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Last month we reported a worm targeting Skype users with spam messages designed to infect machines with the Dorkbot ransomware has been discovered. This malware is spreading through a question/ phrase sent to the users by someone and the question is: “ lol is this your new profile pic? ” Same spam now targeting most of the Indian skype users, Indian CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) issue a warning about this ongoing spam attack via advisory. A number of Indians use ‘Skype’ to communicate with their friends, relatives and other contacts within and outside the country. " A malicious spam campaign is on the rise targeting Skype users by sending instant message which appears to come from friends in the Skype contact list ," the advisory reads. Security researchers from Avast had intercepted this Darkbot malware campaign, and they estimate that this affecting millions of Skype users. “ The worm is reported as stealing user credentials, engaging in click fr...

Windows 8 launched in 37 languages and 140 worldwide markets, as the tech giant unveiled the new version of its computer operating system. The OS is now available in over 30 certified devices, and a broad selection of local apps are already available in the onboard Windows Store. It is also available for download onto PCs and other devices running previous iterations of Microsoft's Windows OS. Microsoft is currently running a special promotion upto 31st of January 2013, under which you can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro Edition for a very small amount. If you have purchased / are going to purchase a Personal Computer which is pre-loaded with genuine version of Windows 7 (any edition), then you are eligible to get Windows 8 Upgrade (Pro Edition) for $14.99 (US Dollar) or £14.99 (British Pounds) or €14,99 (Euros) or INR 699 (Indian Rupees). But because of a flaw in website providing promo code, now anyone is able to get the promo code, using which user can updrade his windows with...

78% of vulnerabilities are found in third-party programs. Security teams cannot monitor all of them manually or determine which ones are critical to their organization. Secunia, the leading provider of IT security solutions that enables businesses and private individuals to manage and control vulnerability threats, today announced the general availability of the new version of Secunia’s Vulnerability Intelligence Manager, the VIM 4.0. The Secunia VIM 4.0 is the latest evolutionary step in the technology Secunia has developed to help organizations handle vulnerabilities and protect business critical information and assets against potential attacks. Because it covers more than 40,000 software systems and applications, the VIM 4.0 solution provides the most comprehensive intelligence about software vulnerabilities available to organizations, ensuring that all security threats can be dealt with before the IT infrastructure is compromised by cybercriminals . “  We're v...

Recently we reported about that  Symantec provide overview and analysis of the year in global threat activity via its Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) , with a exclusive details that 400 million new variants of malware were created in 2011, which is an average of 33 million new variants of malware a month, or an average of one million new variants a day. In order to develop malware that evades detection by the security companies malware writers come up with some clever, yet quite simple techniques. If malware stops itself when it detects that it is running in a virtual environment, it may trick an automated threat analysis system into thinking that it is a clean program. So malware may not only fool automated threat analysis systems, but also a corporate system administrator who is searching for computers compromised by malware. Malware authors have recently attempted to use other approaches to fool automated threat analysis systems as well. Latest example of su...

Matthew Higgins, now 20 and a university student, hacked into his school computer system to obtain a girl's details and then boasted on a hackers' forum. Matthew is son of a police inspector. Caernarfon Crown Court heard it was the case of a clever young man caught red-handed. The defendant says there is a conspiracy to fabricate evidence against him. Matthew first hacked the girl's file and then did a fake mail. In mail he claimed to be a constituent suggesting there was an insecure internet system at the school. " Mr Higgins denies securing unauthorised access to computer data at Eirias High School in March last year and attempting to do so again two months later ." BBC said. The prosecution accused Mr Higgins of having "played a game of bluff and smoke screens" and trying to portray himself as a victim. The trial is continuing.

