wifi password hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Over 70% of Wi-Fi networks from a sample size of 5,000 were hacked with "relative ease" in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, highlighting how unsecure Wi-Fi passwords can become a gateway for serious threats to individuals, small businesses, and enterprises alike. CyberArk security researcher Ido Hoorvitch, who used a Wi-Fi sniffing equipment costing about $50 to collect 5,000 network hashes for the study,  said  "the process of sniffing Wi-Fis and the subsequent cracking procedures was a very accessible undertaking in terms of equipment, costs and execution." The new Wi-Fi attack builds on  previous findings  by Jens "atom" Steube in 2018 that involves capturing what's called the PMKIDs associated with a client (aka SSID) in order to attempt a brute-force attack using password recovery tools like hashcat. PMKID is a  unique key identifier  used by the access point (AP) to keep track of the pre-shared key — i.e., pairwise master key aka PMK — being u...

The same team of cybersecurity researchers who discovered several severe vulnerabilities, collectively dubbed as Dragonblood , in the newly launched WPA3 WiFi security standard few months ago has now uncovered two more flaws that could allow attackers to hack WiFi passwords . WPA, or WiFi Protected Access, is a WiFi security standard that has been designed to authenticate wireless devices using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) protocol and intended to prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your wireless data. The WiFi Protected Access III (WPA3) protocol was launched a year ago in an attempt to address technical shortcomings of the WPA2 protocol from the ground, which has long been considered to be insecure and found vulnerable to more severe KRACK attacks . WPA3 relies on a more secure handshake, called SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals), which is also known as Dragonfly, that aims to protect WiFi networks against offline dictionary attacks. However, in less ...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

The same "Vigilante-style Hacker," who previously hacked more than 10,000 routers to make them more secure, has once again made headlines by compromising more than 70,000 home routers and apparently forcing their owners to make them secure against flaws and weak passwords. Just like the infamous hacking group Lizard Squad , the group of white hat hackers, dubbed the White Team , is building up a sizeable botnet consisting of hundreds of thousands of home routers, but for a good purpose. Lizard Squad , the same group responsible for Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft Xbox Live outages , uses their botnets to launch DDoS ( Distributed Denial of Service ) attacks against target websites to flood them with traffic and knock them offline. Hacking Routers to Make them More Secure Challenged by Lizard Squad's maliocus work, the White Team of vigilante hackers built their own peer-to-peer botnet that infects routers to close off vulnerabilities , such ...

Has anyone ever heard about a " Vigilante-style Hacker ," who hacks every possible system to make them more Secure? No. It's not funny, neither a movie story: Reportedly, someone is hacking thousands unprotected Wi-Fi routers everywhere and apparently forcing owners to make them more Secure. Security firm Symantec has discovered a new malware, dubbed " Linux.Wifatch " a.k.a " Ifwatch ," infected more than 10,000 vulnerable ' Internet of Things ' devices, and spreading quickly. However, Linux.Wifatch not only removes malicious backdoor but also encourages users to update their weak passwords. How Does Linux.Wifatch Work? Once a device is infected, the Linux.Wifatch malware connects to a peer-to-peer network that is being used to distribute threat updates. Linux.Wifatch's code does not deploy any payload for malicious activities, such as to carry out DDoS attacks , rather it detects and remediates the known ...

Do you know, apart from United States National Security Agency (NSA) , Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and law enforcement, a few advertising companies are also monitoring unsuspecting users' cell phone data with the help of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) called Drones. Yes it's True! A Singapore-based advertising firm AdNear , which described itself as "the leading location intelligence platform," is using a number of small drones flying around the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles since early February in order to track Wi-Fi and cellular transmission signals. ADNEAR DRONES TRACKS YOU EVERYWHERE The drones have ability to sniff out device' cellular or wireless Internet signals, which is then identify by device ID. Using this gathered information, the drones track each and every movements and behaviors of individual users. Generally, the reason behind spying on people's cell phone signals is the company's interest to deliver hyper-targe...

A Greek security researcher, named George Chatzisofroniou , has developed a WiFi social engineering tool that is designed to steal credentials from users of secure Wi-Fi networks. The tool, dubbed WiFiPhisher , has been released on the software development website GitHub on Sunday and is freely available for users. "It's a social engineering attack that does not use brute forcing in contrast to other methods. It's an easy way to get WPA passwords ," said George Chatzisofroniou. However, there are several hacking tools available on the Internet that can hack a secure Wi-Fi network, but this tool automates multiple Wi-Fi hacking techniques which make it slightly different from others. WiFiPhisher tool uses "Evil Twin" attack scenario. Same as Evil Twin, the tool first creates a phony wireless Access Point (AP) masquerade itself as the legitimate Wi-Fi AP. It then directs a denial of service (DoS) attack against the legitimate Wi-Fi access poi...

In order to secure sensitive information such as Finance, many companies and government agencies generally use totally secure computer systems by making sure it aren't connected to any network at all. But the most secure systems aren't safe anymore. Security researchers at the Cyber Security Labs at Ben Gurion University in Israel have found a way to snoop on a personal computer even with no network connection. STEALING DATA USING RADIO SIGNALS Researchers have developed a proof-of-concept malware that can infiltrate a closed network to lift data from a machine that has been kept completely isolated from the internet or any Wi-Fi connection by using little more than a mobile phone's FM radio signals. Researcher Mordechai Guri , along with Professor Yuval Elovici of Ben Gurion University, presented the research on Thursday in the 9th IEEE International Conference on Malicious and Unwanted Software ( MALCON 2014 ) held at Denver. This new technology is kno...

