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The FBI hacked into more than 8,000 computers in 120 different countries with just a single warrant during an investigation into a dark web child pornography website, according to a newly published court filings. This FBI's mass hacking campaign is related to the high-profile child pornography Playpen case and represents the largest law enforcement hacking campaign known to date. The warrant was initially issued in February 2015 when the FBI seized the Playpen site and set up a sting operation on the dark web site, in which the agency deployed malware to obtain IP addresses from alleged site's visitors. The piece of malware used by the FBI is known as a Network Investigative Technique (NIT). The malware was used for at least 13 days to break into the computer of users who visited certain threads on Playpen and then sent their IP addresses back to the bureau. Earlier this year, court documents related to the Playpen case revealed that the FBI hacked over 1,000 alleg...

Have you considered the possibility that someone could be watching you through your webcam? Or Listening to all your conversations through your laptop's microphone? Even a bit of thought about this probability could make you feel incredibly creepy. But most people think that they have a solution to these major issues i.e. simply covering their laptop's webcam and microphone with tape, just like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and FBI Director James Comey . But it's 2016, and a piece of tape won't help you, as a new experiment has proved that how easily hackers can turn your headphones into a microphone to spy on all your conversations in the background without your knowledge. A group of Israeli security researchers at Ben Gurion University have created a proof-of-concept code (malware) that converts typical headphones into microphones and then use them to record all your conversations in the room just like a fully-featured spying device. Speake(a)r Malware Weaponize...

A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a critical vulnerability in the Network Time Protocol daemon (ntpd) has been publically released that could allow anyone to crash a server with just a single maliciously crafted packet. The vulnerability has been patched by the Network Time Foundation with the release of NTP 4.2.8p9, which includes a total of 40 security patches, bug fixes, and improvements. The NTP daemon is used in almost every device that needs to synchronize time on computer clocks. NTP got the most attention in late 2014 and 2015 when hackers used it to launch highly amplified DDoS attacks against services. The flaw which affects NTP.org's nptd versions prior to 4.2.8p9, but not including ntp-4.3.94, has been discovered by security researcher Magnus Stubman, who privately disclosed it to the Network Time Foundation on June 24. A patch for the vulnerability was developed and sent to Stubman on 29th September and just two days later, the researcher acknowledged t...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

ATM hackers who long relied on tactics of stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to steal millions are now targeting the bank itself to steal cash directly from the machines. Earlier this year, a gang of cyber criminals infected several ATMs with malware in Taiwan and Thailand that caused the machines to spit out millions in cash, and the gang members then stood in front of the infected ATMs at the appointed hour and collected the money. Now, the FBI has warned U.S. banks of the potential for similar ATM jackpotting attacks, saying that the agency is "monitoring emerging reports indicating that well-resourced and organized malicious cyber actors have intentions to target the U.S. financial sector." ATM jackpotting is a technique used to force automated teller machines to spit out cash. According to Russian cyber security firm Group-IB, cyber crooks have remotely infected ATMs with malware in more than dozen countries across Europe this year, ...

Yes, Oracle just bought the DNS provider company that brought down the Internet last month. Business software vendor Oracle announced on Monday that it is buying cloud-based Internet performance and Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn. Dyn is the same company that was hit by a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by the Mirai botnet last month which knocked the entire Internet offline for a few hours, crippling some of the world's biggest and most popular websites. Since the company provides cloud-based DNS service to customers such as Spotify, Netflix, Twitter and Pfizer, the acquisition will help Oracle's cloud customers to optimize their infrastructure costs and performance. According to the press release , the Dyn acquisition "extends the Oracle cloud computing platform and provides enterprise customers with a one-stop shop for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)." "Oracle Cloud customers will...

If you came across any Facebook Message with an image file (exactly .SVG file format) send by any of your Facebook friends, just avoid clicking it. An ongoing Facebook spam campaign is spreading malware downloader among Facebook users by taking advantage of innocent-looking SVG image file to infect computers. If clicked, the file would eventually infect your PC with the nasty Locky Ransomware , a family of malware that has quickly become one of the favorite tools among criminals due to its infecting capabilities. Discovered by malware researcher Bart Blaze , the attack campaign uses Facebook Messenger to spread a malware downloader called Nemucod that takes the form of .SVG image files. Why SVG file? Hackers considered SVG (or Scalable Vector Graphics) files for spreading the malware downloader, because SVG has the ability to contain embedded content such as JavaScript, and can be opened in a modern web browser. Crooks added their malicious JavaScript code right inside th...

Here's some bad news for Android users again. Nearly 3 Million Android devices worldwide are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks that could allow attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code with root privileges, turning over full control of the devices to hackers. According to a new report from security rating firm BitSight, the issue is due to a vulnerability in the insecure implementation of the OTA (Over-the-Air) update mechanism used by certain low-cost Android devices, including BLU Studio G from US-based Best Buy. Backdoor/Rootkit Comes Pre-installed The vulnerable OTA mechanism, which is associated with Chinese mobile firm Ragentek Group, contains a hidden binary — resides as /system/bin/debugs — that runs with root privileges and communicates over unencrypted channels with three hosts. According to the researchers, this privileged binary not only exposes user-specific information to MITM attackers but also acts as a rootkit, potentially allowing ...

Big tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, are in the race of bringing Internet connectivity to unconnected parts of the world through wireless devices , flying drones , high-altitude balloons, and laser beams . But, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has big plans for bringing low-cost Internet service worldwide, and it all starts in space. Private rocket launch service SpaceX has asked the U.S. government for permission to launch 4,425 satellites in orbit to beam high-speed Internet down to the world, according to a newly filed application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That's a hell of a lot of satellites; in fact, the figure surpasses the total number of satellites in the Earth's orbit. Here's what the company's 102-page technical document reads: "The system is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, governmental and professional users world...

Three, one of UK's biggest mobile operators, has become the latest victim of a massive data breach that reportedly left the personal information and contact details of 6 Million of its customers exposed. The company admitted the data breach late Thursday, saying that computer hackers gained access to a Three Mobile customer phone upgrade database containing the account details of nearly 6 Million customers. According to multiple British  media reports citing both Three and the National Crime Agency ( NCA ), the computer hackers used an employee login to gain entry into its database. The stolen data includes customer names, addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, which is then used to carry out mobile phone fraud. The company has not yet confirmed the total number of users' affected by the breach, though it assured its customers that no payment data, including bank account numbers and card numbers, has been accessed. According to Three, the hackers had stolen ...

In the fight against encryption , Apple has positioned itself as a staunch defender of its user privacy by refusing the federal officials to provide encryption backdoors into its products, as well as implementing better encryption for its products. However, a new report from a security firm suggests Apple's online syncing service iCloud secretly stores logs of its users' private information for as long as four months — even when iCloud backup is switched off. Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft discovered that Apple's mobile devices automatically send its users' call history to the company's servers if iCloud is enabled, and stored that data for up to four months. And it turns out that there is no way for iCloud users to stop this phone call syncing service unless they completely disable the cloud synchronization feature. Elcomsoft, which sells software to extract data from Apple's iCloud backups and works with police and intelligence agencies,...