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An unprotected database belonging to JustDial , India's largest local search service, is leaking personally identifiable information of its every customer in real-time who accessed the service via its website, mobile app, or even by calling on its fancy "88888 88888" customer care number, The Hacker News has learned and independently verified. Founded over two decades ago, JustDial (JD) is the oldest and leading local search engine in India that allows users to find relevant nearby providers and vendors of various products and services quickly while helping businesses listed in JD to market their offerings. Rajshekhar Rajaharia , an independent security researcher, yesterday contacted The Hacker News and shared details of how an unprotected, publicly accessible API endpoint of JustDial's database can be accessed by anyone to view profile information of over 100 million users associated with their mobile numbers. The leaked data includes JustDial users' na

If you have an account with Microsoft Outlook email service, there is a possibility that your account information has been compromised by an unknown hacker or group of hackers, Microsoft confirmed The Hacker News. Earlier this year, hackers managed to breach Microsoft's customer support portal and access information related to some email accounts registered with the company's Outlook service. Yesterday, a user on Reddit publicly posted a screenshot of an email which he received from Microsoft warning that unknown attackers were able to access some information of his OutLook account between 1 January 2019 and 28 March 2019. Another user on Reddit also confirmed that he/she too received the same email from Microsoft. According to the incident notification email, as shown below, attackers were able to compromise credentials for one of Microsoft's customer support agents and used it to unauthorisedly access some information related to the affected accounts, but not

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

It's been a bad week for Facebook users. First, the social media company was caught asking some of its new users to share passwords for their registered email accounts and now… ...the bad week gets worse with a new privacy breach. More than half a billion records of millions of Facebook users have been found exposed on unprotected Amazon cloud servers. The exposed datasets do not directly come from Facebook; instead, they were collected and unsecurely stored online by third-party Facebook app developers. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm UpGuard today revealed that they discovered two datasets—one from a Mexican media company called Cultura Colectiva and another from a Facebook-integrated app called "At the pool"—both left publicly accessible on the Internet. More than 146 GB of data collected by Cultura Colectiva contains over 540 million Facebook user records, including comments, likes, reactions, account names, Facebook user IDs, and more. The

The Georgia Institute of Technology, well known as Georgia Tech, has confirmed a data breach that has exposed personal information of 1.3 million current and former faculty members, students, staff and student applicants. In a brief note published Tuesday, Georgia Tech says an unknown outside entity gained "unauthorized access" to its web application and accessed the University's central database by exploiting a vulnerability in the web app. Georgia Tech traced the first unauthorized access to its system to December 14, 2018, though it's unclear how long the unknown attacker(s) had access to the university database containing sensitive students and staff information. The database contained names, addresses, social security numbers, internal identification numbers, and date of birth of current and former students, faculty and staff, and student applicants. However, the University has launched a forensic investigation to determine the full extent of the breach.

Hackers yesterday stole nearly $19 million worth of cryptocurrency from Bithumb , the South Korea-based popular cryptocurrency exchange admitted today. According to Primitive Ventures' Dovey Wan, who first broke the information on social media, hackers managed to compromise a number of Bithumb's hot EOS and XRP wallets and transferred around 3 million EOS (~ $13 million) and 20 million XRP (~ $6 million) to his newly-created accounts. The hacker then distributedly transferred the stolen digital assets to his different accounts created on other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Huobi, HitBTC, WB, and EXmo, via ChangeNow, a non-custodial crypto swap platform does not require KYC/account. Bithumb has been hacked multiple times in the past. Last time the popular cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in June 2018, when hackers stole $31 million, and in July 2017, when hackers stole $1 million worth of EOS from many wallets belonging to its users. "And this is the se

A hacker who was selling details of nearly 890 million online accounts stolen from 32 popular websites in three separate rounds has now put up a fourth batch of millions of records originating from 6 other sites for sale on the dark web. The Hacker News today received a new email from the Pakistani hacker, who goes by online alias Gnosticplayers and previously claimed to have hacked dozens of popular websites from companies which, according to him, probably had no idea that they were compromised. The hacker last month made three rounds of stolen accounts up for sale on the popular dark web market called Dream Market, posting details of 620 million accounts stolen from 16 websites in the first round, 127 million records from 8 sites in the second, and 92 million from 8 websites in the third. Although while releasing the third round Gnosticplayers told The Hacker News that it would be his last batch of the stolen database, the hacker released the fourth round containing nearl

