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Last week Craig Heffner, specialized on the embedded device hacking exposed a serious backdoor in number of D-Link routers allows unauthorized backdoor access. Recently he published his another researcher, Titled ' From China, With Love ', exposed that D-Link is not only the vendor who puts backdoors in their products. According to him, China based networking device and equipment manufacturer - Tenda Technology  (www.tenda.cn) also added potential backdoors into their Wireless Routers. He unpacked the software framework update and locate the httpd binary an found that the manufacturer is using GoAhead server, which has been substantially modified. These routers are protected with standard Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) and WPA encryption key, but still by sending a UDP packet with a special string , an attacker could take over the router. Routers contain a flaw in the httpd component, as the MfgThread() function spawns a backdoor service that listens fo

A team of researchers from the U.S. and Europe has developed a Hardware Trojan , which is an undetectable to many techniques, raising the question on need of proper hardware qualification.  They  released a paper on stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans, showing how integrated circuits used in computers, military equipment and other critical systems can be maliciously compromised during the manufacturing process. " In this paper we propose an extremely stealthy approach for implementing hardware Trojans below the gate level, and we evaluate their impact on the security of the target device. Instead of adding additional circuitry to the target design, we insert our hardware Trojans by changing the dopant polarity of existing transistors. " states the paper abstract. The Scientists devised two such backdoors they said adversaries could feasibly build into processors to surreptitiously bypass cryptographic protections provided by the computer running the chips

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

According to a new report, the world's biggest personal computer maker, Chinese firm Lenovo Group Limited has reportedly been banned from supplying equipment for  networks of the intelligence and defense services of Australia, the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, due to hacking concerns. Sources from intelligence and defense entities in the UK and Australia have confirmed the ban introduced in the mid-2000s after intensive laboratory testing of its equipment. In 2006 it was disclosed that the US State Department had decided not to use 16,000 new Lenovo computers on classified networks because of security concerns. Serious backdoor vulnerabilities in hardware and firmware were apparently discovered during the tests which could allow attackers to remotely access devices without the knowledge of the owner. Lenovo, headquartered in Beijing, acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005, after which IBM continued to sell servers and mainframes that we

You might want to be a little more careful the next time you pick up a cheap knock-off accessory for your device to save a few bucks because new hardware hacks could be the next big thing among cyber criminals . Researchers say they've built a custom iPhone wall charger that can Install malware in any iOS device using a custom made malicious chargers called Mactans , which are in turn controlled by a Raspberry-Pi like computer called a BeagleBoard. Mactans, which is named after the black widow spider's Latin taxonomy, will be demonstrated by Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang, and Chengyu Song at the Black Hat 2013 conference in July and they said all users were vulnerable to attacks over the charger. They add that they can also demonstrate that the malware infection resulting from their malicious charger is persistent and tough to spot. In order for the malicious software to remain installed and unseen, the trio will show how an attacker can hide their software in the

About five months ago, OLPC Project started a little experiment . They chose a village in Ethiopia where the literacy rate was nearly 0% and decided to drop off a bunch of Motorola Xooms there. The One Laptop Per Child project started as a way of delivering technology and resources to schools in countries with little or no education infrastructure, using inexpensive computers to improve traditional curricula. On the tablets, there was custom software that was meant to teach kids how to read. This experiment began earlier this year. Timeline of Experiment: 1st Four Minutes - One kid had opened the box and had figured out how to turn on the Xoom. In 1st Five Days -  The kids were using nearly 50 applications each every day. In Two Weeks - The kids were singing their ABC's in English. Now its 5th Month - They hacked the Motorola Xooms so they could enable the camera, which had been disabled by OLPC. OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte at MIT Technology Review's EmTech conference last