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Chinese authorities have recently initiated a crackdown on the operators of a massive adware campaign that infected around 250 Million computers , including Windows and Mac OS, across the world earlier this year. The adware campaign was uncovered by security researchers at Check Point last month after it already infected over 25 million computers in India, 24 million in Brazil, 16 million in Mexico, 13 million in Indonesia and 5.5 million in the United States. Dubbed Fireball , the infamous adware comes bundled with other free legitimate software that you download off the Internet. Once installed, the malware installs browser plug-ins to manipulate the victim's web browser configurations and replace their default search engines and home pages with fake search engines. Far from legitimate purposes, Fireball has the ability to spy on victim's web traffic, execute malicious code on the infected computers, install plugins, and even perform efficient malware dropping, cr

A highly critical vulnerability has been discovered in the Cisco Systems' WebEx browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, for the second time in this year, which could allow attackers to remotely execute malicious code on a victim's computer. Cisco WebEx is a popular communication tool for online events, including meetings, webinars and video conferences that help users connect and collaborate with colleagues around the world. The extension has roughly 20 million active users. Discovered by Tavis Ormandy of Google Project Zero and Cris Neckar of Divergent Security, the remote code execution flaw (CVE-2017-6753) is due to a designing defect in the WebEx browser extension. To exploit the vulnerability, all an attacker need to do is trick victims into visiting a web page containing specially crafted malicious code through the browser with affected extension installed. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could result in the attacker executing arbitrary code with th

The  ransomware industry surged in 2023  as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070.  But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture.  While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048 cases. This is a 22% decrease in ransomware attacks compared to Q4 2023. Figure 1: Victims per quarter There could be several reasons for this significant drop.  Reason 1: The Law Enforcement Intervention Firstly, law enforcement has upped the ante in 2024 with actions against both LockBit and ALPHV. The LockBit Arrests In February, an international operation named "Operation Cronos" culminated in the arrest of at least three associates of the infamous LockBit ransomware syndicate in Poland and Ukraine.  Law enforcement from multiple countries collaborated to take down LockBit's infrastructure. This included seizing their dark web domains and gaining access to their backend sys

A critical zero-day flaw has been discovered in the popular cloud password manager LastPass that could allow any remote attacker to compromise your account completely. LastPass is one of the best password manager that also available as a browser extension that automatically fills credentials for you. All you need is to remember one master password to unlock all other passwords of your different online accounts, making it much easier for you to use unique passwords for different sites. However, the password manager isn't as secure as it promises. Also Read:  Popular Password Managers Are Not As Secure As You Think Google Project Zero Hacker Tavis Ormandy discovered several security issues in the software that allowed him to steal passwords stored with LastPass. " Are people really using this LastPass thing? I took a quick look and can see a bunch of obvious critical problems. I'll send a report asap ," Ormandy revealed on Twitter . Once compromise a v

In Brief Chrome apps and extensions make things easier, but they can also do terrible things like spy on web users and collect their personal data. But, now Google has updated its browser's User Data Policy requiring all Chrome extension and app developers to disclose what data they collect. Furthermore, developers are prohibited from collecting unnecessary browsing data and must also use encryption when handling sensitive information from users. Around 40 percent of all Google Chrome users have some kind of browser extensions, plugins or add-ons installed, but how safe are they? The company plans to enforce developers starting this summer, to "ensure transparent use of the data in a way that is consistent with the wishes and expectations of users." Google is making its Chrome Web Store safer for its users by forcing developers to disclose how they handle customers' data. Google's new User Data Policy will now force app developers, who use the Chrome We

