mobile security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

We use our Smartphone devices to do almost everything, from Internet Banking to Sharing private files and at the same pace, the mobile malware sector is also growing. The number of variants of malicious software aimed at mobile devices has reportedly risen about 185% in less than a year.  Security researchers have observed a growth in the numbers of computer malware families starting to use TOR-based communications, but recently the Security Researchers at anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab have spotted  the world's first Tor-Based Malware for Android Operating system. The Android Malware dubbed as ' Backdoor. AndroidOS .Torec.a ', using Tor hidden service protocol for stealth communication with Command-and-Control servers. Researchers detected that the Trojan is running from .Onion Tor domain and working on the functionality of an open source Tor client for Android mobile devices, called ' Orbot ', thus eliminating the threat of the botnet being de

Smartphone  is the need of everyone today and so the first target of most of the Cyber Criminals . Malware authors are getting to know their market and are changing their way of operations. Since last year we have seen a rise in the number of hackers moving from the Blackhat into the Greyhat. The Head of knowledge delivery and business development for  RSA's FraudAction Group ,  Daniel Cohen  warned users about the new threat via a company  blog  on Thursday, that explains everything about the malware app, called  iBanking . iBanking , a new mobile banking  Trojan app which impersonates itself as an Android ' Security App ', in order to deceive its victims, may intimidate a large number of users as now that its source code has been leaked online through an underground forum. It will give an opportunity to a larger number of cybercriminals to launch attacks using this kind of ready-made mobile malware in the future. Since many banking sites use  two-fac

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

Get bored with the older versions of Google's Android Operating system? Then there is Good News for Android lovers ! Google is putting an end to the older versions of Android newly manufactured Smartphone Handsets. According to a leaked Google Document, the Smartphone Manufacturers will be forced to provide the latest version of Android, i.e. version 4.4 KitKat installed in the new handsets, under Google's new policy. If an OEM wants to qualify for Google Mobile Services (GMS) or Google Apps, they should install the up-to-date version of Android in the handset and If true, then Google will no longer authorize devices running versions older than Android 4.2. In the leaked memo, Google states, " Starting February 2014, Google will no longer approve GMS distribution of new Android products that ship older platform releases. Each platform release will have a GMS approval window that typically closes nine months after the next Android platform release is publicly available. " The rep

Smartphones are powerful and popular, with more than thousands of new mobile apps hitting the market everyday. Apps and mobile devices often rely on consumers' data, including private information, photos, and location, that can be vulnerable to data breaches, surveillance and real-world thieves. When developing a mobile application, developer has to fulfill high security requirements, established for apps that deal with confidential data of the users. If you are a developer then responsibilities for providing security to the users is very high in comparison to functionality you are going to feed into the app. e.g. A vulnerability found in Starbucks' iOS app could have caused a massive financial data loss. It is always important for all app developers to have enough knowledge about major Mobile platform Security threats and its countermeasures. Today we would like to introduce open source ' Damn Vulnerable IOS App (DVIA) ' developed by Prateek Gianchan

The year 2014 starts with the formation of new mobile malware like ' Android . HeHe ', with the ability to steal text messages, intercept phone calls, and other malware such as ' XXXX . apk ' uses WiFi networks or hotspots to steal information, infected more than 24,000 Devices. But it should not be forgotten by us that 2014 marks the 10th Anniversary of the World's First mobile malware . FortiGuard Labs has published a whitepaper  that briefly explains the major mobile threats from 'Cabir' to 'FakeDefend' over the last decade. The world's first mobile malware was ' Cabir ', detected in 2004 when mobiles were not so popular among all of us. It was developed by the group of hackers known as 29A , designed to infect the Nokia Series 60 , the most popular Smartphone platform with tens of millions users worldwide at that time. The name " Caribe " appears on the screen of the infected phones and the worm spreads itself by seeking other devices such as

Watch out, coffee drinkers. If you are one of those 10 million Starbucks customers, who purchases drinks and food directly from their Smartphones, this news is for you! If you use Starbucks' official iOS app, you should know that the company is not encrypting any of your information, including your password. The app allows the Starbucks customers to check their balance, transaction history, fund transfer, and store location, etc. A Security researcher Daniel E. Wood found a vulnerability (CVE-2014-0647) in STARTBUCKS v2.6.1. iOS mobile application, that stores your credential details and GPS locations in plain text format into the file system. To extract the information from the mobile, an attacker just needs to connect the device to a computer and accessing ' session . clslog ' file from the location given below: /Library/Caches/ com . crashlytics . data/ com . starbucks . mystarbucks /session . clslog The vulnerability , however, requires that the hacker has physical