FBI’s Cyber Division has a new and sharper focus on cyber-intrusion ," You are one click from compromising your network " FBI said. Giving priority to the labeling of suspects follows claims by the Pentagon that the military now has the capability to single out and retaliate against hackers. FBI over the past year has put in place an initiative to uncover and investigate web-based intrusion attacks and develop a cadre of specially trained computer scientists able to extract hackers digital signatures from mountains of malicious code. " A key aim of the Next Generation Cyber Initiative has been to expand our ability to quickly define the attribution piece of a cyber attack to help determine an appropriate response ", said Richard McFeely , executive assistant director of the Bureau’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. Investigators can send findings to the FBI Cyber Division’s Cyber Watch command, a 24-hour station at headquarters, where sp...

16.0.2 Firefox is now available for anyone who wants to try before anyone else. Mozilla address one serious vulnerability. According to the information security of Mozilla, they has fixed a number of issues related to the Location object in order to enhance overall security. The Location object is supported by all major browsers and contains information about the URL being requested. Security researcher Mariusz Mlynski reported that the true value of window.location could be shadowed by user content through the use of the valueOf method, which can be combined with some plugins to perform a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack on users. Another issue centers on the CheckURL function, which if exploited could be used during an XSS attack or to execute malicious code. On Oct. 9, Mozilla released Firefox 16, but quickly pulled it back after a serious vulnerability was discovered. It was quickly addressed, but not before exploit code was made available. Generally Firefox of...

Image Credit : Sophos Microsoft committed itself a Trustworthy Computing program, each new version of Windows has introduced new security features and significantly improved its security posture, whereas phisher took advantage of this new exclusive release. Sophos noticed a mail pretending to come from " Microsoft Windows 8 Team ", and offering a free version of Windows 8 to victim and if you click the link ..on next page a page hosted on Slovakian web server will ask you to enter your username, password, email address and server domain name. Global phishing attacks increased by 12 percent during the first half of this year compared with the second half of 2011, to 93,462 from 83,083.  Phishing attacks are most common and taking advange of hot cakes is also not new. We recommend readers to delete such mails and Do not click on such link which offer's free stuff like Windows or softwares. Attacks decreased, however, compared with the first half of 2011...

Collective hacking group Anonymous  leaks username-passwords  and classified documents from Greek Finance Ministry server. Just a few days before the Greek Parliament is scheduled to vote on a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan. Attack was carried out under anonymous operation named - #opGreece . The leaked documents include various classified data from e-mails that were exchanged between the Greek Ministry and envoys from international lenders negotiating more austerity measures and bailouts, to thousands of passwords of Greek individuals and evaluations of banks. " The cyber-attack was described as one of the most serious against Greek government networks " secnews.gr said in report .  The attackers claim that they wanted to expose the date on the state of Greek economy so that all Greeks know the truth and thus just days before the 13.5-billion-euro austerity package goes to Parliament for voting. " Citizens of Greece you are paying Ba...

Japanese police had arrested three people, accused them of making death threats via email and discussion forums. However, later Researchers at Symantec have determined that a piece of malware was making death and bomb threats online on behalf of its victims infected. Symantec  confirmed that the malware " Backdoor.Rabasheeta " is capable of controlling a compromised computer from a remote location and the creator has the capability to command the malware to make the threats like bomb and murders. The most curious thing about this particular dropper is that it comes with a graphical user interface (GUI). The dropper for Backdoor.Rabasheeta drops a main module and a configuration file. The dropper creates a registry entry so that the main module is executed whenever the compromised computer starts. This dropper also modifies CreationTime, LastWriteTime, and LastAccessTime of the main module with random values to help keep it hidden. Then the dropper will execute the...

Hacking Group Anonymous has threatened to target Zynga, according to a post on the group’s official news channel and a since-deleted YouTube video (but it was removed because it was considered a "violation of YouTube's policy on depiction of harmful activities") which suggests that the social game company is planning further layoffs which threaten to bring about “ the end of the US game market as we know it ”. Zynga announced plans to lay off 150 employees last week and shut down a number of its offices, as it looks to make savings of between $15 and $20 million. The operation, dubbed maZYNGA, will consist of the shutting down of Facebook - the platform on which Zynga games are hosted - and the distribution of previously obtained Zynga game codes for free. " During the last few days anonymous has been targeting Zynga for the outrageous treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers. We have come to believe that this actions of Zynga will res...