Over the past few years, Google has increasingly improved the online security and protections of its Gmail users. Besides two-factor authentication and HTTPS, Google has added new tools and features to Gmail that ensures users security and privacy, preventing cyber criminals and intelligence agencies to hack email accounts . 1. Enhanced State-Sponsored Attack Warnings Apple vs. FBI case urged every company to beef up the security parameters to prevent their services from not just hackers but also the law enforcement. Google for a while now has the capability to identify government-backed hackers , and notify potentially affected Gmail users so they can take action as soon as possible. Google recently announced on its blog post that it will alert Gmail users about the possibility of any state-sponsored attack by showing them a full-page warning with instructions about how to stay safe — very hard to miss or neglect. Meanwhile, the company revealed that ove

Should we feel happy about it? Let's find out! What Firefox has been thinking of is, it is planning to bring in Google chrome's web browser extensions to support the features of Mozilla Firefox. The parent company of Firefox i. e. Mozilla Foundation has decided to update their add-on and extension infrastructure, making Firefox more capable and user-friendly . Ranked number three, Firefox browser is seemingly thriving to attain the first position. Google Chrome and Internet Explorer are the ones ahead of it, leading to desktops and mobile devices altogether. The move will help Firefox in various ways like: Integration of new technologies like Electrolysis and Servo Protection from Adware and Spyware Shortening the time it takes to review add-ons Functionalities brought by Mozilla According to Mozilla, functionalities that are being brought with the help of modifications in Firefox Add-ons are: Introducing a Powerful add-on WebExtensions API A

Remember the magical Marauder's Map from the Harry Potter books that reveal the whereabouts of characters as they roam classrooms and the halls of Hogwarts school? A student developer from Cambridge has created a Chrome extension that works similar and also named it Marauder's Map . The extension that allows you to watch every footstep of your Facebook friends by grabbing location data from Facebook Messenger and rapidly plotting your friends' locations on a map. We all are aware that Facebook shares our location data with our friends, however, what we probably aren't aware of the accuracy of that data and easiness of extracting that data from the messaging service. LOCATION SHARING AND MAPPING... Facebook usually encourages Messenger users to share their location by enabling location sharing by default when users install iOS or Android app. Software developer Aran Khanna's extension dubbed Marauder's Map, loads the map in Messenger's Web interface and fetc

Facebook lets you control your every single information posted on the social media site by giving many options to make them private from others, even from your friends. But… There are some personal information on Facebook that you just cannot completely hide — Your friends list are among those, even if there is an option to hide it. The issue resides in the Facebook's mutual-friends feature concept, which has been in controversies in the past, raising privacy concerns. But now, a new Free Chrome extension called " Facebook Friends Mapper " (developed by Alon Kollmann ) can expose a lot more than just mutual friends of the two Facebook users in " just one click ," creating high security and Privacy risks for Facebook users. Generally, Facebook also allows you to set the visibility of your list of Facebook friends to "Only Me" if you want to keep your friends list hidden from other Facebook users as well as your own friends. Howe

Less than 24 hours after Google launched the new Phishing alert extension Password Alert , a security researcher was able to bypass the feature using deadly simple exploits. On Wednesday, the search engine giant launched a new Password Alert Chrome extension to alert its users whenever they accidentally enter their Google password on a carefully crafted phishing website that aimed at hijacking users' account. However, security expert Paul Moore easily circumvented the technology using just seven lines of simple JavaScript code that kills phishing alerts as soon as they started to appear, defeating Google's new Password Alert extension. Google shortly fixed the issue and released a new update to Password Alert extension that blocked the Moore's exploit. However, Moore discovered another way to block the new version of Password Alert, as well. The first proof of concept exploit by Moore relied on a JavaScript that looks for instances of warning screen every five mil

You might be not aware of the companies that know pretty much everything related to your email activities like when you've opened email sent by one of their clients, where you are located, what device you're using, what link you click, all without your consent, even if you haven't click any link provided in that email. Companies like Yesware , Bananatag, and Streak track emails , usually by adding small pixels or images to those emails which inform the companies that when and where their emails have been opened by the recipients. If you find this something different then let you know that this sort of email tracking is very common practice adopted by many companies. However, in order to detect these tracking emails, now you have a simple but effective tool. UGLY EMAIL -- DETECT EMAIL TRACKERS Dubbed " Ugly Email ", a new Chrome extension warns you when an email you receive in your Gmail inbox have the ability to track you, and it even works before opening t

