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Outernet - Free Global Wi-Fi Service from Outer Space

Outernet - Free Global Wi-Fi Service from Outer Space
Feb 28, 2014
If you are reading this THN Article, then you are the one of those lucky guys who has access to the Internet, but everyone is not as lucky as you. On this planet, about 40% of the population is still not having an access to the Internet services. So, there is good news for all those who are still deprived of Internet services - Free Global WiFi Internet Access called ' Project Outernet '. A Non-profit organization ' Media Development Investment Fund (MIDF) ' based in New York has taken this initiative, regardless of the geographical location, the Outernet will broadcast free, bypassing filtering or other means of censorship and universal Internet all over the globe from high in orbit. A few hundred of  Low-cost mini satellites ( cubesats ) will be sent into the space to create a constellation in the low earth orbit. To widen the range of service area, these Cubesats will utilize universally accepted standard protocols like DVB, Digital Radio Mondiale and  User

Chameleon Virus that Spreads Across WiFi Access Points like Common Cold

Chameleon Virus that Spreads Across WiFi Access Points like Common Cold
Feb 26, 2014
Do you know, A Computer viruses could go Airborne over WiFi networks? Security researchers at the University of Liverpool  in Britain have demonstrated a WiFi virus that can spread between computer networks just like the ' common cold ' spreads between Humans. They have created a proof-of-concept which can infect the entire wireless network instead of a single computer at a time,  that replaces the firmware of the vulnerable Access Point (AP) with a virus-loaded version, and then propagates itself to the next victim on the WiFi network . The  WiFi  based virus named as ' Chameleon ', that can self-propagate over WiFi networks from access point to access point,  but  doesn't affect the working of the Wireless Access Point. This Virus is able to identify WiFi access points that are not protected by encryption and passwords, according to the research paper . It can badly hit less-protected open access WiFi networks available in coffee shops or airp

Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management
Apr 12, 2024DevSecOps / Identity Management
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

Chainfire's Pry-Fi Android App released to defend against NSA Spying under Public Wi-Fi

Chainfire's Pry-Fi Android App released to defend against NSA Spying under Public Wi-Fi
Feb 01, 2014
Turn your face in any direction, someone is always trying to spy on you; doesn't matter who and what you are? Just yesterday we reported that Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) in Canada and NSA are together, running a spying program called ' game-changer '. It was revealed that the agencies are tracking all the travelers who passed through the airport terminal, and could be tracked throughout the country by referencing it with the intercepted information from Wi-Fi in cafes, libraries and other public places. Today XDA Senior Recognized Developer ' Chainfire ' has released a new Android app called Pry-Fi , that allow a user to disable Wi-Fi completely, including the background network scanning.  Pry-Fi will prevent your device from announcing all the networks it knows to the outside world, but it will still allow background scanning and automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks. ' Retailers, crooks, the government, and other

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Spying agencies tracking your location by capturing MAC address of your devices

Spying agencies tracking your location by capturing MAC address of your devices
Jan 31, 2014
Again a top secret revelation from the Snowden's Desk! A new document retrieved by the whistleblower Edward Snowden shows that the Canadian spy agency is tracking airline travelers even days after they left the terminal, just by capturing their device identification from the free Wi-Fi service at a major Canadian airport. CBC News reported that the US Intelligence agency worked with its counterpart Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) in Canada, and slurped information from the free Internet hotspots to track anyone who passed through the airport terminal, and could be tracked throughout the country by cross-referencing it with the intercepted information from Wifi at cafes, libraries and other public places, although it is not clear that they were tracking only the users who logged-in to the WiFi services or not. But It is also possible that one can capture the MAC addresses of all the available devices within the range of a Wi-Fi device (using some special tools

