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Facebook is reportedly buying stolen passwords that hackers are selling on the underground black market in an effort to keep its users' accounts safe. On the one hand, we just came to know that Yahoo did not inform its users of the recently disclosed major 2014 hacking incident that exposed half a billion user accounts even after being aware of the hack in 2014. On the other hand, Facebook takes every single measure to protect its users' security even after the company managed to avoid any kind of security scandal, data breach or hacks that have recently affected top notch companies. Speaking at the Web Summit 2016 technology conference in Portugal, Facebook CSO Alex Stamos said that over 1.3 Billion people use Facebook every day, and keeping them secure is building attack-proof software to keep out hackers, but keeping them safe is actually a huge task. Stamos said there is a difference between 'security' and 'safety,' as he believes that his team

Opera has reset passwords of all users for one of its services after hackers were able to gain access to one of its Cloud servers this week. Opera Software reported a security breach last night, which affects all users of the sync feature of its web browser. So, if you've been using Opera's Cloud Sync service , which allows users to synchronize their browser data and settings across multiple platforms, you may have hacked your passwords, login names, and other sensitive data. Opera confirmed its server breach on Friday, saying the "attack was quickly blocked" but that it "believe some data, including some of [their] sync users' passwords and account information, such as login names, may have been compromised." Opera has around 350 Million users across its range products, but around 1.7 Million users using its Sync service had both their synchronized passwords as well as their authentication passwords leaked in the hack. Since the company has already reset pas

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

How to Hack a Facebook Account? That's possibly the most frequently asked question on the Internet today. Though the solution is hard to find, a white hat hacker has just proven how easy it is to hack multiple Facebook accounts with some basic computer skills. Your Facebook account can be hacked, no matter how strong your password is or how much extra security measures you have taken. No joke! Gurkirat Singh from California recently discovered a loophole in Facebook's password reset mechanism that could have given hackers complete access to the victim's Facebook account, allowing them to view message conversations and payment card details, post anything and do whatever the real account holder can. The attack vector is simple, though the execution is quite difficult. The issue, Gurkirat ( @GurkiratSpeca ) says, actually resides in the way Facebook allows you to reset your password. The social network uses an algorithm that generates a random 6-digit passcode ‒

If you are a fan of Unreal Tournament from Epic Games or ever have participated in discussions on the online forums run by Epic Games, you possibly need to change your forum password as soon as possible. It seems the Unreal Engine and its creators, Epic Games' forums have recently been compromised by an unknown hacker or a group of hackers, who have stolen more than 800,000 forum accounts with over half a Million from the Unreal Engine's forums alone. The hackers get their hands on the forum accounts by exploiting a known vulnerability resided in an outdated version of the vBulletin forum software, which allowed them to get access to the full database. Epic believes registration information that includes usernames, scrambled passwords, email addresses, dates of birth, IP addresses, and date of joining, may have been obtained in the attack. "We believe a recent Unreal Engine and Unreal Tournament forum compromise revealed email addresses and other data entered in

A critical zero-day flaw has been discovered in the popular cloud password manager LastPass that could allow any remote attacker to compromise your account completely. LastPass is one of the best password manager that also available as a browser extension that automatically fills credentials for you. All you need is to remember one master password to unlock all other passwords of your different online accounts, making it much easier for you to use unique passwords for different sites. However, the password manager isn't as secure as it promises. Also Read:  Popular Password Managers Are Not As Secure As You Think Google Project Zero Hacker Tavis Ormandy discovered several security issues in the software that allowed him to steal passwords stored with LastPass. " Are people really using this LastPass thing? I took a quick look and can see a bunch of obvious critical problems. I'll send a report asap ," Ormandy revealed on Twitter . Once compromise a v

