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Due to the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices, not only hackers but also legitimate website administrators are increasingly using JavaScript-based cryptocurrency miners to monetize by levying the CPU power of your PC to mine Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Just last week, researchers from AdGuard discovered that some popular video streaming and ripper sites including openload, Streamango, Rapidvideo, and OnlineVideoConverter hijacks CPU cycles from their over hundreds of millions of visitors for mining Monero cryptocurrency. Now, researchers from Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab have uncovered a new strain of Android malware lurking in fake anti-virus and porn applications, which is capable of performing a plethora of nefarious activities—from mining cryptocurrencies to launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Dubbed Loapi , the new Android Trojan can perform so many more malicious activities at a time that can exploit a handset to the e

Net neutrality is DEAD —3 out of 5 federal regulators voted Thursday to hand control of the future of the Internet to cable and telecommunication companies, giving them powers to speed up service for websites they favor or slow down others. As proposed this summer, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rolled back Net Neutrality rules that require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to treat all services and websites on the Internet equally and prohibit them from blocking sites or charging for higher-quality service. This action repeals the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order decision taken during the Obama administration. What is Net Neutrality and Why Is It Important? Net Neutrality is simply Internet Freedom—Free, Fast and Open Internet for all. In other words, Net Neutrality is the principle that governs ISPs to give consumers access to all and every content on an equal basis, treating all Internet traffic equally. Today, if there's something that ma

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Here we are with our weekly roundup, briefing this week's top cybersecurity threats, incidents, and challenges, just in case you missed any of them. Last week has been very short with big news from the theft of over 4,700 Bitcoins from the largest cryptocurrency mining marketplace to the discovery of a new malware evasion technique that works on all versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Besides this, the newly discovered Janus vulnerability in the Android operating system and a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Malware Protection Engine (MPE) for which Microsoft released an emergency patch made their places in our weekly roundup. I recommend you to read the entire news (just click 'Read More' because there's some valuable advice in there as well). So, here we go with the list of this Week's Top Stories: Process Doppelgänging: New Malware Evasion Technique A team of researchers, who previously discovered AtomBombing

Do you have remote support software TeamViewer installed on your desktop? If yes, then you should pay attention to a critical vulnerability discovered in the software that could allow users sharing a desktop session to gain complete control of the other's PC without permission. TeamViewer is a popular remote-support software that lets you securely share your desktop or take full control of other's PC over the Internet from anywhere in the world. For a remote session to work both computers—the client (presenter) and the server (viewer)—must have the software installed, and the client has to share a secret authentication code with the person he wants to share his desktop. However, a GitHub user named "Gellin" has disclosed a vulnerability in TeamViewer that could allow the client (sharing its desktop session) to gain control of the viewer's computer without permission. TeamViewer Hack Could Be Used By Anyone—Server Or Client Gellin has also publishe

In the digital age, one of the most popular sayings is—if you're not paying, then you're not the customer, you're the product. While downloading apps on their smartphones, most users may not realize how much data they collect on you. Believe me; it's way more than you can imagine. Nowadays, many app developers are following irresponsible practices that are worth understanding, and we don't have a better example than this newly-reported incident about a virtual keyboard app. A team of security researchers at the Kromtech Security Center has discovered a massive trove of personal data belonging to more than 31 million users of the popular virtual keyboard app, AI.type, accidentally leaked online for anyone to download without requiring any password. Founded in 2010, Ai.type is a customizable and personalizable on-screen keyboard for mobile phones and tablets, with more than 40 million users worldwide. Apparently, a misconfigured MongoDB database, owned by

