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The developers behind the Brave open-source web browser have revealed a new privacy-preserving data querying and retrieval system called  FrodoPIR . The idea, the company  said , is to use the technology to build out a wide range of use cases such as safe browsing, scanning passwords against breached databases, certificate revocation checks, and streaming, among others. The scheme is called  FrodoPIR  because "the client can perform hidden queries to the server, just as Frodo remained hidden from Sauron," a reference to the characters from J. R. R. Tolkien's  The Lord of the Rings . PIR, short for  private information retrieval , is a cryptographic protocol that enables users (aka clients) to retrieve a piece of information from a database server without revealing to its owner which element was selected. In other words, the goal is to be able to query a platform for information (say, cooking videos) without letting the service provider infer from a user's search

As many as 207 websites have been infected with malicious code designed to launch a cryptocurrency miner by leveraging WebAssembly (Wasm) on the browser. Web security company Sucuri, which published details of the campaign, said it launched an investigation after one of its clients had their computer slowed down significantly every time upon navigating to their own WordPress portal. This uncovered a compromise of a theme file to inject malicious JavaScript code from a remote server -- hxxps://wm.bmwebm[.]org/auto.js -- that's loaded whenever the website's page is accessed. "Once decoded, the contents of auto.js immediately reveal the functionality of a cryptominer which starts mining when a visitor lands on the compromised site," Sucuri malware researcher Cesar Anjos  said . What's more, the deobfuscated auto.js code makes use of WebAssembly to run low-level binary code directly on the browser. WebAssembly , which is supported by all major browsers, is a  b

Google has rolled out fixes for five security vulnerabilities in its Chrome web browser, including one which it says is being exploited in the wild, making it the  17th such weakness  to be disclosed since the start of the year. Tracked as  CVE-2021-4102 , the flaw relates to a  use-after-free bug  in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, which could have severe consequences ranging from corruption of valid data to the execution of arbitrary code. An anonymous researcher has been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. As it stands, it's not known how the weakness is being abused in real-world attacks, but the internet giant issued a terse statement that said, "it's aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-4102 exists in the wild." This is done so in an attempt to ensure that a majority of users are updated with a fix and prevent further exploitation by other threat actors. CVE-2021-4102 is the second use-after-free vulnerability in V8 the comp

Google on Friday rolled out an emergency security patch to its Chrome web browser to address a security flaw that's known to have an exploit in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2021-37973 , the vulnerability has been described as  use after free  in  Portals API , a web page navigation system that enables a page to show another page as an inset and "perform a seamless transition to a new state, where the formerly-inset page becomes the top-level document." Clément Lecigne of Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has been credited with reporting the flaw. Additional specifics pertaining to the weakness have not been disclosed in light of active exploitation and to allow a majority of the users to apply the patch, but the internet giant said it's "aware that an exploit for CVE-2021-37973 exists in the wild." The update arrives a day after Apple moved to close an actively exploited security hole in older versions of iOS and macOS ( CVE-2021-30869 ), which the TAG no

If you own a Xiaomi smartphone or have installed the Mi browser app on any of your other brand Android device, you should enable a newly introduced privacy setting immediately to prevent the company from spying on your online activities. The smartphone maker has begun rolling out an update to its Mi Browser/Mi Browser Pro (v12.1.4) and Mint Browser (v3.4.3) after concerns were raised over its practice of transmitting web browsing histories and device metadata to the company servers. The new privacy setting now allows Mi Browser users to disable aggregated data collection feature while in Incognito Mode, but it bears noting that it's not enabled by default. The option can be accessed by tapping the settings icon in the browser > Incognito mode settings > and then disable 'Enhanced incognito mode,' as shown in an attached screenshot below. Mint Browser and Mi Browser Pro have been downloaded more than 15 million times from Google Play to date. The devel

If you use the Firefox web browser, here's an important update that you need to be aware of. Starting today, Mozilla is activating the DNS-over-HTTPS security feature by default for all Firefox users in the U.S. by automatically changing their DNS server configuration in the settings. That means, from now onwards, Firefox will send all your DNS queries to the Cloudflare DNS servers instead of the default DNS servers set by your operating system, router, or network provider. As you may know, DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) protocol performs DNS lookups — i.e., finding the server I.P. address of a certain domain name — over an encrypted connection to a DNS server rather than sending queries in the plaintext. This privacy-focused technology makes it harder for man-in-the-middle attackers, including your ISPs, to manipulate DNS queries, eavesdrop on your Internet connection, or learning what sites you visit. "This helps hide your browsing history from attackers on the network,

