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Microsoft's long-lived operating system Windows XP—that still powers over 1% of all laptops and desktop computers worldwide—has had its source code leaked online, allegedly, along with Windows Server 2003. Yes, you heard that right. The source code for Microsoft's 19-year-old operating system was published as a torrent file on notorious bulletin board website 4chan, and it's for the very first time when source code for Microsoft's operating system has been leaked to the public. Several reports suggest that the collection of torrent files, which weigh 43GB in size, also said to include the source code for Windows Server 2003 and several Microsoft's older operating systems, including: Windows 2000 Windows CE 3  Windows CE 4  Windows CE 5  Windows Embedded 7 Windows Embedded CE Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 4 MS-DOS 3.30  MS-DOS 6.0 The torrent download also includes the alleged source code for various Windows 10 components that  appeared in 2017 ...

Did you know… last month's widespread WannaCry ransomware attack forced Microsoft to release security updates against EternalBlue SMB exploit for unsupported versions of Windows, but the company left other three Windows zero-day exploits unpatched? For those unaware, EternalBlue is a Windows SMB flaw that was leaked by the Shadow Brokers in April and then abused by the WannaCry ransomware to infect nearly 300,000 computers in more than 150 countries within just 72 hours on 12th of May. Shortly after WannaCry outbreak, we reported that three unpatched Windows exploits , codenamed " EsteemAudit, " " ExplodingCan ," and " EnglishmanDentist ," were also being exploited by individuals and state-sponsored hackers in the wild. Specially EsteemAudit , one of the dangerous Windows hacking tool that targets remote desktop protocol (RDP) service on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP machines, while ExplodingCan exploits bugs in IIS 6.0 and E...

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...

China is very strict about censorship, which is why the country has become very paranoid when it comes to adopting foreign technologies. The country banned Microsoft's Windows operating system on government computers in 2014 amid concerns about security and US surveillance. Even in the wake of that, China had been pushing its custom version of Windows XP and its forked version of Ubuntu Linux . To deal with this issue and target the world's largest market, Microsoft's CEO for the Greater China region last year confirmed that the company was working on a Chinese version of Windows 10 that included "more management and security controls" and less bloatware. Now, Microsoft has just announced a new version of its Windows 10, which is now ready for Chinese government agencies to use. In its event in Shanghai on Tuesday, Microsoft announced Windows 10 China Government Edition specifically designed for the Chinese government.The OS is based on Windows 1...

Update —  After reading this article, if you want to know, what has happened so far in past 4 days and how to protect your computers from WannaCry, read our latest article " WannaCry Ransomware: Everything You Need To Know Immediately . "  In the wake of the largest ransomware attack in the history that had already infected over 114,000 Windows systems worldwide since last 24 hours, Microsoft just took an unusual step to protect its customers with out-of-date computers. Also Read —   Google Researcher Finds Link Between WannaCry Attacks and North Korea . Microsoft has just released an emergency security patch update for all its unsupported version of Windows, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 8, Server 2003 and 2008 Editions. So, if your organization, for some reason, is still running on Windows XP or Vista, you are strongly advised to download and APPLY PATCH NOW ! WannaCrypt , or also known as WannaCry, is a new ransomware that wreaked havoc across th...

North Korea has its own homegrown computer operating system that looks remarkably just like Apple's OS X, which not only prevents potential foreign hacking attempts but also provides extensive surveillance capabilities. Two German researchers have just conducted an in-depth analysis of the secretive state's operating system and found that the OS does more than what is known about it. Dubbed Red Star OS , the operating system based on a Linux 2009 version called Fedora 11 limits its users to a government-approved view of the world and has the tendency to ' watermark ' files on USB sticks to track user's shuttling contraband material. Red Star OS Tracks User's Every Move In short, whenever a user inserts a USB storage device containing photos, videos or other documents, into a computer running Red Star, the OS takes the current hard disk's serial number, encrypts that number, and writes that encrypted serial into the file, marking it. The p...

