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Do you own a blog on WordPress.com website? If Yes, then you should take some extra cautious while signing into your Wordpress account from the next time when connected to public Wi-Fi, because it can be hacked without your knowledge, even if you have enabled two-factor authentication. Yan Zhu , a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noticed that the blogs hosted on WordPress are sending user authentication cookies in plain text, rather than encrypting it. So, it can be easily hijacked by even a Script-Kiddie looking to steal information. HIJACKING  AUTHENTICATION COOKIES When Wordpress users log into their account, WordPress.com servers set a web cookie with name " wordpress_logged_in " into the users' browser, Yan Zhu explained in a blog post. He noticed that this authentication cookie being sent over clear HTTP, in a very insecure manner. One can grab HTTP cookies from the same Wi-Fi Network by using some specialized tools, such as F

Smartphones are always ready to connect to the Internet and contains sensitive information such as Contacts, SMS, Photos, and GPS information and this sensitive information is always in danger of leakage. According to a report, Cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers are developing 55,000 new malware variants, each and every day; and many of them try to elevate privileges for unfettered control of the user device. North Carolina State University Researchers have developed a new software, called Practical Root Exploit Containment ( PREC ) , with the sole purpose of detecting mobile malware that attempts to run Root exploits in Android devices. Root exploits take control of system administration functions of the operating system that gives the hacker an unrestricted control of user's Smartphone. That means, an application has not permission to read your messages or contacts or the GPS location, but after getting root access it will be able to steal any data from your d

Over the past two years, a shocking  51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack.  Yes, over half.  And this, in a world where enterprises deploy  an average of 53 different security solutions  to safeguard their digital domain.  Alarming? Absolutely. A recent survey of CISOs and CIOs, commissioned by Pentera and conducted by Global Surveyz Research, offers a quantifiable glimpse into this evolving battlefield, revealing a stark contrast between the growing risks and the tightening budget constraints under which cybersecurity professionals operate. With this report, Pentera has once again taken a magnifying glass to the state of pentesting to release its annual report about today's pentesting practices. Engaging with 450 security executives from North America, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA—all in VP or C-level positions at organizations with over 1,000 employees—the report paints a current picture of modern security validation prac

Which Wireless Router do you have at your Home or Office? If it's a Linksys Router you could be in the danger to a new malware that attacks your firmware and replicates itself. Security researcher Johannes B. Ullrich from the SANS Technology Institute has warned about a self-replicating malware which is exploiting authentication bypass and code-execution vulnerabilities in the Linksys wireless routers. The Malware named as ' THE MOON ', scans for other vulnerable devices to spread from router to router and Johannes confirmed that the malicious worm has already infected around 1,000 Linksys E1000, E1200, and E2400 routers. In order to hack the Router, malware remotely calls the Home Network Administration Protocol (HNAP), allows identification, configuration and management of networking devices. The Malware first request the model and firmware version of the router using HNAP and if the device founds vulnerable, it sends a CGI script exploit to get the local command execution

A location based Social Networking platform with 45 million users,' Foursquare ' was vulnerable to the primary email address disclosed.  Foursquare is a Smartphone application that gives you details of nearby cafes, bars, shops, parks using GPS location and also tells about your friends nearby. According to a Penetration tester and hacker ' Jamal Eddin e ',  an attacker can extract email addresses of all 45 million users just by using a few lines of scripting tool. Basically the flaw exists in the Invitation system of the Foursquare app. While testing the app, he found that invitation received on the recipient's end actually disclosing the sender's email address, as shown above. Invitation URL:  https://foursquare.com/mehdi?action=acceptFriendship&expires=1378920415&src=wtbfe& uid = 64761059 &sig=mmlx96RwGrQ2fJAg4OWZhAWnDvc%3D Where 'uid' parameter represents the sender's profile ID.  Hacker noticed th

X.Org Foundation develops the X-Window System, the standard window system for open source operating systems and devices. Most of the graphical user interfaces for Unix and Linux systems rely on it. At the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) in Germany, Ilja van Sprundel , a security researcher gave the presentation titled  " X11 Server security with being 'worse than it looks.'". He found more than 120 bugs in a few months. In the presentation, he has presented a 23 year old Stack overflow vulnerability in X11 System that could lead to privilege escalation to root and affects all versions of the X Server back to X11R5. Later today, X.Org Foundation released a security Advisory , states " A BDF font file containing a longer than expected string could overflow the buffer on the stack. Testing in X servers built with Stack Protector resulted in an immediate crash when reading a user-provided specially crafted font. " The flaw resides in a file at " libXfo

How is it possible to exploit SD Card, USB stick and other mobile devices for hacking? Another interesting hack was presented at the Chaos Computer Congress (30C3), in Hamburg, Germany. The researchers demonstrated how it is possible to hack the microcontroller inside every SD and MicroSD flash cards that allow arbitrary code execution and can be used to perform a man in the middle attack . The Hardware Hackers  Andrew " bunnie " Huang and Sean "xobs"  described the exploitation method on their blog post ," it also enables the possibility for hardware enthusiasts to gain access to a very cheap and ubiquitous source of microcontrollers. " It seems that to reduce SD cards price and increase their storage capability, engineers have to consider a form of internal entropy that could affect data integrity on every Flash drive. Almost every NAND flash memory is affected by defects and presents problems like electron leakage between adjacent cells. " Flash memory is really