Microsoft today finally released the first new reborn version of its Edge browser that the company rebuilds from scratch using Chromium engine, the same open-source web rendering engine that powers Google's Chrome browser. However, the Chromium-based Edge browser builds haven't yet entered the stable or even the beta release; instead, Microsoft has released two testing-purpose preview builds for developers. Both previews build— "Canary"  that will be updated daily, and "Developer"  that will be updated every week—are now available for download from the Microsoft's new Edge insider website . Here's how Microsoft differentiates Canary and Developer builds: "Every night, we produce a build of Microsoft Edge — if it passes automated testing, we'll release it to the Canary channel. We use this same channel internally to validate bug fixes and test brand new features. The Canary channel is truly the bleeding edge, so you may discover bugs

A Google security researcher has discovered a severe vulnerability in Blizzard games that could allow remote attackers to run malicious code on gamers' computers. Played every month by half a billion users—World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo III, Hearthstone and Starcraft II are popular online games created by Blizzard Entertainment . To play Blizzard games online using web browsers, users need to install a game client application, called ' Blizzard Update Agent ,' onto their systems that run JSON-RPC server over HTTP protocol on port 1120, and " accepts commands to install, uninstall, change settings, update and other maintenance related options. " Google's Project Zero team researcher Tavis Ormandy discovered that the Blizzard Update Agent is vulnerable to a hacking technique called the " DNS Rebinding " attack that allows any website to act as a bridge between the external server and your localhost. Just last week, Ormandy revealed a simi

To improve performance and reduce crashes caused by third-party software on Windows, Google Chrome, by mid-2018, will no longer allow outside applications to run code within its web browser. If you are unaware, many third-party applications, like accessibility or antivirus software, inject code into your web browser for gaining more control over your online activities in order to offer some additional features and function properly. However, Google notes that over 15 percent of Chrome users running third-party applications on their Windows machines that inject code into their web browsers experience crashes—and trust me it's really annoying. But don't you worry. Google now has a solution to this issue. In a blog post published Thursday on Chromium Blog, Google announced its plan to block third-party software from injecting code into Chrome—and these changes will take place in three steps: April 2018 — With the release of Chrome 66, Google will begin informing use

It is time to give Firefox another chance. The Mozilla Foundation today announced the release of its much awaited Firefox 57 , aka Quantum web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which claims to defeat Google's Chrome. It is fast. Really fast. Firefox 57 is based on an entirely revamped design and overhauled core that includes a brand new next-generation CSS engine written in Mozilla's Rust programming language, called Stylo. Firefox 57 "Quantum" is the first web browser to utilize the power of multicore processors and offers 2x times faster browsing experience while consuming 30 percent less memory than Google Chrome. Besides fast performance, Firefox Quantum, which Mozilla calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004," also brings massive performance improvements with tab prioritization, and significant visual changes with a completely redesigned user interface (UI), called Photon . This new version also adds in support for AMD V

Ever since the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft has been heavily pushing its Edge browser, claiming it to be the best web browser over its competitors like Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome in terms of speed and battery performance. However, Microsoft must admit that most users make use of Edge or Internet Explorer only to download Chrome, which is by far the world's most popular internet browser. Something hilarious happened recently during a live demonstration when a Microsoft engineer caught on a video switching from Edge to Chrome after the default Windows 10 browser stopped responding in the middle of the presentation. That is really embarrassing. The incident happened in the middle of a Microsoft Ignite conference, where the Microsoft presenter Michael Leworthy was demonstrating how to one can migrate their applications and data to Microsoft Azure cloud service. See what happens in the video below: However, Leworthy was forced to pause his Azure presenta

What if your laptop is listening to everything that is being said during your phone calls or other people near your laptop and even recording video of your surrounding without your knowledge? Sounds really scary! Isn't it? But this scenario is not only possible but is hell easy to accomplish. A UX design flaw in the Google's Chrome browser could allow malicious websites to record audio or video without alerting the user or giving any visual indication that the user is being spied on. AOL developer Ran Bar-Zik reported the vulnerability to Google on April 10, 2017, but the tech giant declined to consider this vulnerability a valid security issue, which means that there is no official patch on the way. How Browsers Works With Camera & Microphone Before jumping onto vulnerability details, you first need to know that web browser based audio-video communication relies on WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) protocol – a collection of communications protocols th

The ISPs can now sell certain sensitive data like your browsing history without permission, thanks to the US Senate. The US Senate on Wednesday voted, with 50 Republicans for it and 48 Democrats against, to roll back a set of broadband privacy regulations passed by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) last year when it was under Democratic leadership. In October, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that ISPs would need to get consumers' explicit consent before being allowed to sell their web browsing data to the advertisers or other big data companies. Before the new rules could take effect on March 2, the President Trump's newly appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai temporarily put a hold on these new privacy rules. Ajit Pai argued that the rules, which are regulated by FTC, unfairly favored companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook, who have the ability to collect more data than ISPs and thus dominate digital advertising. "All actors in the online