A group has hacked the French website for the EuroMillions lottery (http://euromillions.fr/) with warnings denouncing gambling as the work of the devil. A group going by name " Moroccanghosts ", posted the message in Arabic and French  - " Oh you believers. Wine, games of chance, statues all augur impurity and are the work of the devil. " It exhorted people to quit gambling, saying it was used by the devil along with alcohol to " sow hatred between yourselves and turn you away from God and prayer ". The company behind the site, Francaise des Jeux, took the passage down and the site was unavailable from last 12 hours later, but now Euromillions.fr  redirects to https://www.fdj.fr , the secure website of the firm that runs the Euromillions lottery in France. The Twitter user Moroccanghosts appeared to threaten that other gambling sites could be next. So there may be more attacks. France has a population of 65 million, including an estimated four million Mu...

So you just bought a new Android-based smartphone, what comes next? What else but the most exciting part downloading the right apps to boost its functionality. Android gives you the freedom to personalize your device, which has made it attractive to those who want their smartphones to be as unique as possible " Many apps will ask you to grant them network access so they can download updates. Others seek permission to read your phone’s state and identity so calls won't disrupt them from doing what they're doing. Unfortunately, these permissions can be abused for criminal intentions. " Trendmicro  said in report. Before android applications was abusing permissions to access user's personal data, but now new generations of adware targeting Android smartphones are increasingly violating user privacy by grabbing personal information and using it without permission. Adware is software that is used to gather information about the users. This ...

Raymond announce X-Ray 2.0, a program which is frontend for VirusTotal multi scanner. X-Ray will provide users with automatic submission of files that you think are suspicious to 35 (Agnitum, Antiy Labs, Avast, AVG, Avira, Bitdefender, QuickHeal, ClamAV, Comodo, Dr.Web, Emsisoft, ESET, F-Prot, F-Secure, Fortinet, Hacksoft, Ikarus, K7Antivirus, Kaspersky, Kingsoft, McAfee, Microsoft, Norman, nProtect, Panda, PC Tools, Rising, Sophos, SUPERAntiSpyware, Symantec, TotalDefense, TrendMicro, VBA32, Vipre, ViRobot). Key Features: - Abort upload progress - Retrieve latest scan report from VirusTotal (API 2.0) - Send file to VirusTotal for scanning (API 2.0) - Automatic failover when chosen method for sending files to VirusTotal fails. - Two methods of sending files to VirusTotal (Email and API) - Copying MD5 hash and results to clipboard via right click context menu. - History (VirusTotal detection report and Analysis Submission date & time) - Clear History - Change submission m...

Symantec provide overview and analysis of the year in global threat activity via its Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) , with a exclusive details that 400 million new variants of malware were created in 2011, which is an average of 33 million new variants of malware a month, or an average of one million new variants a day. The report is based on data from the Global Intelligence Network, which Symantec's analysts use to identify, analyze, and provide commentary on emerging trends in attacks, malicious code activity, phishing, and spam. Here are some highlights from the threat landscape of 2011. " It is impossible to manually analyze such a large number of sample files, so it is therefore necessary to use an automated threat analysis system to analyze sample behavior and prioritize the files that virus definitions should be created for ." Symantec said in a blog post. Political activism and hacking were two big themes in 2011 themes that are continuing into 2012...

One of the most awaited occasions in a year is your birthday, same way we are today celebrating ' The Hacker News ' 2nd Birthday week from on 28th October-3rd November 2012. Originally founded on 1st November 2010 by Mohit Kumar , ' The Hacker News ' was the very First dedicated Hacking and Security News website available on Internet, Now been internationally recognized as a leading news source dedicated to promoting awareness for security experts and hackers. We are happy to announce that this project is now Supported and endorsed by thousands of Security Experts, administrators and members of various underground hacking groups and communities worldwide.  With the need for information security solutions becoming more critical, In these two years we served updates to over 30 Million Readers through various projects including Daily happenings of Hacking & Security community via The Hacker News , A most comprehensive and inf...

