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Two separate proofs-of-concept (PoC) exploit code for Memcached amplification attack have been released online that could allow even script-kiddies to launch massive DDoS attacks using UDP reflections easily. The first DDoS tool is written in C programming language and works with a pre-compiled list of vulnerable Memcached servers. Bonus—its description already includes a list of nearly 17,000 potential vulnerable Memcached servers left exposed on the Internet. Whereas, the second Memcached DDoS attack tool is written in Python that uses Shodan search engine API to obtain a fresh list of vulnerable Memcached servers and then sends spoofed source UDP packets to each server. Last week we saw two record-breaking DDoS attacks— 1.35 Tbps hit Github and 1.7 Tbps attack against an unnamed US-based company—which were carried out using a technique called amplification/reflection attack. For those unaware, Memcached-based amplification/reflection attack amplifies bandwidth of th...

A years ago when the mysterious hacking group ' The Shadow Brokers ' dumped a massive trove of sensitive data stolen from the US intelligence agency NSA, everyone started looking for secret hacking tools and zero-day exploits . A group of Hungarian security researchers from CrySyS Lab and Ukatemi has now revealed that the NSA dump doesn't just contain zero-day exploits used to take control of targeted systems , but also include a collection of scripts and scanning tools the agency uses to track operations of hackers from other countries. According to a report published today by the Intercept, NSA's specialized team known as Territorial Dispute (TeDi) developed some scripts and scanning tools that help the agency to detect other nation-state hackers on the targeted machines it infects. NSA hackers used these tools to scan targeted systems for 'indicators of compromise' (IoC) in order to protect its own operations from getting exposed, as well as to fin...

Great news for hackers. Now you can download and install Kali Linux directly from the Microsoft App Store on Windows 10 just like any other application. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true! Kali Linux, a very popular, free, and open-source Linux-based operating system widely used for hacking and penetration testing, is now natively available on Windows 10, without requiring dual boot or virtualization. Kali Linux is the latest Linux distribution to be made available on the Windows App Store for one-click installation, joining the list of other popular distribution such as Ubuntu , OpenSUSE and SUSE Enterprise Linux . In Windows 10, Microsoft has provided a feature called " Windows Subsystem for Linux " (WSL) that allows users to run Linux applications directly on Windows. "For the past few weeks, we've been working with the Microsoft WSL team to get Kali Linux introduced into the Microsoft App Store as an official WSL distribution, and today we...

The bar has been raised. As more amplified attacks were expected following the record-breaking 1.35 Tbps Github DDoS attack , someone has just set a new record after only four days — 1.7 Tbps DDoS attack. Network security and monitoring company Arbor Networks claims that its ATLAS global traffic and DDoS threat data system have recorded a 1.7Tbps reflection/amplification attack against one of its unnamed US-based customer's website. Similar to the last week's DDoS attack on GitHub, the massive bandwidth of the latest attack was amplified by a factor of 51,000 using thousands of misconfigured Memcached servers exposed on the Internet. Memcached, a popular open source distributed memory caching system, came into news earlier last week when researchers detailed how attackers could abuse it to launch amplification DDoS attack by sending a forged request to the targeted Memcached server on port 11211 using a spoofed IP address that matches the victim's IP. A few b...

Security researchers have discovered a set of severe vulnerabilities in 4G LTE protocol that could be exploited to spy on user phone calls and text messages, send fake emergency alerts, spoof location of the device and even knock devices entirely offline. A new research paper [ PDF ] recently published by researchers at Purdue University and the University of Iowa details 10 new cyber attacks against the 4G LTE wireless data communications technology for mobile devices and data terminals. The attacks exploit design weaknesses in three key protocol procedures of the 4G LTE network known as attach, detach, and paging. Unlike many previous research, these aren't just theoretical attacks. The researchers employed a systematic model-based adversarial testing approach, which they called LTEInspector , and were able to test 8 of the 10 attacks in a real testbed using SIM cards from four large US carriers. Authentication Synchronization Failure Attack Traceability Attack Nu...

Around 600 powerful devices specifically designed for mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been stolen from Icelandic data centers in what has been dubbed the "Big Bitcoin Heist." To make a profit, so far criminals have hacked cryptocurrency exchanges , spread mining malware , and ransomware —and even kidnapped cryptocurrency investors for ransom and tried to rob a bitcoin exchange , but now the greed has reached another level. The powerful computers are estimated to be worth around $2 million, Associated Press reports , and are used to generate cryptocurrency that at the time of this writing are worth $11,500 each. The theft, which took place between late December and early January, is one of the biggest series of robberies Iceland has ever experienced, according to law enforcement. "This is grand theft on a scale unseen before," said Police Commissioner Olafur Helgi Kjartansson of the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula. There were four differe...

