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Due to rise in malware and adware abusing Android accessibility services, Google has finally decided to take strict steps against the apps on its app platform that misuse this feature. Google has emailed Android app developers informing them that within 30 days, they must show how accessibility code used in their apps is helping disabled users or their apps will be removed from its Play Store entirely. For those who are unaware, Android's accessibility services are meant to help disabled people interact with their smartphone devices ( such as automatically filling out forms, overlaying content or switching between apps ) by allowing app-makers to integrate verbal feedback, voice commands and more in their apps. Many popular Android apps use the accessibility API to legitimately provide users with benefits, but over the past few months, we have seen a series of malware, including DoubleLocker ransomware, Svpeng , and BankBot , misusing this feature to infect people. Re...

Another terrible news for OnePlus users. Just over a month after OnePlus was caught collecting personally identifiable information on its users, the Chinese smartphone company has been found leaving a backdoor on almost all OnePlus handsets. A Twitter user, who goes by the name "Elliot Anderson" ( named after Mr. Robot's main character ), discovered a backdoor (an exploit) in all OnePlus devices running OxygenOS that could allow anyone to obtain root access to the devices. The application in question is " EngineerMode ," a diagnostic testing application made by Qualcomm for device manufacturers to easily test all hardware components of the device. This APK comes pre-installed ( accidentally left behind ) on most OnePlus devices, including OnePlus 2, 3, 3T, and the newly-launched OnePlus 5. We can confirm its existence on the OnePlus 2, 3 and 5. You can also check if this application is installed on your OnePlus device or not. For this, simply go t...

Just a week after Apple released its brand new iPhone X on November 3, a team of hackers has claimed to successfully hack Apple's Face ID facial recognition technology with a mask that costs less than $150. Yes, Apple's "ultra-secure" Face ID security for the iPhone X is not as secure as the company claimed during its launch event in September this year. "Apple engineering teams have even gone and worked with professional mask makers and makeup artists in Hollywood to protect against these attempts to beat Face ID," Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller said about Face ID system during the event. "These are actual masks used by the engineering team to train the neural network to protect against them in Face ID." However, the bad news is that researchers from Vietnamese cybersecurity firm Bkav were able to unlock the iPhone X using a mask. Yes, Bkav researchers have a better option than holding it up to your face whi...

Is Managing Customer Logins and Data Giving You Headaches? You're Not Alone! Today, we all expect super-fast, secure, and personalized online experiences. But let's be honest, we're also more careful about how our data is used. If something feels off, trust can vanish in an instant. Add to that the lightning-fast changes AI is bringing to everything from how we log in to spotting online fraud, and it's a whole new ball game! If you're dealing with logins, data privacy, bringing new users on board, or building digital trust, this webinar is for you . Join us for " Navigating Customer Identity in the AI Era ," where we'll dive into the Auth0 2025 Customer Identity Trends Report . We'll show you what's working, what's not, and how to tweak your strategy for the year ahead. In just one session, you'll get practical answers to real-world challenges like: How AI is changing what users expect – and where they're starting to push ba...

Almost two months after releasing details of 23 different secret CIA hacking tool projects under Vault 7 series , Wikileaks today announced a new Vault 8 series that will reveal source codes and information about the backend infrastructure developed by the CIA hackers. Not just announcement, but the whistleblower organisation has also published its first batch of Vault 8 leak, releasing source code and development logs of Project Hive —a significant backend component the agency used to remotely control its malware covertly. In April this year, WikiLeaks disclosed a brief information about Project Hive , revealing that the project is an advanced command-and-control server (malware control system) that communicates with malware to send commands to execute specific tasks on the targets and receive exfiltrated information from the target machines. Hive is a multi-user all-in-one system that can be used by multiple CIA operators to remotely control multiple malware implants used...

Cybercriminals, including state-sponsored hackers, have started actively exploiting a newly discovered Microsoft Office vulnerability that Microsoft does not consider as a security issue and has already denied to patch it. Last month, we reported how hackers could leverage a built-in feature of Microsoft Office feature, called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to perform code execution on the targeted device without requiring Macros enabled or memory corruption. DDE protocol is one of the several methods that Microsoft uses to allow two running applications to share the same data. The protocol is being used by thousands of apps, including MS Excel, MS Word, Quattro Pro, and Visual Basic for one-time data transfers and for continuous exchanges for sending updates to one another. Soon after the details of DDE attack went public , several reports emerged about various widespread attack campaigns abusing this technique in the wild to target several organisations with malware. Now,...