Internet Activist and collective hacker group "NullCrew" released a huge dump of 7,000 names-passwords database from US Government websites and 2000 names-passwords database from Military websites. Hacker claimed to hack into five websites, including Montana's Official State Website, United Nations, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Texas Juvenile Justice Department, Force Health Protection & Readiness, domains are -  unescoetxea.org , www.mt.gov , www.la.gov, www.texas.gov and fhpr.osd.mil respectiverly. Few days back two Nullcrew members,  null and 0rbit_g1rl claimed to perform the hack into above sites using few vulnerabilities such as " Unproperly sanitized code, leading to disclosure of all files on a server and Boolean blind SQL injection " and they threatened to release the database soon. Today in a announcement via Twitter, hacker leaked the Database including 2000 and more Military, A...

A high degree of stealthiness over a prolonged duration of operation in order to do a successful cyber attack can be defined as Advanced Persistent Threat. The attack objectives therefore typically extend beyond immediate financial gain, and compromised systems continue to be of service even after key systems have been breached and initial goals reached. Today’s successful targeted attacks use a combination of social engineering, malware, and backdoor activities. Nart Villeneuve and James Bennett (Senior Threat Researcher) from Trend Mirco provide an  ultimate guide for Detecting (APT) Advanced Persistent Threat activities with Network Traffic Analysis , that can be used to identify malware command-and control (C&C) communications related to these attacks, illustrating how even the most high-profile and successful attacks of the past few years could have been discovered. Paper cover Detecting Remote Access Trojans like The GhostNet,...

Yesterday, we report about the security breach in US Government computers belongs to NASA  restricted area website and Hacker dump out the complete source code and files from server of the website. Today another hacker claim a quick XSS (Cross site scripting) Vulnerability in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website (http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov/) via a pastebin note. Hacker is going by name " Antraxt Hacker " and said about vulnerability exposure that,"I just want to proof that NASA is and never will be secured as human kind thinks they are". The xss vulnerable link is disclosed in pastebin note. I feel this not a offensive hack by hacker, even NASA should take advantage of free of cost Penetration testing services from individual like , who even not looking for Bug Bounties.

Julian Assange publish a book based on his interview " Cypherpunks " on " The World Tomorrow ", his controversial talk show, with the people he believes know the solution to the problems of privacy and freedom. The book called ‘ Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet ,’ was written by Assange with three co-authors: Jacob Appelbaum, Jeremie Zimmermann and Andy Muller-Maguhn. Description of this 192 pages book describes, " Cypherpunks are activists who advocate the widespread use of strong cryptography (writing in code) as a route to progressive change. Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of and visionary behind WikiLeaks, has been a leading voice in the cypherpunk movement since its inception in the 1980s ." Assange said, “ In March 2012 I gathered together three of today’s leading cypherpunks to discuss the resistance ,  Two of them, besides myself, have been targeted by law enforcement agencies as a result of their work to safeguard priva...

A number of Israel's government offices have fallen victim to a cyber attack over the past week, one apparently aimed at slipping a "Trojan horse" into the computer servers at these ministries. Israeli police immediately pulled the national computer network from the civilian Internet after this cyber threat . A Trojan horse has been sent as files attached to emails bearing the name of the IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz in the subject line. According to the reports from haaretz ,A senior government clerk stressed that the threat facing the police was being investigated by experts. It is also not clear that either breach involved a wide-scale cyber-attack, or a virus infecting only a few computers. Government employees were advised not to open their emails or Facebook messages if such strange activity was noticed. Dozens of identical emails were sent Wednesday to Israel embassies abroad and to Foreign Ministry employees in Israel. The intelligence tip did not ...

" Browser extensions extend the functionality of the web browser. These extensions improve the appearance, functionality, security or other parts of the browser. Extensions were also developed with malicious intent, in order to generate revenue or just spread the code between more and more browsers. The possibility of a malicious browser extension is almost infinite, but we have not seen very powerful malicious extensions yet. " Security researcher Zoltan Balazs has developed a remote-controlled piece of malware that functions as a browser extension. The researcher plans to release the malware's source code on GitHub during a presentation at the Hacker Halted security conference in Miami next Tuesday This Malwaretize Browser extensions is capable of modifying Web pages, downloading and executing files, hijacking accounts, bypassing two-factor authentication security features enforced by some websites, and much more. Balazs is also expected to demonstrate how the proof...