ASUS Wireless router leaves USB Storage Devices vulnerable to remote attackers

ASUS Wireless router leaves USB Storage Devices vulnerable to remote attackers
Jan 13, 2014
In this era of Computers and Smartphones, where we are connected to the Internet every second and use it almost for everything. For an Internet connection, one has to plug a device called Router between the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and device. Some Routers are available with USB option, where you can attach an external Hard Disk that allows files to be stored and retrieved across a computer network. Asus one of the largest IT hardware manufacturer providing these kind of devices by which you can connect to the internet and make your external hard disk available on the Internet as FTP server just by configuring AiDisk utility from the router's administrator panel.  Many ASUS Routers have this feature available, including models: RT-N66U, RT-N56U, RT-N15U, RT-N65U, RT-AC66U, DSL-N55U and RT-N16. Recently a vulnerability has been noticed by some Sweden users in the ASUS Routers, that allows an attacker to access your Hard Disk remotely from any part of the wo

Hacking Wireless DSL routers via Administrative password Reset Vulnerability

Hacking Wireless DSL routers via Administrative password Reset Vulnerability
Jan 04, 2014
If you want to hack a Netgear and Linkys Wireless Routers , there is a quick backdoor entry available, that allow an attacker to reset the admin panel password to defaults. Eloi Vanderbeken , a hacker and reverse-engineer from France has discovered an administration password Reset vulnerability in many Netgear and Linkys Routers. In a blog post , Eloi said that During Christmas Holidays he forgot the admin interface password of his Linksys WAG200G router and in an effort to gain access back of its administration panel, he first scanned the Router and found a suspicious open TCP port i.e. 32764. To do further research on this port service, he downloaded a copy Linksys firmware and reverse-engineered it. He found was a secret backdoor interface that allowed him to send commands to the router from a command-line shell without being authenticated as the administrator. Then he blindly tested commands, but doing so flips the router's configuration back to factory settings with defau

Hackers can steal Windows Phone passwords using Wi-Fi vulnerability

Hackers can steal Windows Phone passwords using Wi-Fi vulnerability
Aug 06, 2013
Microsoft has warned that a vulnerability in Windows Phone operating systems could allow hackers to access your login credentials. The vulnerability resides in a Wi-Fi authentication scheme known as PEAP-MS-CHAPv2, which Windows Phones use to access wireless networks protected by version 2 of the Wi-Fi Protected Access protocol. Cryptographic weaknesses in the technology can allow attackers to gain access to users encrypted domain credentials. These credentials could potentially give the attackers access to sensitive corporate networks. The bulletin, advisory 2876146 , says: To exploit this issue, an attacker controlled system could pose as a known Wi-Fi access point, causing the targeted device to automatically attempt to authenticate with the access point, and in turn allowing the attacker to intercept the victim's encrypted domain credentials. An attacker could then exploit cryptographic weaknesses in the PEAP-MS-CHAPv2 protocol to obtain the victim's d

HP LaserJet Pro Printers remotely exploitable to gain unauthorized access to Wi-Fi and Printer Data

HP LaserJet Pro Printers remotely exploitable to gain unauthorized access to Wi-Fi and Printer Data
Aug 06, 2013
Do you own an HP printer? If so, it may be vulnerable to Hackers. Multiple HP LaserJet Pro Printers are printer vulnerable to hackers according to a new advisory posted by the vendor, dubbed as  CVE-2013-4807  (SSRT101181). Researcher ' Micha Sajdak ' of Securitum.pl have found a security hole HP LaserJet printers that allows a remote hacker to extract the admin password in plain text, among other information like WiFi settings including the WPS PIN . The main issue is with some of the networked HP LaserJet printers, having hidden URLs hardcoded in the firmware, which can be accessed without authentication. The vulnerability could be exploited remotely to gain unauthorized access to data. For example : https://IP_ADDRESS/dev/save_restore.xml Where the password seems to be encrypted, but the value contains a hex representation of the admin password in plain text, i.e. 0x746573746f7765 = testowe. Also, If a printer is WiFi enabled, then the WiFi info c

