browser hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Google has assigned a new CVE identifier for a critical security flaw in the libwebp image library for rendering images in the  WebP format  that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2023-5129 , the issue has been given the maximum severity score of 10.0 on the CVSS rating system. It has been described as an issue rooted in the  Huffman coding algorithm  - With a specially crafted WebP lossless file, libwebp may write data out of bounds to the heap. The ReadHuffmanCodes() function allocates the HuffmanCode buffer with a size that comes from an array of precomputed sizes: kTableSize. The color_cache_bits value defines which size to use. The kTableSize array only takes into account sizes for 8-bit first-level table lookups but not second-level table lookups. libwebp allows codes that are up to 15-bit (MAX_ALLOWED_CODE_LENGTH). When BuildHuffmanTable() attempts to fill the second-level tables it may write data out-of-bounds. The OOB wr...

Details have emerged about a now-patched vulnerability in Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers that, if successfully exploited, could have made it possible to siphon files containing confidential data. "The issue arose from the way the browser interacted with  symlinks  when processing files and directories," Imperva researcher Ron Masas  said . "Specifically, the browser did not properly check if the symlink was pointing to a location that was not intended to be accessible, which allowed for the theft of sensitive files." Google characterized the medium-severity issue (CVE-2022-3656) as a case of insufficient data validation in File System,  releasing   fixes  for it in versions 107 and 108 released in October and November 2022. Dubbed SymStealer, the vulnerability, at its core, relates to a type of weakness known as symbolic link (aka symlink) following, which  occurs  when an attacker abuses the feature to bypass the file system restr...

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...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning of two different information-stealing malware, named  FFDroider  and  Lightning Stealer , that are capable of siphoning data and launching further attacks. "Designed to send stolen credentials and cookies to a Command & Control server, FFDroider disguises itself on victim's machines to look like the instant messaging application 'Telegram,'" Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Avinash Kumar and Niraj Shivtarkar  said  in a report published last week. Information stealers, as the name implies, are equipped to harvest sensitive information from compromised machines, such as keystrokes, screenshots, files, saved passwords and cookies from web browsers, that are then transmitted to a remote attacker-controlled domain.  FFDroider is distributed through cracked versions of installers and freeware with the primary objective of stealing cookies and credentials associated with popular social media and e-commerce platforms an...

A "potentially devastating and hard-to-detect threat" could be abused by attackers to collect users' browser fingerprinting information with the goal of spoofing the victims without their knowledge, thus effectively compromising their privacy. Academics from Texas A&M University dubbed the attack system " Gummy Browsers ," likening it to a nearly 20-year-old " Gummy Fingers " technique that can impersonate a user's fingerprint biometrics.  "The idea is that the attacker 𝐴 first makes the user 𝑈 connect to his website (or to a well-known site the attacker controls) and transparently collects the information from 𝑈 that is used for fingerprinting purposes (just like any fingerprinting website 𝑊 collects this information)," the researchers outlined. "Then, 𝐴 orchestrates a browser on his own machine to replicate and transmit the same fingerprinting information when connecting to 𝑊, fooling 𝑊 to think that 𝑈 is the one re...

Google on Tuesday released an update for Chrome web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with a total of seven security fixes, including one flaw for which it says an exploit exists in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2021-21224 , the flaw concerns a type confusion vulnerability in V8 open-source JavaScript engine that was reported to the company by security researcher Jose Martinez on April 5 According to security researcher  Lei Cao , the bug [ 1195777 ] is triggered when performing integer data type conversion, resulting in an out-of-bounds condition that could be used to achieve arbitrary memory read/write primitive. "Google is aware of reports that exploits for CVE-2021-21224 exist in the wild," Chrome's Technical Program Manager Srinivas Sista  said  in a blog post. The update comes after proof-of-concept (PoC) code exploiting the flaw published by a researcher named " frust " emerged on April 14 by taking advantage of the fact that the issue was addressed...

Brave has fixed a privacy issue in its browser that sent queries for .onion domains to public internet DNS resolvers rather than routing them through Tor nodes, thus exposing users' visits to dark web websites. The bug was addressed in a hotfix  release  (V1.20.108) made available yesterday. Brave ships with a built-in feature called " Private Window with Tor " that integrates the  Tor  anonymity network into the browser, allowing users to access .onion websites, which are hosted on the darknet, without revealing the IP address information to internet service providers (ISPs), Wi-Fi network providers, and the websites themselves. The feature was added in  June 2018 . This is achieved by relaying users' requests for an onion URL through a network of volunteer-run Tor nodes. At the same time, it's worth noting that the feature uses Tor just as a proxy and does not implement most of the privacy protections offered by Tor Browser. But according to a report fir...