Do You Know:  China has planned to eliminate all foreign Technologies and Services by 2020, just like Google and Facebook . And it seems China in some years would be an entirely independent IT economy; building homegrown Mobile and computer devices, Operating Systems, Applications, Browsers and almost everything existing in the IT ecosystem. Well, China was not at all happy when Microsoft finally announced the end of official support for Windows XP. At the time, Windows holded 91% of total market share, compared to just for Mac OS X and just 1% for Linux. However, China wasn't interested to pay either for extended support for Windows XP or for switching to Windows 8. So, they decided to develop their own Operating System. Yes, China has developed a Desktop Operating System named " NeoKylin " ( and ' Kylin ' in Chinese ), tagged as a substitute to Windows XP by Quartz , who got an opportunity to have a hands-on experience of its "community version" OS. NeoKylin...

Cyber criminals have exploited the power of two online advertising networks, Google's DoubleClick and popular Zedo advertising agency , to deliver malicious advertisements to millions of internet users that could install malware on a user's computer. A recent report published by the researcher of the security vendor Malwarebytes suggests that the cyber criminals are exploiting a number of websites, including The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post and the Last.fm music streaming website, to serve malicious advertisements designed to spread the recently identified Zemot malware . Malvertising is not any new tactic used by cybercriminals, but Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher with Malwarebytes, wrote in a blog post that his company " rarely see attacks on a large scale like this. " "It was active but not too visible for a number of weeks until we started seeing popular sites getting flagged in our honeypots," Segura wrote. "That's ...

Today, Oracle has released its quarterly Critical Patch Update (CPU) for the month of July, as part of its monthly security bulletin, in which it fixes a total of 113 new security vulnerabilities for hundreds of the company's products. The security update for Oracle's popular browser plug-in Java addresses 20 vulnerabilities in the software, all of which are remotely exploitable without authentication, that means an attacker wouldn't need a username and password to exploit them over a network. MOST CRITICAL ONE TO PATCH FIRST Oracle uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to provide an open and standardized rating of the security holes it finds in its products. One or more of the Java vulnerabilities received the most "critical" rating according to Oracle's Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), i.e. base score of 10 or near. Although, numerous other Oracle products and software components addressed in the latest security updates, which address ...

Beginning of the new month, Get Ready for Microsoft Patch Tuesday! Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of July 2014 Patch Tuesday releasing six security Bulletins, which will address a total of six vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical, one is rated moderate and rest are important in severity. All six vulnerabilities are important for you to patch, as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software, including Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Server Software and Internet Explorer, with the critical ones targeting Internet Explorer and Windows. Microsoft is also providing an update for the " Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server " which is rated moderate for a Denial of Service (DoS) flaw. " At first glance it looks like Microsoft may be taking it easy on us this month, which would be nice since we will be coming off a long holiday weekend here in the U.S."  Chris Goettl from IT Security firm...

Microsoft ended its support for Windows XP officially more than a month ago on April 8, 2014 . This made a large number of users to switch to the latest version of Windows, but still a wide portion of users are using Microsoft oldest and most widely used operating system, despite not receiving security updates. While some companies and organizations who were not able to migrate their operating system's running Windows XP to another operating system before the support phase ended, are still receiving updates by paying Microsoft for the security patches and updates. Now a relatively simple method has emerged as a trick for the XP users which makes it possible to receive Windows XP security updates for the next five years i.e. until April 2019. It makes use of updates for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 based on Windows XP Service Pack 3, because the security updates which are being released for POSReady 2009 are inevitably the same updates Microsoft would have rolled out...

Microsoft had publicized widely its plans to stop supporting oldest and widely used Operating system, Windows XP after 8th April this year, which means Microsoft would no longer issue security patches for XP. A few days back, we reported about a new critical Zero-day vulnerability in all versions of Microsoft's browser Internet Explorer, starting with IE version 6 and including IE version 11. According to the advisory (CVE-2014-1776), All versions of Internet Explorer are vulnerable to Remote Code Execution flaw, which resides ' in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated ,' Microsoft confirmed . An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. FIRST PATCH FOR WINDOWS XP, EVEN AFTER EXPIRATION DATE Internet Explorer vulnerability poses a special concern for people still using Windows XP , but can Microsoft really ignore inno...