Hacking Google Glass with QR Code to sniff user data

Hacking Google Glass with QR Code to sniff user data
Jul 17, 2013
Researchers at mobile security firm Lookout discovered a security flaw in Google Glass which allowed them to capture data without the user's knowledge, when the user merely took a photo that captured a malicious QR code. Lookout was able to force Google Glass to silently connect to a Wi-Fi access point, which let the researchers view all of the data flowing to and from the device. When combined with an Android 4.0.4 web vulnerability , the hack apparently gave researchers full control of the Glass headset. The problem was that Google Glass could be told to execute a QR code without the user having to give permission. Because of Glass's limited user interface, Google set up the device's camera to automatically process any QR code in a photograph. In a video posted on YouTube, Lookout Security described the vulnerability: " That access point in turn allowed us to spy on the connections Glass made, from web requests to images uploaded to the Cloud ." said Mar

Cracking iPhone Hotspot password in 50 Seconds

Cracking iPhone Hotspot password in 50 Seconds
Jun 20, 2013
The ability to turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot is a fantastically useful little tool in and of itself. When setting up a personal hotspot on their iPad or iPhone, users have the option of allowing iOS to automatically generate a password. According to a new study by Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany, iOS-generated passwords use a very specific formula one which the experienced hacker can crack in less than a minute. Using an iOS app written in Apple's own Xcode programming environment, the team set to work analyzing the words that Apple uses to generate its security keys . Apple's hotspot uses a standard WPA2 -type process, which includes the creation and passing of pre-shared keys (PSK). They found that the default passwords are made up of a combination of a short dictionary words followed by a series of random numbers and this method actually leaves them vulnerable to  brute force attack . The word list Apple uses contains approximately 52,500

WiFi Hacking software AirCrack-NG updated after 3 years

WiFi Hacking software AirCrack-NG updated after 3 years
Jun 03, 2013
The Best WiFi hacking suite  AirCrack-NG updated to 1.2 Beta 1 after three years from the last release. Aircrack-ng is a set of tools for auditing wireless networks. New version added a few new tools and scripts (including distributed cracking tool). Aircrack-ng is an 802.11 WEP and WPA-PSK keys cracking program that can recover keys once enough data packets have been captured. Release Notes: Compilation fixes on all supported OSes. Makefile improvement and fixes. A lot of fixes and improvements on all tools and documentation. Fixed licensing issues. Fixed endianness and QoS issues. Download AirCrack-NG for Linux and For Windows

AirDroid vulnerability allows hackers to perform Dos attack from your Android device

AirDroid vulnerability allows hackers to perform Dos attack from your Android device
Apr 09, 2013
A vulnerability in AirDroid application  which provides wireless management of your Android phone or tablet from any browser on the same Wi-Fi network allow hackers  to perform Dos attack from your Android device. Cross Site scripting or  XSS vulnerability in the browser version of AirDroid allows an attacker is able to send a malicious text message to the browser associated with the account when attacker is able to get access to a phone with AirDroid installed. According to advisory posted by US-Cert , When this message is viewed on the AirDroid web interface an attacker can conduct a cross-site scripting attack, which may be used to result in information leakage, privilege escalation, and/or denial of service on the host computer. Vulnerability is currently not patched and also AirDroid team didn't annouce any update regarding fix. As a general good security practice, only allow connections from trusted hosts and networks. Flaw registered as  CVE-2013-0134

Smartphone wireless chipset vulnerable to DoS attack

Smartphone wireless chipset vulnerable to DoS attack
Oct 25, 2012
Security researcher Andres Blanco from CoreSecurity discovered a serious vulnerability in two Wireless Broadcom chipsets used in Smartphones. Broadcom Corporation, a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom BCM4325 and BCM4329 wireless chipsets have been reported to contain an out-of-bounds read error condition that may be exploited to produce a denial-of-service condition. Other Broadcom chips are not affected. The CVE ID given to issue is  CVE-2012-2619 . In advisory they reported that this error can be leveraged to denial of service attack, and possibly information disclosure. An attacker can send a RSN (802.11i) information element, which causes the Wi-Fi NIC to stop responding. Products containing BCM4325 chipsets: Apple iPhone 3GS Apple iPod 2G HTC Touch Pro 2 HTC Droid Incredible Samsung Spica Acer Liquid Motorola Devour Ford Edge (yes, it's a car) Products containing BCM4329 chipsets: Apple iPhone 4 Ap
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