Security researchers have discovered a potentially dangerous vulnerability in the firmware of various Hewlett Packard (HP) enterprise printer models that could be abused by attackers to run arbitrary code on affected printer models remotely. The vulnerability (CVE-2017-2750), rated as high in severity with 8.1 CVSS scale, is due to insufficiently validating parts of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) that allows for the potential execution of arbitrary code remotely on affected 54 printer models. The security flaw affects 54 printer models ranging from HP LaserJet Enterprise, LaserJet Managed, PageWide Enterprise and OfficeJet Enterprise printers. This remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability was discovered by researchers at FoxGlove Security when they were analyzing the security of HP's MFP-586 printer (currently sold for $2,000) and HP LaserJet Enterprise M553 printers (sold for $500). According to a technical write-up posted by FoxGlove on Monday, researchers were able to

Another terrible news for OnePlus users. Just over a month after OnePlus was caught collecting personally identifiable information on its users, the Chinese smartphone company has been found leaving a backdoor on almost all OnePlus handsets. A Twitter user, who goes by the name "Elliot Anderson" ( named after Mr. Robot's main character ), discovered a backdoor (an exploit) in all OnePlus devices running OxygenOS that could allow anyone to obtain root access to the devices. The application in question is " EngineerMode ," a diagnostic testing application made by Qualcomm for device manufacturers to easily test all hardware components of the device. This APK comes pre-installed ( accidentally left behind ) on most OnePlus devices, including OnePlus 2, 3, 3T, and the newly-launched OnePlus 5. We can confirm its existence on the OnePlus 2, 3 and 5. You can also check if this application is installed on your OnePlus device or not. For this, simply go t

Kaspersky Lab — We have nothing to hide! Russia-based Antivirus firm hits back with what it calls a " comprehensive transparency initiative ," to allow independent third-party review of its source code and internal processes to win back the trust of customers and infosec community. Kaspersky launches this initiative days after it was accused of helping, knowingly or unknowingly, Russian government hackers to steal classified material from a computer belonging to an NSA contractor. Earlier this month another story published by the New York Times claimed that Israeli government hackers hacked into Kaspersky 's network in 2015 and caught Russian hackers red-handed hacking US government with the help of Kaspersky. US officials have long been suspicious that Kaspersky antivirus firm may have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. Back in July, the company offered to turn over the source code for the U.S. government to audit. However, the offer did not stop U.S. Dep

With the rise in cyber-crimes, ethical hacking has become a powerful strategy in the fight against online threats. In general terms, ethical hackers are authorised to break into supposedly 'secure' computer systems without malicious intent, but with the aim of discovering vulnerabilities to bring about improved protection. Ethical Hackers are now kind of becoming the alchemists of the 21st century. More and more organisations are being targeted in cyber-attacks, and they must get to know their enemy if they are to protect vital networks. Meet the professional, ethical hacker. Despite this, the common belief among many at-risk companies is that 'to outwit a hacker, you need to hire one'. With so much at stake, even technology providers are turning to those with hacking skills to find the flaws in their products and fix them before the baddies can exploit them. Infamous Apple Hacker Turned Ethical; Hired by Facebook 23-year-old George 'GeoHot' Ho

Microsoft has been gradually changing its privacy settings in Windows 10 with the Fall Creators Update to give its users more controls over their data. In April, Microsoft addressed some initial privacy concerns in the Windows 10 Creators Update with simplified data collection levels—Security, Basic, Enhanced, and Full—and eventually revealed its data collection practices . Now, the software giant is making another privacy-related change with the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which is due for release in October 2017, giving you much more control over what apps can do with your device. Just like apps on your smartphone's app store, apps on Windows Store also require permission to access your computer's critical functionalities like camera, microphone, calendar, contacts, and music, pictures and video libraries. While Android and iOS allow you to limit an app's permissions to access these sensitive things, these permissions have currently been provided

The massive Equifax data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people was caused by exploiting a flaw in Apache Struts framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier of the security incident, Equifax has confirmed. Credit rating agency Equifax is yet another example of the companies that became victims of massive cyber attacks due to not patching a critical vulnerability on time, for which patches were already issued by the respected companies. Rated critical with a maximum 10.0 score, the Apache Struts2 vulnerability (CVE-2017-5638) exploited in the Equifax breach was disclosed and fixed by Apache on March 6 with the release of Apache Struts version 2.3.32 or 2.5.10.1. This flaw is separate from CVE-2017-9805, another Apache Struts2 vulnerability that was patched earlier this month, which was a programming bug that manifests due to the way Struts REST plugin handles XML payloads while deserializing them, and was fixed in Struts versio