Popular enterprise software company Citrix that provides services to the U.S. military, the FBI, many U.S. corporations, and various U.S. government agencies disclosed last weekend a massive data breach of its internal network by "international cyber criminals." Citrix said it was warned by the FBI on Wednesday of foreign hackers compromising its IT systems and stealing "business documents," adding that the company does not know precisely which documents the hackers obtained nor how they got in. However, the FBI believes that the miscreants likely used a "password spraying" attack where the attackers guessed weak passwords to gain an early foothold in the company's network in order to launch more extensive attacks. "While not confirmed, the FBI has advised that the hackers likely used a tactic known as password spraying, a technique that exploits weak passwords. Once they gained a foothold with limited access, they worked to circumvent

Exclusive — A security researcher has identified an unsecured server that was leaking detailed personal details of nearly half a million Indian citizens... thanks to another MongoDB database instance that company left unprotected on the Internet accessible to anyone without password. In a report shared with The Hacker News, Bob Diachenko  disclosed that two days ago he found a 4.1 GB-sized highly sensitive database online, named " GNCTD ," containing information collected on 458,388 individuals located in Delhi, including their  Aadhaar numbers and voter ID numbers. Though it's not clear if the exposed database is linked to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), Diachenko found that the database contains references and email addresses with "transerve.com" domain for users registered with "senior supervisor," and "super admin" designations. Based upon the information available on  Transerve Technologies  webs

Why would someone bother to hack a so-called "ultra-secure encrypted database that is being protected behind 13 feet high and 5 feet thick walls," when one can simply fetch a copy of the same data from other sources. French security researcher Baptiste Robert, who goes by the pseudonym "Elliot Alderson" on Twitter, with the help of an Indian researcher, who wants to remain anonymous, discovered that the official website of popular state-owned LPG gas company Indane is leaking personal details of its millions of customers, including their Aadhaar numbers. This is not the first time when an unprotected third-party database has leaked Aadhaar details of Indian citizens, which is a unique number assigned to each citizen as part of India's biometric identity programme maintained by the government's Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Earlier this week an anonymous Indian researcher initially discovered a loophole in the Indane's online

All these numbers…. "More than 5 billion records from 6,500 data breaches were exposed in 2018" — a report from Risk Based Security says. "More than 59,000 data breaches have been reported across the European since the GDPR came into force in 2018" — a report from DLA Piper says. …came from data breaches that were reported to the public, but in reality, more than half of all data breaches actually go unreported. Just last week, we disclosed the existence of some massive unreported data breaches in two rounds, which a hacker has now started monetizing by selling stolen user databases publicly. Now, a new set of databases containing millions of hacked accounts from several websites has been made available for sale on the dark web marketplace by the same hacker who goes by online alias Gnosticplayers. Gnosticplayers last week made two rounds of stolen accounts up for sale on the popular dark web marketplace called Dream Market , posting details of near

A hacker who was selling details of nearly 620 million online accounts stolen from 16 popular websites has now put up a second batch of 127 million records originating from 8 other sites for sale on the dark web. Last week, The Hacker News received an email from a Pakistani hacker who claims to have hacked dozens of popular websites (listed below) and selling their stolen databases online. During an interview with The Hacker News, the hacker also claimed that many targeted companies have probably no idea that they have been compromised and that their customers' data have already been sold to multiple cyber criminal groups and individuals. Package 1: Databases From 16 Compromised Websites On Sale In the first round, the hacker who goes by online alias "gnosticplayers" was selling details of 617 million accounts belonging to the following 16 compromised websites for less than $20,000 in Bitcoin on dark web marketplace Dream Market : Dubsmash — 162 million acco

With so many data breaches happening almost every week, it has become difficult for users to know if their credentials are already in possession of hackers or being circulated freely across the Internet. Thankfully, Google has a solution. Today, February 5, on Safer Internet Day, Google launches a new service that has been designed to alert users when they use an exact combination of username and password for any website that has previously been exposed in any third-party data breach. The new service, which has initially been made available as a free Chrome browser extension called Password Checkup , works by automatically comparing the user's entered credential on any site to an encrypted database that contains over 4 billion compromised credentials. If the credentials are found in the list of compromised ones, Password Checkup will prompt users to change their password. Wondering if Google can see your login credentials? No, the company has used a privacy-oriented i

European airplane maker Airbus admitted yesterday a data breach of its "Commercial Aircraft business" information systems that allowed intruders to gain access to some of its employees' personal information. Though the company did not elaborate on the nature of the hack, it claimed that the security breach did not affect its commercial operations. So, there's no impact on aircraft production. Airbus confirmed that the attackers unauthorized accessed some data earlier this month, which the plane manufacturer claimed was "mostly professional contact and IT identification details of some Airbus employees in Europe." "Investigations are ongoing to understand if any specific data was targeted; however we do know some personal data was accessed," Airbus said in its press release published on Wednesday. After detecting the security breach, the plan manufacturer started an investigation to determine the origin of the hack and to understand the f