As we reported earlier, Microsoft will stop supporting the Windows XP operating system after 8th April, apparently 95% of the world's 3 million ATM machines are run on it.  Microsoft's decision to withdraw support for Windows XP  poses critical security threat to the economic infrastructure worldwide. MORE REASONS TO UPGRADE Security researchers at Antivirus firm Symantec claimed that hackers can exploit a weakness in Windows XP based ATMs, that allow them to withdraw cash simply by sending an SMS to compromised ATMs. " What was interesting about this variant of  Ploutus  was that it allowed  cybercriminals  to simply send an SMS to the compromised ATM, then walk up and collect the dispensed cash. It may seem incredible, but this technique is being used in a number of places across the world at this time. " researchers said. HARDWIRED Malware for ATMs According to researchers - In 2013, they detected a malware named Backdoor . Ploutus,  installed o...

As we have reported you earlier that Microsoft is pulling out their Windows XP support after April 8 2014. Since a vast majority of bank ATMs around the world currently runs on Windows XP, but if they'll continue sticking to it after the deadline, then they'll be exposed to all kinds of security threats, as Microsoft will no longer provide the security patches thereafter. Many countries' Banks have got a way out, many banks have arranged or are in the process of arranging extended support for Windows XP for which they are ready to pay Microsoft millions of dollars, but may be not in the case of India. Yes, India will never feed Microsoft for providing extra support to the older version; rather they could switch over to the Linux operating system. India has around 115,000 ATMs across the country at present and the counts will go up in coming days, but the end of life for XP will not affect banks and functioning of ATMs as the financial institutions across the ...

Despite so many warnings from Microsoft and Cyber Security Experts, Windows XP is still being used by a number of Government organizations, Financial institutions as well as big Corporations all around the world. If we look at the statistics then almost 30% of computers you will find that still run Windows XP , including banks, airline companies, and other huge enterprises, the count in real is likely to be even higher than the estimated. But If you stick with Windows XP after April 8 2014 , you might be at a great risk as XP will take its last breath officially on that day and will die! This fact poses danger to its users as they will be exposed to all kinds of threats. Almost thirteen years after it was 'first released' i.e. April 8 when the Redmond, Washington-headquartered Corporation will stop support for its longest running and most successful OS, Windows XP. Continue using Windows XP after April 8, it will serve you as a Dead Zombie, because Microsoft w...

I am sure that you all have been familiar with the above shown annoying Window Operating System error messages that many times pop ups on your screen while working on the system in case of process failure i.e. " The system has recovered from a serious error. A log of this error has been created. Please tell Microsoft about this problem " The message that prompts ask the user to report the problem to Microsoft followed by the options to Send an error report or Not send . Most of the time Gentle users like you and me used to submit these error reports to aware the Microsoft about the problem. But What if these crash reports can be abused to identify the vulnerabilities of your system for Spying? NSA is intercepting wide range of Internet Traffic including many Encrypted connections and naturally unencrypted also and surprisingly, by default Microsoft encrypts its reports, but the messages are transmitted unencrypted or over standard HTTP connections to watson.microsoft.c...

Hacking ATM Machines is nothing new, but it seems that instead of relying on ATM skimmers now some smart hackers in Europe are reportedly targeting ATM Machines using Malware -loaded USB drives to steal money. Most of the world's ATMs are running on Windows XP operating system, which is highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. Just like your Desktop Laptops, some ATMs also have USB sockets, which is hidden behind the ATM's fascia. The German security researchers who discovered the hack detailed their findings at the Chaos Computing Congress in Hamburg, Germany recently. They said that the thieves cut holes in the fascia to access a USB port and then uploaded malware to the machines. The malware creates a backdoor that can be accessed on the front panel. " These researchers explained that the malware allowed the thieves to create a unique interface on the ATMs by typing in a 12-digit code. This interface allowed for withdrawal and also showed the criminals the amount of money and e...