Internet-of-things are turning every industry into the computer industry, making customers think that their lives would be much easier with smart devices. However, such devices could potentially be compromised by hackers. There are, of course, some really good reasons to connect certain devices to the Internet. But does everything need to be connected? Of course, not—especially when it comes to medical devices. Medical devices are increasingly found vulnerable to hacking. Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled 465,000 pacemakers after they were found vulnerable to hackers. Now, it turns out that a syringe infusion pump used in acute care settings could be remotely accessed and manipulated by hackers to impact the intended operation of the device, ICS-CERT warned in an advisory issued on Thursday. An independent security researcher has discovered not just one or two, but eight security vulnerabilities in the Medfusion 4000 Wireless Syringe

Finally, European companies must inform employees in advance if their work email accounts are being monitored. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday gave a landmark judgement concerning privacy in the workplace by overturning an earlier ruling that gave employers the right to spy on workplace communications. The new ruling came in judging the case of Romanian engineer Bogdan Barbulescu, who was fired ten years ago for sending messages to his fianceé and brother using his workplace Yahoo Messenger account. Earlier Romanian courts had rejected Barbulescu's complaint that his employer had violated his right to correspondence—including in January last year when it was ruled that it was not " unreasonable for an employer to want to verify that the employees are completing their professional tasks during working hours. " But now, the European court ruled by an 11-6 majority that Romanian judges failed to protect Barbulescu's right to private life and cor

Do you know — 1 Gram of DNA Can Store 1,000,000,000 Terabyte of Data for 1000+ Years? Even in March this year, a team of researchers successfully stored digital data — an entire operating system, a movie, an Amazon gift card, a study and a computer virus — in the strands of DNA. But what if someone stores a malicious program into the DNA, just like an infected USB storage, to hijack the computer that reads it. A team of researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle have demonstrated the first successful DNA-based exploit of a computer system that executes the malicious code written into the synthesised DNA strands while reading it. To carry out the hack, the researchers created biological malware and encoded it in a short stretch of DNA, which allowed them to gain "full control" of a computer that tried to process the genetic data when read by a DNA sequencing machine. The DNA-based hack becomes possible due to lack of security in multiple DNA proces

Car Hacking is a hot topic, though it's not new for researchers to hack cars. Previously they had demonstrated how to hijack a car remotely , how to disable car's crucial functions like airbags, and even how to steal cars . But the latest car hacking trick doesn't require any extra ordinary skills to accomplished. All it takes is a simple sticker onto a sign board to confuse any self-driving car and cause accident. Isn't this so dangerous? A team of researchers from the University of Washington demonstrated how anyone could print stickers off at home and put them on a few road signs to convince "most" autonomous cars into misidentifying road signs and cause accidents. According to the researchers, image recognition system used by most autonomous cars fails to read road sign boards if they are altered by placing stickers or posters over part or the whole road sign board. In a research paper , titled " Robust Physical-World Attacks on Machine

Over the past few years, massive data breaches have become more frequent and so common that pretty much every week we heard about some organisation being hacked or hacker dumping tens of millions of users records. But even after this wide range of data breach incidents, many organisations fail to grasp the importance of data protection, leaving its users' sensitive data vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals. Not now! At least for organisations in Britain, as the UK government has committed to updating and strengthening its data protection laws through a new Data Protection Bill. The British government has warned businesses that if they fail to take measures to protect themselves adequately from cyber attacks, they could face fines of up to £17 Million (more than $22 Million), or 4% of their global turnover—whichever amount is higher. However, the financial penalties would be a last resort, and will not be applied to those organisations taking proper security measures