The French data protection watchdog CNIL has issued its first fine of €50 million (around $57 million) under the European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law that came into force in May last year. The fine has been levied on Google for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding the ads personalization," the CNIL (National Data Protection Commission) said in a press release issued today. The fine was imposed following the latest CNIL investigation into Google after receiving complaints against the company in May 2018 by two non-profit organizations—None Of Your Business (NOYB) and La Quadrature du Net (LQDN). Why Has Google Been Fined? According to the CNIL, Google has been found violating two core privacy rules of the GDPR—Transparency, and Consent. First, the search engine giant makes it too difficult for users to find essential information, like the "data-processing purposes, the data storag

German federal police have arrested a 20-year-old local student for stealing and publishing a massive trove of personal data of hundreds of politicians , journalists and other public figures last month. The young man, whose identity has not been revealed by the police, was arrested after police raided his parent's house in west-central German State of Hesse on Sunday and recovered a computer that the suspect tried to destroy 2 days before the search and a data backup. The suspect, who believed to have acted alone, has admitted of carrying out the mass hacking of German politicians out of anger at their political statements, BKA Federal Criminal Police revealed. "The accused was interrogated on 07.01.2019 by the senior prosecutor and officials of the Federal Criminal Police Office. He comprehensively acknowledged the allegations against him and provided information on his own offenses," the BKA said in a press release . "Due to a lack of grounds for detentio

A massive data breach at the popular online role-playing game 'Town of Salem' has reportedly impacted more than 7.6 million players, the game owner BlankMediaGames (BMG) confirmed Wednesday on its online forum. With the user base of more than 8 million players, Town of Salem is a browser-based game that enables gamers (which range from 7 to 15 users) to play a version of the famous secret role game Town, Mafia, or Neutrals. The data breach was first discovered and disclosed on December 28 when a copy of the compromised Town of Salem database was anonymously sent to DeHashed, a hacked database search engine. Over 7.6 Million Users Accounts Compromised The database included evidence of the server compromise and access to the complete gamer database which contained 7,633,234 unique email addresses (most-represented of the email providers being Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo.com). After analyzing the complete database, DeHashed disclosed that the compromised data contained

Another day, another data breach. This time it's the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NASA today confirmed a data breach that may have compromised personal information of some of its current and former employees after at least one of the agency's servers was hacked. In an internal memo sent to all employees on Tuesday, NASA said the unknown hackers managed to gain access to one of its servers storing the personally identifiable information (PII), including social security numbers, of current and former employees. The agency said NASA discovered the breach on October 23 when its cybersecurity personnel began investigating a possible breach of two of its servers holding employee records. After discovering the intrusion, NASA has since secured its servers and informed that the agency is working with its federal cybersecurity partners "to examine the servers to determine the scope of the potential data exfiltration and identify pot

Twitter has been hit with a minor data breach incident that the social networking site believes linked to a suspected state-sponsored attack. In a blog post published on Monday, Twitter revealed that while investigating a vulnerability affecting one of its support forms, the company discovered evidence of the bug being misused to access and steal users' exposed information. The impacted support form in question was used by account holders to contact Twitter about issues with their account. Discovered in mid-November, the support form API bug exposed considerably less personal information, including the country code of users' phone numbers associated with their Twitter account, and "whether or not their account had been locked." So far the company has declined to provide more details about the incident or an estimate for the number of accounts potentially impacted but says it believes that the attack may have ties to state-sponsored actors. "During our

Facebook's latest screw-up — a programming bug in Facebook website accidentally gave 1,500 third-party apps access to the unposted Facebook photos of as many as 6.8 million users. Facebook today quietly announced that it discovered a new API bug in its photo-sharing system that let 876 developers access users' private photos which they never shared on their timeline, including images uploaded to Marketplace or Facebook Stories. "When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline. In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories," Facebook said. What's worse? The bug even exposed photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post or didn't finish posting it for some reason. The flaw left users' private data exposed for 12 days, between September 13th an

Google today revealed that Google+ has suffered another massive data breach, forcing the tech giant to shut down its struggling social network four months earlier than its actual scheduled date, i.e., in April 2019 instead of August 2019. Google said it discovered another critical security vulnerability in one of Google+'s People APIs that could have allowed developers to steal private information on 52.5 million users, including their name, email address, occupation, and age. The vulnerable API in question is called "People: get" that has been designed to let developers request basic information associated with a user profile. However, software update in November introduced the bug in the Google+ People API that allowed apps to view users' information even if a user profile was set to not-public. Google engineers discovered the security issue during standard testing procedures and addressed it within a week of the issue being introduced. The company said