distros such as SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, openSUSE Leap 15.0, and Fedora 28 and 29 are not affected, as "their userspace [code] is compiled with GCC's -fstack-clash-protection ." The first two flaws are memory corruptions issues, while the

Microsoft has issued its first Patch Tuesday for this year to address 49 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, 7 of which are rated critical, 40 important and 2 moderate in severity. Just one of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month has been reported as being publicly known at the time of release, and none are being actively exploited in the wild. All the seven critical-rated vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution and primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 and Server editions. Two of the 7 critical flaws affect Microsoft's Hyper-V host OS that fails to properly validate input from an authenticated user on a guest operating system, three affect the ChakraCore scripting engine that fails to properly handle objects in memory in Edge, one affects Edge directly that occurs when the browser improperly handles objects in memory, and one impacts the Windows DHCP client that fails to pro

I hope you had biggest, happiest and craziest New Year celebration, but now it's time to come back at work and immediately update your systems to patch new security flaws that could exploit your computer just by opening a PDF file. Adobe has issued an out-of-band security update to patch two critical vulnerabilities in the company's Acrobat and Reader for both the Windows and macOS operating systems. Though the San Jose, California-based software company did not give details about the vulnerabilities, it did classify the security flaws as critical since they allow privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. Both the vulnerabilities were reported to Adobe by security researchers--Abdul-Aziz Hariri and Sebastian Apelt—from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI). Critical Adobe Acrobat and Reader Vulnerabilities The first vulnerability, reported by Apelt and identified as CVE-2018-16011, is a use-after-free bug that can lead

A security researcher with Twitter alias SandboxEscaper today released proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a new zero-day vulnerability affecting Microsoft's Windows operating system. SandboxEscaper is the same researcher who previously publicly dropped exploits for two Windows zero-day vulnerabilities, leaving all Windows users vulnerable to the hackers until Microsoft patched them. The newly disclosed unpatched Windows zero-day vulnerability is an arbitrary file read issue that could allow a low-privileged user or a malicious program to read the content of any file on a targeted Windows computer that otherwise would only be possible via administrator-level privileges. The zero-day vulnerability resides in "MsiAdvertiseProduct" function of Windows that's responsible for generating "an advertise script or advertises a product to the computer and enables the installer to write to a script the registry and shortcut information used to assign or publish a prod

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a critical vulnerability in widely used SQLite database software that exposes billions of deployments to hackers. Dubbed as ' Magellan ' by Tencent's Blade security team, the newly discovered SQLite flaw could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary or malicious code on affected devices, leak program memory or crash applications. SQLite is a lightweight, widely used disk-based relational database management system that requires minimal support from operating systems or external libraries, and hence compatible with almost every device, platform, and programming language. SQLite is the most widely deployed database engine in the world today, which is being used by millions of applications with literally billions of deployments, including IoT devices, macOS and Windows apps, including major web browsers, such as Adobe software, Skype and more. Since Chromium-based web browsers—including Google Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, and

Adobe is closing out this year with its December Patch Tuesday update to address a massive number of security vulnerabilities for just its two PDF apps—more than double the number of what Microsoft patched this month for its several products. Adobe today released patches for 87 vulnerabilities affecting its Acrobat and Reader software products for both macOS and Windows operating systems, of which 39 are rated as critical and 48 important in severity. The security update comes less than a week after Adobe released patches for a critical zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-15982) in Flash Player that was actively being exploited in a targeted attack targeting a Russian state health care institution. The critical vulnerabilities addressed today in Acrobat and Reader include three heap-overflow bugs, five out-of-bounds write flaws, two untrusted pointer dereference issues, two buffer errors, and 24 use-after-free bugs. Upon successful exploitation, all of the above critical vulner