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A newly discovered bug in Apple's iOS mobile operating system is being exploited in a prank that lets anyone crash your iPhone or iPad by just sending an emoji-filled iMessage, according to several reports. YouTube star EverythingApplePro published a video highlighting a sequence of characters that temporarily freeze and restart an iPhone, which people can send to their iPhone buddies to trouble them. You can watch the video demonstration below. Here's the first troublesome text: A white Flag emoji, the digit "0" and a Rainbow emoji. This simple numeric character, flag, and rainbow emojis confuse iOS 10 devices when it tries to combine them into a rainbow flag. As soon as this text is received, the iPhone's software attempts to combine the emojis but fails, and the messaging app crashes and eventually reboots in a few minutes. The recipients do not even have to open or read the message. Video Demonstration Another iPhone-crashing method involves ...

Security researchers have discovered a rare piece of Mac-based espionage malware that relies on outdated coding practices but has been used in some previous real-world attacks to spy on biomedical research center computers. Dubbed Fruitfly , the malware has remained undetected for years on macOS systems despite using unsophisticated and "antiquated code." Infosec firm Malwarebytes discovered Fruitfly, detected as 'OSX.Backdoor.Quimitchin,' after one of its IT administrators spotted some unusual outgoing activity from a particular Mac computer. According to the researchers, the recently discovered what they're calling "the first Mac malware of 2017" contains code that dates before OS X, which has reportedly been conducting detailed surveillance operation on targeted networks, possibly for over two years. Fruitfly uses a hidden pearl script to communicate back to two command-and-control (C&C) servers and has the ability to perform actions l...

It's not necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all devices in our home are becoming more connected to networks than ever to make our lives easy. But what's worrisome is that these connected devices can be turned against us, anytime, due to lack of stringent security measures and insecure encryption mechanisms implemented in these Internet of Things (IoTs) devices. The most recent victim of this issue is the Samsung's range of SmartCam home security cameras. Yes, it's hell easy to hijack the popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras, as they contain a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that could let hackers gain root access and take full control of these devices. SmartCam is one of the Samsung's SmartThings range of devices, which allows its users to connect, manage, monitor and control "smart" devices in their home using their smartphones or tablets. Back in 2014, the hacking group Exploiteer...

If you want to get the most out of your computer, you need to get the most out of your hard drive, where all your data is stored. Today hard drives are larger than ever, so it makes sense for you to partition your hard disk to effectively use all of its space and manage all your important information. Partitioning is also useful if you intend to install and use more than one operating system on the same computer. There is a vast business of partition manager software out there, and today we are reviewing one of the most popular partition management tools available in the market: EaseUS Partition Master Professional . EaseUS Partition Master Professional offers you the complete package with capabilities for organizing and resizing your drive, restoring and backing up your information, improving system performance, installing and managing several operating systems on the same computer, along with recovering and cloning data files. Let's dig deep into the capabilities pro...

It's 2017, and we're not any further along with Wi-Fi security than we were 10 years ago. There are Intrusion Detection Systems and 2nd generation antivirus apps to protect us from some vulnerabilities but the simple fact that some people and businesses still don't set their network up well in the first place. Installing WiFi is like running Ethernet to your parking lot. It's a cliche thing to say, but it is often true. If I can attack your network sitting in my car from the parking lot, what chance do you have? And 99% of the time I'm successful. Lots of companies are moving to new offices that have wide open office layouts. Some may not have BYOD policies or wireless security plans in place, and anyone can bring their own device to work that you may not know about. I've even seen some companies installing IoT devices like smart led light bulbs and thermostats. Even some security camera systems which are always running unsecured and default passwords. So what can you ...

Security researchers have discovered a new phishing campaign targeting Gmail users, which is so convincing and highly effective that even tech-savvy people can be tricked into giving away their Google credentials to hackers. The attackers first compromise a victim's Gmail account, and once they are in, they start rifling through inboxes to launch secondary attacks in order to pass on the attack. The hackers first look for an attachment that victims have previously sent to their contacts and a relevant subject from an actual sent email. Then the criminals will start gathering up contact email addresses, who become the new targets of the attackers. After finding one, the hackers create an image (screenshot) of that attachment and include it in reply to the sender with the same or similar subject for the email, invoking recognition and automatic trust. What makes this attack so effective is that the phishing emails come from someone the victim knows. This new Gmail phishi...

It's not always necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all are day-to-day devices are becoming more connected to networks than ever to add convenience and ease to daily activities. But here's what we forget: These connected devices can be turned against us because we are giving companies, hackers, and law enforcement a large number of entry points to break into our network. These connected devices can also be a great boon for law enforcement that can listen and track us everywhere. Let's take the recent example of 2016 Arkansas murder case where Amazon was asked to hand over audio recordings from a suspect's Echo. However, that was not the first case where feds asked any company to hand over data from a suspect's connected device, as they have long retrieved such information from connected cars. According to court documents obtained by Forbes , United States federal agencies have a 15-year history of " Cartapping ...

A 21-year-old former Langley High School student, who won a Programmer of the Year Award in high school, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of developing and selling custom key-logging malware that infected thousands of victims. Zachary Shames from Virginia pleaded guilty in a federal district court and now faces a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison for his past deeds. Shames was arrested this summer while he was working as a technical intern at Northrop Grumman, a security and defense government contractor, developing front-end site code and backend Java software and managing a MySQL database, according to what appears on his Linkedin page. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Shames developed a keylogger in 2013 that allowed users to steal sensitive information, including passwords and banking credentials, from a victim's computer, while he was still a high school student in 2013. Keylogger is malicious software designed to recor...

What is a backdoor? By definition: "Backdoor is a feature or defect of a computer system that allows surreptitious unauthorized access to data, " either the backdoor is in encryption algorithm, a server or in an implementation, and doesn't matter whether it has previously been used or not. Yesterday, we published a story based on findings reported by security researcher Tobias Boelter that suggests WhatsApp has a backdoor that "could allow" an attacker, and of course the company itself, to intercept your encrypted communication. The story involving the world's largest secure messaging platform that has over a billion users worldwide went viral in few hours, attracting reactions from security experts, WhatsApp team, and Open Whisper Systems, who partnered with Facebook to implement end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp. Note: I would request readers to read complete article before reaching out for a conclusion. And also, suggestions and opinions are ...

Important Update — Most Security Experts argued, " It's not a backdoor, rather it's a feature ," but none of them denied the fact that, if required, WhatsApp or a hacker can intercept your end-to-end encrypted chats. Read detailed explanation on arguments in my latest article. Most people believe that end-to-end encryption is the ultimate way to protect your secret communication from snooping, and it does, but it can be intercepted if not implemented correctly. After introducing " end-to-end encryption by default " last year, WhatsApp has become the world's largest secure messaging platform with over a billion users worldwide. But if you think your conversations are completely secure in a way that no one, not even Facebook, the company that owned WhatsApp, can intercept your messages then you are highly mistaken, just like most of us and it's not a new concept. Here's the kick: End-to-end encrypted messaging service, such as WhatsApp and Te...