Microsoft on Thursday took the wraps off an ongoing campaign impacting popular web browsers that stealthily injects malware-infested ads into search results to earn money via affiliate advertising. "Adrozek," as it's called by the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, employs an "expansive, dynamic attacker infrastructure" consisting of 159 unique domains, each of which hosts an average of 17,300 unique URLs, which in turn host more than 15,300 unique malware samples. The campaign — which impacts Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Yandex Browser, and Mozilla Firefox browsers on Windows — aims to insert additional, unauthorized ads on top of legitimate ads displayed on search engine results pages, leading users to click on these ads inadvertently. Microsoft said the persistent browser modifier malware has been observed since May this year, with over 30,000 devices affected every day at its peak in August. "Cybercriminals abusing affiliate programs is not ...

Graphic for illustration Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday  disclosed details  about an address bar spoofing vulnerability affecting multiple mobile browsers, such as Apple Safari and Opera Touch, leaving the door open for spear-phishing attacks and delivering malware. Other impacted browsers include UCWeb, Yandex Browser, Bolt Browser, and RITS Browser. The flaws were discovered by Pakistani security researcher Rafay Baloch in the summer of 2020 and jointly reported by Baloch and cybersecurity firm  Rapid7  in August before they were addressed by the browser makers over the past few weeks. UCWeb and Bolt Browser remain unpatched as yet, while Opera Mini is expected to receive a fix on November 11, 2020. The issue stems from using malicious executable JavaScript code in an arbitrary website to force the browser to update the address bar while the page is still loading to another address of the attacker's choice. Original PoC demo "The vulnerability occurs ...

In an effort to mitigate a large class of potential cross-site scripting issues in Firefox, Mozilla has blocked execution of all inline scripts and potentially dangerous eval-like functions for built-in "about: pages" that are the gateway to sensitive preferences, settings, and statics of the browser. Firefox browser has 45 such internal locally-hosted about pages , some of which are listed below that you might have noticed or used at some point: about:config — panel to modify Firefox preferences and critical settings. about:downloads — your recent downloads done within Firefox. about:memory — shows the memory usage of Firefox. about:newtab — the default new tab page. about:plugins — lists all your plugins as well as other useful information. about:privatebrowsing — open a new private window. about:networking — displays networking information. To be noted, these changes do not affect how websites from the Internet work on the Firefox browser, but going forwar...

Two widely used Adblocker Google Chrome extensions , posing as the original — AdBlock and uBlock Origin — extensions on Chrome Web Store, have been caught stuffing cookies in the web browser of millions of users to generate affiliate income from referral schemes fraudulently. There's no doubt web extensions add a lot of useful features to web browsers, making your online experience great and aiding productivity, but at the same time, they also pose huge threats to both your privacy and security. Being the most over-sighted weakest link in the browser security model, extensions sit between the browser application and the Internet — from where they look for the websites you visit and subsequently can intercept, modify, and block any requests, based on the functionalities they have been designed for. Apart from the extensions which are purposely created with malicious intent , in recent years we have also seen some of the most popular legitimate Chrome and Firefox extensions g...

Google has made several new announcements for its Chrome Web Store that aims at making Chrome extensions more secure and transparent to its users. Over a couple of years, we have seen a significant rise in malicious extensions that appear to offer useful functionalities, while running hidden malicious scripts in the background without the user's knowledge. However, the best part is that Google is aware of the issues and has proactively been working to change the way its Chrome web browser handles extensions. Earlier this year, Google banned extensions using cryptocurrency mining scripts and then in June, the company also disabled inline installation of Chrome extensions completely. The company has also been using machine learning technologies to detect and block malicious extensions. To take a step further, Google announced Monday five major changes that give users more control over certain permissions, enforces security measures, as well as makes the ecosystem more t...