A Symantec researcher has discovered a new Linux worm, targeting machine-to-machine devices, and exploits a PHP vulnerability ( CVE-2012-1823 ) to propagate that has been patched as far back as May 2012. Linux worm, which has been dubbed Linux.Darlloz , poses a threat to devices such as home routers and set-top boxes, Security Cameras, and even industrial control systems. It is based on proof-of-concept code released in late October and it helps spread malware by exploiting a vulnerability in php-cgi . " Upon execution, the worm generates IP addresses randomly, accesses a specific path on the machine with well-known ID and passwords, and sends HTTP POST requests, which exploit the vulnerability. If the target is unpatched, it downloads the worm from a malicious server and starts searching for its next target. " the Symantec researchers explained. The malware does not appear to perform any malicious activity other than silently spreading itself and wiping a load of system

Japanese most popular word processing software ' Ichitaro ' and Multiple Products are vulnerable to a zero day Remote Code Execution Flaw Vulnerability, allowing the execution of arbitrary code to compromise a user's system. According to assigned CVE-2013-5990 ,  malicious attacker is able to gain system access and execute arbitrary code with the privileges of a local user. The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error when handling certain document files. " We confirm the existence of vulnerabilities in some of our products. " company blog says. In a blog post, Antivirus Firm Symantec confirmed that in September 2013, they have discovered attacks in the wild attempting to exploit this vulnerability during, detected as  Trojan.Mdropper , which is a variant of  Backdoor.Vidgrab . Researchers mentioned that  Backdoor.Vidgrab variant was used as a payload for a watering hole attack exploiting the Microsoft Internet Explorer Memory

Hackers are focusing on vulnerabilities in the PHP web application development platform threatening 80% websites in the world, including many big website i.e. Facebook and Wikipedia. PHP has several predefined variables that are called SuperGlobals i.e. POST, GET, COOKIES, FILES etc. Imperva Releases Hacker Intelligence Initiative Report , particularly concerned about two vulnerabilities that can be used to execute code on servers running PHP and fail to stop PHP SuperGlobal parameter variables being modified by external sources. Dubbed as  CVE-2011-2505 , describes a vulnerability in the authentication feature in PhpMyAdmin (PMA) that enables attackers to modify the  _SESSION  SuperGlobal variable. CVE-2010-3065 describes a problem in the PHP's session serialization mechanism. By injecting malicious value into an internal variable using PHP's Superglobal mechanism, the attacker is able to change the application flow and execute arbitrary commands to take control over

A USB Internet Modems or Data card, is a type of modem that allows your computer to receive Internet access using USB Port and connect to a GSM/CDMA network there by creating a PPPoE  ( Point to Point protocol over Ethernet) interface to your computer. Indian Security Researcher ' Rahul Sasi ' found a new Innovative critical flaw in these USB Internet Modems that allows an attacker to execute malicious code remotely, just via sending an SMS. While talking to ' The Hacker News ' , he claimed that the reported vulnerability  allows him to even hack computers remotely to gain the Meterpreter shell or  full access to the victim's PC. Vulnerability can be used by a malicious attacker for Mass exploitation, since these modems have a phone number which lies in a particular series, so all the phone numbers starting with xxxxxx1000 to xxxxxx2000 would be running a particular version of the USB modem software. USB Internet Modems are supplied with diale

Password theft has been a growing problem within the security community. Researchers at Arbor Networks have uncovered a botnet called Fort Disco that was used to compromise more than 6000 websites based on popular CMSs such as WordPress , Joomla and Datalife Engine. The Fort Disco botnet is currently made up of nearly 25,000 Windows machines and receives a list of sites to attack from a central command and control server. The bots receive also a list of common username-password combinations, typically composed of default combinations with password options including admin or 123456. Arbor Networks security researcher Matthew Bing said the attack has several advanced features that make it next to impossible to fully track and they obtained precious info on the botnet exploiting a misconfiguration on the attackers' side that made possible the analysis of logs on several of the six command and control servers discovered. " We stumbled upon these detailed logs the attacker left open o

TOR is the dark side of the Internet, the so-called dark web, which provides a safe haven to privacy advocates but is also where drugs, assassins for hire and other weird and illegal activities can allegedly be traded. A claimed zero-day vulnerability in Firefox 17 was used by the FBI to identify some users of the privacy-protecting Tor anonymity network. The FBI did not compromise the TOR network itself and The complex multi-layers of encryption still stand. Instead the FBI compromised the TOR browser only using a zero-day JavaScript exploit and used this to implant a cookie which fingerprinted users through a specific external server. Eric Eoin Marques , 28 year-old man in Ireland believed to be behind Freedom Hosting , the biggest service provider for sites on the encrypted Tor network , is awaiting extradition on p*rno charges. It is understood the FBI had spent a year trying to locate Mr Marques. Marques was arrested on a Maryland warrant that includes charges