Last year Samsung launched a security feature called ' KNOX ' for high-end enterprise mobile devices. It's a nice security addition and free with new Samsung handsets such as the Galaxy Note 3 and Samsung Galaxy S4. Samsung Knox is an application that creates a virtual partition (container) within the normal Android operating system that allows a user to run two different Android systems on a same device, so that you can securely separate your personal and professional activities. KNOX based virtual operating system of your phone requires a password to be accessed and helps you to securely store data that they're especially concerned about, such as personal pictures and video, in protected containers that would be resistant to hacking attempts on stolen devices. You can switch between Knox mode and personal mode using shortcuts in the app tray and notification tray. All the data and applications stored in the KNOX container system are completely isolated from the rest

Security researchers Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit  have disclosed details about a widespread vulnerability in iOS apps , that could allow hackers to force the apps to send and receive data from the hackers' own servers rather than the legitimate ones they were coded to connect to. Speaking about the issue at RSA Conference Europe 2013 in Amsterdam, researchers have provided details  on this  vulnerability , which stems from a commonly used approach to URL caching. Demonstration shows that insecure public networks can also provide stealth access to our iOS apps to potential attackers using HTTP request hijacking methods. The researchers put together a short video demonstrating, in which they use what is called a 301 directive to redirect the traffic flow from an app to an app maker's server to the attacker's server. There are two limitations also, that the attacker needs to be physically near the victim for the initial poisoning to perform this attack and t

If you lose your device, Google lets you secure it instantly from afar through Android Device Manager, that let you locate and remotely wipe your phones and tablets. The latest update to Android Device Manager enables remote password locking, overrides the built-in Pattern, PIN code, Face unlock or password-based security, making sure your data doesn't fall into wrong hands. To get started, go to google.com/android/devicemanager on your computer and go through your list of devices that are connected to your Google account. I tried the process with my Samsung Galaxy S4, and it worked like a charm. Google's new feature is a very useful one for those who don't have a lock on their phone and want to make sure their data is protected. A lock request will immediately secure any device connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network, even if it's actively being used. If a thief has turned off a phone or enabled Airplane Mode, the lock will take effect as soon as a data co

The call for papers for The Hackers Conference 2013 is now open.  #THC2013  is a hacker conference taking place in New Delhi , India on August 25th, 2013.  The Hackers Conference is an unique event, where the best of minds in the hacking world, leaders in the information security industry and the cyber community along with policymakers and government representatives on cyber security meet face-to -face to join their efforts to co-operate in addressing the most topical issues of the Internet Security space. This is the second edition of the Conference . Following the huge success of the conference last year the current edition of the conference brings back to you all the knowledge, all the fun in a better, grander way! The Conference will be held in New Delhi, on the 25 of August 2013, and will get together industry leaders, Government representatives, Academia and underground Black-hat hackers to share knowledge and leading-edge ideas about information security and

It appears as if another malware scare has come to Android . Lookout Security said on Friday that it has discovered a new family of malware called BadNews .  Malware that avoided detection and made its way onto the Google Play store has been downloaded around 9 million times by users from all over the world. The company uncovered the malware in 32 applications listed by four different developer accounts on Google Play. Google was notified and the company removed the affected apps and killed the developer accounts associated with them. In their report, firm describes the malware: " BadNews masquerades as an innocent, if somewhat aggressive advertising network. This is one of the first times that we've seen a malicious distribution network clearly posing as an ad network. Because it's challenging to get malicious bad code into Google play, the authors of Badnews created a malicious advertising network, as a front, that would push malware out to infected devices

It's time of stocktaking, principal security firm are proposing their analysis to synthesize actual situation on cyber security, 2012 is widely considered a year when the malware has increased significantly thanks to the contributions of various actors that we will analyze shortly. WebSense has published a new interesting study, 2013 Threat Report , that confirms an extraordinary growth of cyber threats, the data that most of all alert the security community is the increasing number of sophisticated attacks able to elude traditional defense mechanisms. The analysis revealed that technologies most exposed to cyber attacks continue to be mobile platforms and social media, internet is confirmed as primary channel for cyber menaces, let's consider in fact that number of malicious web sites grew nearly 600% and 85% are represented by legitimate web hosts. Another concerning phenomenon is the use of Email as vector for cyber menace, attackers consider this carrier as