Some websites have found using a simple yet effective technique to keep their cryptocurrency mining javascript secretly running in the background even when you close your web browser. Due to the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices, hackers and even legitimate website administrators are increasingly using JavaScript-based cryptocurrency miners to monetize by levying the CPU power of their visitor's PC to mine Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. After the world's most popular torrent download website, The Pirate Bay , caught secretly  using Coinhive , a browser-based cryptocurrency miner service, on its site last month, thousands of other websites also started using the service as an alternative monetization model to banner ads. However, websites using such crypto-miner services can mine cryptocurrencies as long as you're on their site. Once you close the browser window, they lost access to your processor and associated resources, which eventually stops mining. Un...

Next time when someone sends you a photo of a cute cat or a hot chick on WhatsApp or Telegram then be careful before you click on the image to view — it might hack your account within seconds. A new security vulnerability has recently been patched by two popular end-to-end encrypted messaging services — WhatsApp and Telegram — that could have allowed hackers to completely take over user account just by having a user simply click on a picture. The hack only affected the browser-based versions of WhatsApp and Telegram, so users relying on the mobile apps are not vulnerable to the attack. According to Checkpoint security researchers, the vulnerability resided in the way both messaging services process images and multimedia files without verifying that they might have hidden malicious code inside. For exploiting the flaw, all an attacker needed to do was sending the malicious code hidden within an innocent-looking image. Once the victim clicked on the picture, the attacker coul...

Just like most of you, I too really hate filling out web forms, especially on mobile devices. To help make this whole process faster, Google Chrome and other major browsers offer "Autofill" feature that automatically fills out web form based on data you have previously entered in similar fields. However, it turns out that an attacker can use this autofill feature against you and trick you into spilling your private information to hackers or malicious third parties. Finnish web developer and whitehat hacker Viljami Kuosmanen published a demo on GitHub that shows how an attacker could take advantage of the autofill feature provided by most browsers, plugins, and tools such as Password Managers. Although, this trick was first discovered by Ricardo Martin Rodriguez , Security Analyst at ElevenPaths, in the year 2013, but it seems Google haven't done anything to address weakness in Autofill feature. The proof-of-concept demo website consists of a simple online...

Well, here's some terrible news for all Apple iOS users… Someone just found an iOS zero-day vulnerability that could allow an attacker to remotely hack your iPhone running the latest version of iOS, i.e. iOS 9. Yes, an unknown group of hackers has sold a zero-day vulnerability to Zerodium , a startup by French-based company Vupen that Buys and Sells zero-day exploits. And Guess what, in How much? $1,000,000. Yes, $1 Million. Last month, a Bug bounty challenge was announced by Zerodium for finding a hack that must allow an attacker to remotely compromise a non-jailbroken Apple device through: A web page on Safari or Chrome browser, In-app browsing action, or Text message or MMS. Zerodium's Founder Chaouki Bekrar confirmed on Twitter that an unnamed group of hackers has won this $1 Million Bounty for sufficiently submitting a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b Jailbreak (untethered) Exploit. NO More Fun. It's Serious Threat to iOS Use...

Webmasters can track all your activities on the Internet – even if you have already cleared your browsing history and deleted all saved cookies. A researcher demonstrated two unpatched flaws that can be exploited to track Millions of Internet users, allowing malicious website owners: List Building: To compile a list of visited domains by users, even if they have cleared their browsing history Tracking Cookies: To tag users with a tracking cookie that will persist even after they have deleted all cookies These two Browser Fingerprinting techniques abuse HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) and Content Security Policy – new security features already built into Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, and expected to make their ways to other mainstream browsers in near future. WHAT IF, The Website owners turn these Security features against You? A security researcher has proved exactly the same last weekend at Toorcon security conference in San Diego. Yan Zhu...

Security researchers have uncovered a new piece of Adware that replaces your entire browser with a dangerous copy of Google Chrome , in a way that you will not notice any difference while browsing. The new adware software, dubbed " eFast Browser ," works by installing and running itself in place of Google Chrome The adware does all kinds of malicious activities that we have seen quite often over the years: Generates pop-up, coupon, pop-under and other similar ads on your screen Placing other advertisements into your web pages Redirects you to malicious websites containing bogus contents Tracking your movements on the web to help nefarious marketers send more crap your way to generating revenue Therefore, having eFast Browser installed on your machine may lead to serious privacy issues or even identity theft. What's Nefariously Intriguing About this Adware? The thing that makes this Adware different from others is that instead of taking contr...