What do you expect from your cat to come back with?? Perhaps with a mouse or a bird – none of your use. But what if she come back with your neighbours' wifi details? Really Interesting! A creative security researcher has found a way to use his pet cat mapping dozens of vulnerable Wi-Fi networks in his neighborhood. Gene Bransfield , a security researcher with Tenacity, managed to turn his wife's grandmother's pet cat Coco into a roaming detector for free Wifi networks by just using a custom-built collar , which was made from a Wi-Fi card, GPS module, Spark Core chip, battery and some fetching leopard print fabric. Bransfield dubbed his experiment " Warkitteh " – on the concept of " Wardriving ", where hackers used unsecured Wi-Fi connections from a parked car. He decided to turn his cat into a hacker because he found the idea amusing, and also because cats are the one that consumes as much as 15 per cent of internet traffic, with the popularity among the internet users....

Until now, we have seen how different smart home appliances such as refrigerators, TVs and routers could expose our private data, but now you can add another worry to your list —LED light bulb. Don't laugh! It's true. Researchers at UK security firm Context have formulated an attack against the Wi-Fi connected lightbulbs, which is available to buy in the UK, that exposes credentials of the Wi-Fi network, it relies on to operate, to anyone in accessibility to one of the LED devices. Security vulnerabilities found in the LIFX Smart light bulbs , that can be controlled by the iOS-based and Android-based devices, could allow an attacker to gain access to a "master bulb" and with the help of that they could control all connected bulbs across that network, and help them expose user network configurations. Along with other Internet of Things (IoTs) devices, the smart bulbs are part of a rising trend in which the manufacturers enclose computing and networking capabilities to their devices s...

This FIFA World Cup, the security has been really going well and yet no calamitous incident reported so far, other than the security company who is responsible to keep an eye on the event's security, itself tweeted a photograph of their state-of-the-art monitoring centre that exposed the World Cup security centre's internal Wi-Fi password to the whole world. Israel-based security firm RISCO is providing security management at the soccer stadium and very proud of their incredible work in securing this year's World Cup, which includes monitoring and maintaining hundreds of CCTV security cameras all over the 41,000-seat Arena Pantanal football stadium in Cuiaba, Brazil. The image was originally published by news outlet Correio Braziliense, that showed the Federal Police's head of international co-operation Luiz Cravo Dorea , standing in the mulch-million-dollar security center overseen by Israeli company RISCO and was watching Live video feeds from surveillance camera...

A quiet change in the privacy setting of its forthcoming iOS 8 smartphone Operating System, Apple could effectively block the path for advertisers, marketers, and other snoopers looking to collect data about you and your location from your Smartphone devices. When your mobile device scan for a free Wi-Fi network, whether at the shopping complex, airport, or restaurant, it sends out the MAC address which is a unique identifier of the device that allows devices to distinguish between one another on a network. Routers need this identifier to connect you to a network. Advertisers and retailers have been seeking to track these identifiers to help offer personalized advertisements to customers based on where they've been. Thanks to Apple's upcoming feature which will enhance users privacy to one step higher than other smartphone providers. Apple announced the change during its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino last week, revealing that the feature will restrict ...

Do you own a blog on WordPress.com website? If Yes, then you should take some extra cautious while signing into your Wordpress account from the next time when connected to public Wi-Fi, because it can be hacked without your knowledge, even if you have enabled two-factor authentication. Yan Zhu , a researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noticed that the blogs hosted on WordPress are sending user authentication cookies in plain text, rather than encrypting it. So, it can be easily hijacked by even a Script-Kiddie looking to steal information. HIJACKING  AUTHENTICATION COOKIES When Wordpress users log into their account, WordPress.com servers set a web cookie with name " wordpress_logged_in " into the users' browser, Yan Zhu explained in a blog post. He noticed that this authentication cookie being sent over clear HTTP, in a very insecure manner. One can grab HTTP cookies from the same Wi-Fi Network by using some specialized tools, such as F...

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) called Drones is rapidly transforming the way we go to war. Drones were once used for land surveillance, Delivering Pizza's, then equipped with bombs that  changed the way nations conduct war and  now these hovering drones are ready to hack your Smartphones. London-based Sensepoint security researchers have developed a drone called ' Snoopy ' that can intercept data from your Smartphones using spoofed wireless networks, CNN Money reported. The Drone will search for WiFi enabled devices and then using its built-in technology, it will see what networks the phones have accessed in the past and pretends to be one of those old network connections. Spoofing WiFi networks that device has already accessed allows Snoopy Drone to connect with targeted Smartphone without authentication or interaction. In technical terms, The Drone will use ' Wireless Evil Twin Attack ' to hack Smartphones. Once connected...

Security tools company Pwnie Express is making a network hacking focused Android device called the Pwn Pad . The device is based on the Google Nexus 7 specs, with USB-based Bluetooth, Ethernet and WiFi to gauge the security of a network beyond what Google's tablet can manage on its own. Pwn Pad  will be introduced at the RSA security conference in San Francisco next week and Pwnie Express is also releasing the Pwn Pad source code. This will allow hackers to download the software and get it up and running on other types of Android phones and tablets. " Every pen tester we know has a phone and a tablet and a laptop, but none of them has been able to do pen-testing from the tablet ," says Dave Porcello, Pwnie Express's CEO said to  wired . Most interesting part is that, first time the most popular wireless hacking tools like Aircrack-ng and Kismet introduced on an Android device.  The complete list of the tool available  in this...