Yammer , is the Enterprise Social Network service that was launched in 2008 and sold to Microsoft in 2012. Yammer is a secure, private social network for your company. Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of enterprise social software. Ateeq Khan,  Pakistani researcher from The Vulnerability Laboratory Research  team has discovered multiple critical Vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Yammer Social Network. An  OAuth bypass session token web vulnerability is detected in the official Microsoft Yammer Social Network online-service application. OAuth is an emerging authorization standard that is being adopted by a growing number of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Netflix, Flickr, and several other Resource Providers and social networking sites. According to the advisory , The vulnerability allows remote attackers to bypass the token protecti

A vulnerability in the latest firmware of the network-enabled Samsung TV models allows potential attackers to crash the vulnerable devices using Denial of Service ( DoS ) Attack, according to security researcher Malik Mesellem . According to Malik, The web server (DMCRUIS/0.1) installed on Smart TVs on port TCP/5600 can be crashed to reboot the device, if attacker will send a long HTTP GET request on TV's ip address. Malik successfully tested the exploit on his Samsung PS50C7700 plasma TV, as shown in the video demonstration below: In the Demo, The TV is connected by ethernet cable to a home network, and after running the exploit against TV's ip address - A few seconds later, the TV would restart and repeat the process. This means that a potential attacker only needs to obtain access to the LAN that the TV has joined, in order to attack it. This can be done either by breaking into a wireless access point or by infecting a computer on the same network with

Google and Microsoft are at each other's throats again. In a recent statement, Microsoft says hackers have been actively exploiting a vulnerability that was publicly disclosed by a Google researcher,  Tavis Ormandy . Microsoft addressed the vulnerability in its monthly " Patch Tuesday " package of fixes for July. Tavis Ormandy revealed the vulnerability in Windows 7 and 8 allows local users to obtain escalated privileges , making it easier for a hacker to compromise a system. Ormandy has been criticized by Microsoft and some in the security community who subscribe to the practice that a vulnerability shouldn't be made public until a software maker has an opportunity to fix it. Ormandy said that Microsoft " treat vulnerability researchers with great hostility " and are " often very difficult to work with ". He also advised researchers to use pseudonyms when dealing with the software giants. In 2012, Tavis accused Sophos of " poor development practices

Microsoft has announced   Patch Tuesday for this July Month, with seven bulletins. Out of that, one is important kernel privilege escalation flaw and six critical Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities . Patch will address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, .Net Framework, Silverlight and will apply to all versions of Internet Explorer from IE6 on Windows XP to IE10 on Windows 8 . Often targeted by attackers to perform drive-by malware download attacks, remote code execution flaws allow an attacker to crash an application and launch malware payloads often without any sort of notification or interaction form the user. The Windows 8 maker is also patching a kernel vulnerability disclosed at the beginning of June by Google researcher Tavis Ormandy . The issue is to do with Windows kernel's EPATHOBJ::pprFlattenRec function (CVE-2013-3660) and after Ormandy released the exploit code, Metasploit module was developed to exploit the bug. The company is planning to release the updat

ModSecurity is an open source web application firewall. It provides protection from a range of attacks against web applications and allows for HTTP traffic monitoring, logging and real-time analysis. ModSecurity developers team recently fixed a vulnerability ( CVE-2013-2765 ) which could be exploited by attackers to crash the firewall . The vulnerability is caused due to an error when processing the " forceRequestBodyVariable " action and can be exploited to cause a NULL pointer dereference via specially crafted HTTP requests.  Flaw was reported by Younes Jaaidi, according to him an attacker can exploit this issue using a web browser. He also released an Exploit for this flaw, which is publicly available at  Github  for download. Through the program to upgrade to version 2.7.4 fixes this problem, this version also fixes some minor bug and lib injection used to identify SQL injection attacks, while the development team also announced its portable version of Nginx has

Symantec product PGP Whole Disk Encryption which is used to encrypt all the contents on the disk on a block-by-block basis having Zero-Day Vulnerability, according to a pastebin note . Note was posted on 25th Dec by Nikita Tarakanov , claiming that  pgpwded.sys kernel driver distributed with Symantec PGP Desktop contains an arbitrary memory overwrite vulnerability. Affected version of software is Symantec PGP Desktop 10.2.0 Build 2599 (up-to date). Through a blog post , Symantec confirmed that its a potential issue, but it cannot easily be exploited. Vulnerability is limited to systems running Windows XP and Windows 2003 only. An attacker would need local access to a vulnerable computer to exploit this vulnerability. Note posted by Nikita also provide technical details on the issue, that help Symantec encryption engineering team to understand the issue. " However, the exploit would be very difficult to trigger as it relies on the system entering an error condition f