Back in june this year, Google announced an alpha Google Chrome extension called " End-to-End " for sending and receiving emails securely, in wake of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's revelations about the global surveillance conducted by the government law-enforcements. Finally, the company has announced that it made the source code for its End-to-End Chrome extension open source via GitHub . Google is developing a user-friendly tool for individuals to implement the tough encryption standard known as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) in an attempt to fully encrypt people's Gmail messages that can't even be read by Google itself, nor anyone else other than the users exchanging the emails. PGP is an open source end-to-end encryption standard for almost 20 years, used to encrypt e-mail over the Internet providing cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication, which makes it very difficult to break. But implementing PGP is too complicated for m

From last week, Google began paving the way to run Android apps on Chrome Operating System through the project named " App Runtime for Chrome ", but the release came with a lot of limitations – it only supported certain Android apps and on Chrome OS only. At the launch, initially only 4 Android apps – Vine, Evernote, Duolingo and Sight Words – were added to the Chrome Web Store. That was pretty exciting, but it merely whet the appetite of users hungry for more functionality. So, what if you could run more than just 4 Android apps on Chrome OS? And Also could run them on other operating systems as well? A developer by the name of " Vlad Filippov " began working on it to stripped away the limits Google has imposed. He successfully figured out a way to bring more Android apps to Chrome , instead of just the four that are officially supported by Google. The bigger success was that when Filippov got Android apps to work on any desktop Operating System tha

Researchers have uncovered a new social engineering trick that leads users to a malicious extension from Google Chrome impersonating to deliver Adobe's Flash Player in order to lure victims in a click fraud campaign. Security experts at TrendMicro believe that the malware is triggered by opening Facebook or Twitter via shortened links provided in any social networking websites. Once clicked, the links may lead victims to a site that automatically downloads the malicious browser extension . MALWARE INVOLVES DOWNLOADING MULTIPLE MALICIOUS FILES The process is quite complicated as the malware drops a downloader file which downloads multiple malicious files on the victim's computer. Moreover, the malicious program also has ability to bypass Google's recent security protection added to Chrome against installation of browser extensions that are not in Chrome Web Store. Researchers came across a baiting tweet that advertises " Facebook Secrets ", claiming to show videos

Everything we do online, whether chatting on phone, talking via video or audio, sending messages on phones or emails are being watched by Governments and Intelligence agencies. However, many Internet giants offer encrypted environment in an effort to protect our online data from prying eyes, but still those companies can read our data stored into their servers. But, there is a great news for Gmail users. On Tuesday, Google has announced two major privacy enhancements in its Gmail and this new push for its email service will even protect our data and communication from Google itself. With the ongoing concerns about privacy and the pervasiveness of email communications, Google already provides encryption for its Gmail called Transit encryption (HTTPS). In which only the transmission of emails sending or receiving is protected by the transit encryption but not the content of the email. Few Months back, Google itself admitted that their automated systems read our email c

Although the number of malicious browser extensions has significantly increased in the past years, but recently a new extension of the Google Chrome is allegedly targeting Cryptocurrency users that is capable of stealing Bitcoins and other crypto coins silently. The malicious Chrome browser extension dubbed as ' Cryptsy Dogecoin (DOGE) Live Ticker ' which is available on Chrome Web store for free downloads and developed by " TheTrollBox " account. Reddit user noticed that the updated version of the extension has a malicious code, which is designed to hijack the crypto currency transactions. HOW CHROME EXTENSION STEALS CRYPTOCURRENCY It is very obvious that the kind of crypto related software extensions is downloaded only by the users who deal with the digital currency. So, once the user installed the malicious extension, the software within the extension starts monitoring users' web activity and looks for those users who go to Cryptocurrency exchange sites s