Nothing is free in this world. If you are searching for free hacking tools on the Internet, then beware—most freely available tools, claiming to be the swiss army knife for hackers, are nothing but a scam. For example, Cobian RAT and a Facebook hacking tool that we previously reported on The Hacker News actually could hack, but of the one who uses them and not the one you desire to hack. Now, a security researcher has spotted another hacking tool—this time a PHP script—which is freely available on multiple popular underground hacking forums and allows anyone to find vulnerable internet-connected IP Cameras running the vulnerable version of GoAhead embedded web-server. However, after closely analysing the scanning script, Newsky Security researcher Ankit Anubhav found that the tool also contains a secret backdoor, which essentially allows its creator to " hack the hacker. " "For an attacker's point of view, it can be very beneficial to hack a hacker," ...

Horrible news for some Ethereum users. About $300 million worth of Ether—the cryptocurrency unit that has become one of the most popular and increasingly valuable cryptocurrencies—from dozens of Ethereum wallets was permanently locked up today. Smart contract coding startup Parity Technologies, which is behind the popular Ethereum Parity Wallet, announced earlier today that its "multisignature" wallets created after this July 20 contains a severe vulnerability that makes it impossible for users to move their funds out of those wallets. According to Parity, the vulnerability was triggered by a regular GitHub user, "devops199," who allegedly accidentally removed a critical library code from the source code that turned all multi-sig contracts into a regular wallet address and made the user its owner. Devops199 then killed this wallet contract, making all Parity multisignature wallets tied to that contract instantly useless, and therefore their funds locked aw...

A previously unknown hacking and cyber-espionage group that has been in operation since at least 2015 have conducted a series of highly targeted attacks against a host of government organizations in South America and Southeast Asia to steal their sensitive data. Codenamed Sowbug , the hacking group has been exposed by Symantec security researchers, who spotted the group conducting clandestine attacks against foreign policy institutions, government bodies and diplomatic targets in countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Malaysia. Symantec analysis found that the Sowbug hacking group uses a piece of malware dubbed "Felismus" to launch its attacks and infiltrate their targets. First identified in late March of this year, Felismus is a sophisticated, well-written piece of remote access Trojan (RAT) with a modular construction that allows the backdoor trojan to hide and or extend its capabilities. The malware allows malicious actors to take complete ...

"The right keyboard can make all the difference between a victory and a defeat in a video game battlefield." If you are a gamer, you can relate to the above quote. But what if your winning weapon betrays you? The popular 104-key Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard that costs around €49.66 has allegedly been caught silently recording everything you type on your keyboard and sending them to a server maintained by the Alibaba Group. This built-in keylogger in Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard was noticed by a few owners who headed on to an online forum to share this issue. According to Tom's Hardware , MantisTek keyboards utilise 'Cloud Driver' software, maybe for collecting analytic information, but has been caught sending sensitive information to servers tied to Alibaba. After analysing more closely, Tom's Hardware team found that Mantistek keyboard does not include a full-fledged keylogger. Instead, it captures how many times a key ...

Researchers have uncovered several major weaknesses in the implementation of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) P1735 cryptography standard that can be exploited to unlock, modify or steal encrypted system-on-chip blueprints. The IEEE P1735 scheme was designed to encrypt electronic-design intellectual property (IP) in the hardware and software so that chip designers can protect their IPs from hackers and other prying eyes. Majority of mobile and embedded devices include a System-on-Chip (SoC), a single integrated circuit that can consist of multiple IPs—a collection of reusable design specifications—like a radio-frequency receiver, an analogue-to-digital converter, a digital signal processing unit, a graphics processing unit, a cryptographic engine, from different vendors. Therefore, these licensed IPs are quite valuable to their vendors, so to protect them from being reverse engineered after being sold, the IEEE developed the P1735 standard to encryp...