The South Carolina Department of Revenue has announced that millions of Social Security numbers and debit/credit card numbers have been compromised. Hackers from outside the United States recently penetrated the website for South Carolina’s Department of Revenue and reportedly made off with 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 16,000 unencrypted credit and debit card numbers. According to the statement, investigators discovered that a hacker attempted to access the system several times in August and September. The statement said it is believed the hacker successfully obtained data for the first time in mid-September. “ We are taking immediate steps to protect the taxpayers of South Carolina, including providing one year of credit monitoring and identity protection to those affected .” Haley says Friday was the earliest they could announce the breach to allow law enforcement personnel to do their jobs and keep the chance of catching the hacker. Haley says the...

Anonymous hackers claimed that they compromise over 20 million user accounts worldwide this year to promote Operation Jubilee . Large community web sites were targeted to gain access to users' contact information. Many administrators denied that their databases were at risk while all their data was being downloaded. The reason for one of the largest hacking campaigns in history is to rally people to cancel debt and end the economic crisis. Earlier this month Operation Jubilee came into public view after defacing several popular police forums. Members of the police forums received e-mail inviting them to join the Operation. News of the defaces spread quickly with the help of social media platforms. Until these events, Operation Jubilee was virtually unknown to the general population. Unbeknownst to the public, large web sites were already being attacked for months. Operation Jubilee is a peaceful protest to take place on the 5th of November in front of Parliament...

A Hacker going by name - " LegitHacker97 " claiming that he successfully access a NASA subdomain website , that actually belongs to a US Government computer, as mentioned on homepage. ***** WARNING ***** This is a US Government computer Hacker also dump a  82.51 MB (compressed or 337 MB uncompressed) Archive five days ago on internet, includes the complete source code of the website (in ASP). After watching the pastebin note , we tried to contact the hacker for collecting more information about the hack. Hacker describe The Hacker News via mail that," This was hacked by a major LFI vulnerability which allowed me to upload my own shell (backdoor to the site) and I took advantage of it by downloading all off the website ! ". He add ," But now vulnerability is fixed ". I download the dump from the link posetd by hacker in pastebin note and tried to match the files with NASA website and subdomains, and found that these file actually belo...

Most of the readers have question in mind that, How hackers know everything about their target ? How to DOX (finding personal information) someone ? So answer is --  Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). A Patriot Hacker ' The Jester ' (or "th3j35t3r") who made his name after harassing Anonymous activist group, disrupting WikiLeaks and stalking “jihadist” sites has finally list his all time favorite Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) toolset. Open Source intelligence (OSINT) is a form of intelligence collection management that involves finding, selecting, and acquiring information from publicly available sources and analyzing it to produce actionable intelligence. Hacker posted list of some free available tools on his blog , includes Maltego, Creepy, Spokeo, CaseFile, FoxOne Scanner (Jester's Edition). OSINT is defined by both the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Department of Defense, as “ produced from publicly available information that is co...

Reid Wightman from security firm ioActive reported that there is an undocumented backdoor available in   CoDeSys  software that actually used to manage equipment in power plants, military environments, and nautical ships. The bug allow malicious hackers to access sensitive systems without authorization, Ars said. The CoDeSys tool will grant a command shell to anyone who knows the proper command syntax and inner workings, leaving systems that are connected to the public Internet open to malicious tampering and There is absolutely no authentication needed to perform this privileged command,  Reid mention. This software has been used in industrial control systems sold by 261 different manufacturers. 3S-Smart Software Solutions designs CoDeSys and recently issued an advisory that recommends users set a password, but  he is able to develop two exploit shells , one is  codesys-shell.py (to get the CoDeSys command shell wit...