SMS-based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) has been declared insecure and soon it might be a thing of the past. Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA adds an extra step of entering a random passcode sent to you via an SMS or call when you log in to your account as an added layer of protection. For example, if you have 2FA enabled on Gmail, the platform will send a six-digit passcode to your mobile phone every time you sign in to your account. But, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a new draft of its Digital Authentication Guideline that says SMS-based two-factor authentication should be banned in future due to security concerns. Here's what the relevant paragraph of the latest DAG draft reads: "If the out of band verification is to be made using an SMS message on a public mobile telephone network, the verifier SHALL verify that the pre-registered telephone number being used is actually associated with a mobile network and not wi

Popular code repository site GitHub is warning that a number of users' accounts have been compromised by unknown hackers reusing email addresses and passwords obtained from other recent data breaches . Yes, GitHub has become the latest target of a password reuse attack after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter . According to a blog post published by Shawn Davenport, VP of Security at GitHub, an unknown attacker using a list of email addresses and passwords obtained from the data breach of " other online services " made a significant number of login attempts to GitHub's repository on June 14. After reviewing the logins, administrators at GitHub found that the attacker had gained access to a number of its users' accounts in order to gain illicit access to their accounts' data. Although the initial source of the leaked credentials isn't clear, the recent widespread "megabreaches" of LinkedIn , MySpace , Tumblr , and the dating site Fling,

The importance of increasing online security around personal information has risen due to the increase in cyber attacks and data breaches over recent years. I find it hilarious people are still choosing terrible passwords to protect their online accounts. The massive LinkedIn hack is the latest in the example that proves people are absolutely awful at picking passwords. The data breach leaked 167 Million usernames and passwords online, out of which "123456" was used by more than 750,000 accounts, followed by "LinkedIn" ( 172,523 accounts ), and "password" ( 144,458 accounts ). In a typical authentication mechanism, two-factor verification is the second layer of security that is designed to ensure that you are the only person who can access your account, even if someone knows your password. Project Abacus: Password-free Logins Now Instead of just relying on uniquely generated PINs, Google intends to use your biometrics data – like your typi

1. Spotify Hacked! Change your Password ASAP If you are one of the millions of people around the world who love to listen to music on Spotify, you may need to change your password immediately. Has Spotify been hacked? The company says no, but some Spotify users have claimed their profiles were hijacked, and details were changed without knowledge, including passwords and email addresses, TC  reported . Spotify apparently suffered a security breach that leaked hundreds of Spotify accounts details, including emails, usernames, passwords and account type, which was published last week to the popular anonymous file sharing website Pastebin. Spotify is investigating the Pastebin leaks of Spotify user information. 2. Over 1 Million Android Apps Are Coming to Chrome OS Google is ready to integrate millions of Android applications onto its Chrome OS platform by bringing the entire Play Store to it. Redditor 'TheWiseYoda' first spotted a new option to "Enable And

Hijacking an online account is not a complicated procedure, not at least in 2016. Today, Instagram confirmed that the company is in the process to roll out two-factor authentication for its 400 Million users. It is impossible to make your online accounts hack-proof, but you can make them less vulnerable. Then what you can do to protect yourselves from hackers? Several companies provide more enhanced steps like Encrypted Channel Services, Security Questions, Strict Password Policy and so on. But, what would you do if a hacker had somehow managed to access your accounts' passwords? Since the online accounts do not have an intelligent agent inbuilt to verify whether the person is the legit driver of the account; beyond a username and password match. Hence the concept of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) born out! Jumbos like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon have already blended the 2FA feature with their services to tackle account hijacking. 2-F

What do you expect a tech giant to protect your backdoor security with? Holy Cow! It's " 12345678 " as a Hard-Coded Password . Yes, Lenovo was using one of the most obvious, awful passwords of all time as a hard-coded password in its file sharing software SHAREit that could be exploited by anyone who can guess '12345678' password. The Chinese largest PC maker made a number of headlines in past for compromising its customers security. It had shipped laptops with the insecure  SuperFish adware , it was  caught using Rootkit  to secretly install unremovable software, its  website was hacked , and it was  caught pre-installing Spyware  on its laptops. Any of these incidences could have been easily prevented. Now, Research center of Core Security CoreLabs issued an advisory on Monday that revealed several software vulnerabilities in Lenovo SHAREit app for Windows and Android that could result in: Information leaks Security protocol bypas