Next time when you accidentally or curiously land up on a website with jumbled content prompting you to download a missing font to read the blog by updating the Chrome font pack… …Just Don't Download and Install It. It's a Trap! Scammers and hackers are targeting Google Chrome users with this new hacking scam that's incredibly easy to fall for, prompting users to download a fake Google Chrome font pack update just to trick them into installing malware on their systems. Here's What the Scam is and How it works: It's a "The 'HoeflerText' font wasn't found" scam. Security firm NeoSmart Technologies recently identified the malicious campaign while browsing an unnamed WordPress website that had allegedly already been compromised, possibly due to failing to apply timely security updates. The scam is not a new one to identified by NeoSmart. It has been making rounds since last month . The hackers are inserting JavaScript into poorl

You might be aware of websites, banks, retailers, and advertisers tracking your online activities using different Web "fingerprinting" techniques even in incognito/private mode, but now sites can track you anywhere online — even if you switch browsers. A team of researchers has recently developed a cross-browser fingerprinting technique — the first reliable technique to accurately track users across multiple browsers based on information like extensions, plugins, time zone and whether or not an ad blocker is installed. Previous fingerprinting methods usually only work across a single browser, but the new method uses operating system and hardware level features and works across multiple browsers. This new fingerprinting technique ties digital fingerprint left behind by a Firefox browser to the fingerprint from a Chrome browser or Windows Edge running on the same device. This makes the method particularly useful to advertisers, enabling them to continue serving tar

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

In Brief Opera becomes the first web browser to offer a built-in Free, unlimited and 256-bit encrypted VPN service for everyone. Opera's Free VPN protects unencrypted browser session from leaking on public WiFi networks and will also let unblock firewalls to improve privacy and security. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become an important tool not just for large companies, but also for individuals to improve web privacy, dodge content restrictions and counter growing threat of cyber attacks. Opera has released an updated desktop version of its web browser with a Free built-in VPN service to keep you safe on the Internet with just a click. That's a great deal! For those unfamiliar, VPNs are easy security and privacy tools that route your Internet traffic through a distant connection, protecting your browsing, hiding your location data and accessing restricted resources. Free VPN Service with Unlimited Data Usage Unlike several other free VPN services,

In Brief Chrome apps and extensions make things easier, but they can also do terrible things like spy on web users and collect their personal data. But, now Google has updated its browser's User Data Policy requiring all Chrome extension and app developers to disclose what data they collect. Furthermore, developers are prohibited from collecting unnecessary browsing data and must also use encryption when handling sensitive information from users. Around 40 percent of all Google Chrome users have some kind of browser extensions, plugins or add-ons installed, but how safe are they? The company plans to enforce developers starting this summer, to "ensure transparent use of the data in a way that is consistent with the wishes and expectations of users." Google is making its Chrome Web Store safer for its users by forcing developers to disclose how they handle customers' data. Google's new User Data Policy will now force app developers, who use the Chrome We

Beware Comodo Users! Have you Safeguarded your PC with a Comodo Antivirus? Then you need to inspect your system for privacy and security concerns. First of all, make sure whether your default browser had been changed to " Chromodo " -- a free browser offered by Comodo Antivirus. If your head nod is " Yes ," then you could be at risk! Chromodo browser, which is supplied along with the installation of Comodo Anti-Virus Software and marketed as 'Private Internet Browser' for better security and privacy, automatically overrides system settings to set itself as your 'Default Browser.' And secondly, the main security concern about Comodo Antivirus is that the Chromodo browser has 'Same Origin Policy' (SOP) disabled by default. Google's security researcher Tavis Ormandy , recently shouted at Comodo for disabling SOP by default in its browser settings that violates one of the strongest browser security policy. Orm

Shocking! Adblock Extension that blocks annoying online advertising has been sold... ...And more shocking, the most popular " Adblock Extension ", with more than 40 million users, quietly sold their creation to an unknown buyer ... ' Michael Gundlach ', the creator widely used Adblock Extension refuses to disclose the name, who purchased his company and how much it was sold for, just because buyer wishes to remain anonymous. After watching a popup message (as shown) on their browsers this week, the Adblock users are literally going crazy. " I am selling my company, and the buyer is turning on Acceptable Ads, " Gundlach said. Holy Sh*t! NSA Buys Adblock? The ' Anonymous buyer ' conspiracy has caused concern for Adblock users and they have raised number of questions on social media sites, such as: Should I trust AdBlock Extension anymore? Who owns the Software I have installed? Is it NSA? Also, reportedly, Michael Gun