The majority of Internet users are vulnerable to cyber threats because of their own weaknesses in setting up a strong password. But, are end-users completely responsible for choosing weak passwords? Give a thought. Recently we wrote an article revealing the list of Worst Passwords of 2015 that proved most of us are still using bad passwords, like ' 123456 ' or ' password ,' to secure our online accounts that when breached could result in critical information loss. If the end-user is to blame for weak password security, then the solution is to educate each and every Internet user to follow the best password security practice. But is that really possible? Practically, No. Even after being aware of best password security measures, do we really set strong passwords for every website? I mean EVERY. Ask yourself. Who's Responsible for allowing Users to Set a Weak Password? It's the websites and their developers, who didn't enforce a

Some things online can never change like -- Terrible Passwords by Humans . When it's about various security measures to be taken in order to protect your Internet security, like installing a good anti-virus or running Linux on your system doesn't mean that your work gets over here, and you are safe enough from online threats. However, even after countless warnings, most people are continuously using deadly-simple passwords, like '123456' or 'password,' to safeguard their most sensitive data. Evidence suggests that weak passwords are as popular now as they ever were, and the top 25 passwords of 2015 are very easy to guess. Password management firm SplashData on Tuesday released its annual " Worst Passwords List ". The 2015 list almost resembled the 2014 list of the worst password, but there are some interesting new entries, including the Star Wars-inspired ' solo ,' and ' starwars .' Also Read:  Best Password Manager —

You should be very careful while visiting websites on the Internet because you could be hit by a new upgrade to the World's worst Exploit Kit – Angler , which lets hackers develop and conduct their own drive-by attacks on visitors' computers with relative ease. Many poorly-secured websites are targeting Windows users with a new "Cocktail" of malware that steals users' passwords before locking them out from their machines for ransom. Yes, stealing Windows users' passwords before encrypting their data and locking their PCs for ransom makes this upgrade to the Angler Exploit Kit nastier. Here's How the New Threat Works: Once the Angler exploit kit finds a vulnerable application, such as Adobe Flash, in visitor's computer, the kit delivers its malicious payloads, according to a blog post published by Heimdal Security. The First Payload infects the victim's PC with a widely used data thief exploit known as Pony that systematic

SHA-1 – one of the Internet's widely adopted cryptographic hash function – is Just about to Die. Yes, the cost and time required to break the SHA1 algorithm have fallen much faster than previously expected. According to a team of researchers, SHA-1 is so weak that it may be broken and compromised by hackers in the next three months. The SHA-1 algorithm was designed in 1995 by the National Security Agency (NSA) as a part of the Digital Signature Algorithm. Like other hash functions, SHA-1 converts any input message to a long string of numbers and letters that serve as a cryptographic fingerprint for that message. Like fingerprints, the resulting hashes are useful as long as they are unique. If two different message inputs generate the same hash (also known as a collision ), it can open doors for real-world hackers to break into the security of banking transactions, software downloads, or any website communication. Collision Attacks on SHA-1 Researchers

Encrypting your sensitive data is important. As you may know, CIA... C onfidentiality I ntegrity A vailability ...are the essential elements of Information Security. There are a number of tools and methods available out there, but not all encryption tools are same. We are now living in an era where everyone is watching everyone else, and now you need to pay extra attention before choosing any tool. VeraCrypt , a TrueCrypt alternative, is an open source file encryption software designed to protect your online privacy. VeraCrypt enters the market within months after TrueCrypt died , almost similar to it, but with enhancements to further secure your data. A week ago, latest version VeraCrypt 1.12 released with a new feature called PIM, which stands for " Personal Iterations Multiplier ". PIM (Personal Iterations Multiplier) is a new parameter introduced in VeraCrypt 1.12 to secure your data. PIM is basically a secret numerical value that