On Wednesday, February 28, 2018, GitHub's code hosting website hit with the largest-ever distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that peaked at record 1.35 Tbps. Interestingly, attackers did not use any botnet network, instead weaponized misconfigured Memcached servers to amplify the DDoS attack. Earlier this week we published a report detailing how attackers could abuse Memcached, popular open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system, to launch over 51,000 times powerful DDoS attack than its original strength. Dubbed Memcrashed , the amplification DDoS attack works by sending a forged request to the targeted Memcrashed server on port 11211 using a spoofed IP address that matches the victim's IP. A few bytes of the request sent to the vulnerable server trigger tens of thousands of times bigger response against the targeted IP address. "This attack was the largest attack seen to date by Akamai, more than twice the size of the September 2016...

Apple has finally agreed to open a new Chinese data center next month to comply with the country's latest controversial data protection law. Apple will now move the cryptographic keys of its Chinese iCloud users in data centers run by a state-owned company called Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co, despite concerns from human rights activists. In 2017, China passed a Cybersecurity Law that requires "critical information infrastructure operators" to store Chinese users' data within the country's borders, which likely forced Apple to partner with the new Chinese data center. And the icing on the cake is that Chinese government already has legislation called National Security Law, passed in 2015, which gives police the authority to demand companies help them bypass encryption or other security tools to access personal data. This is the first time when Apple is going to store encryption keys required to unlock iCloud accounts of its users outside the...

Facebook Page admins are publicly displayed only if admins have chosen to feature their profiles. However, there are some situations where you might want to contact a Facebook page admin or want to find out who is the owner of a Facebook page. Egyptian security researcher Mohamed A. Baset has discovered a severe information disclosure vulnerability in Facebook that could have allowed anyone to expose Facebook page administrator profiles, which is otherwise not supposed to be public information. Baset claimed to have discovered the vulnerability in less than 3 minutes without any kind of testing or proof of concepts, or any other type of time-consuming processes. In a blog post , Baset said he found the vulnerability, which he described as a "logical error," after receiving an invitation to like a particular Facebook page on which he had previously liked a post. Facebook has introduced a feature for page admins wherein they can send Facebook invitations to users...

Cybercriminals have figured out a way to abuse widely-used Memcached servers to launch over 51,000 times powerful DDoS attacks than their original strength, which could result in knocking down of major websites and Internet infrastructure. In recent days, security researchers at Cloudflare , Arbor Networks , and Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 noticed that hackers are now abusing "Memcached" to amplify their DDoS attacks by an unprecedented factor of 51,200. Memcached is a popular open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system that allows objects to be stored in memory and has been designed to work with a large number of open connections. Memcached server runs over TCP or UDP port 11211. The Memcached application has been designed to speed up dynamic web applications by reducing stress on the database that helps administrators to increase performance and scale web applications. It's widely used by thousands of websites, including Facebook, Flickr,...

A hacker who was arrested and pleaded guilty last year—not because he hacked someone, but for creating and selling a remote access trojan that helped cyber criminals—has finally been sentenced to serve almost three years in prison. Taylor Huddleston, 26, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, pleaded guilty in July 2017 to one charge of aiding and abetting computer intrusions by building and intentionally selling a remote access trojan (RAT), called NanoCore , to hackers for $25. Huddleston was arrested in March, almost two months before the FBI raided his house in Hot Springs, Arkansas and left with his computers after 90 minutes, only to return eight weeks later with handcuffs. This case is a rare example of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) charging someone not for actively using malware to hack victims' computers, but for developing and selling it to other cybercriminals. Huddleston admitted to the court that he created his software knowing it would be used by other cybercrimi...

Remember the infamous encryption fight between Apple and the FBI for unlocking an iPhone belonging to a terrorist behind the San Bernardino mass shooting that took place two years ago? After Apple refused to help the feds access data on the locked iPhone, the FBI eventually paid over a million dollar to a third-party company for unlocking the shooter's iPhone 5c. Now, it appears that the federal agency will not have to fight Apple over unlocking iPhones since the Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite has reportedly figured out a way to unlock almost any iPhone in the market, including the latest iPhone X. Cellebrite , a major security contractor to the United States law enforcement agencies, claims to have a new hacking tool for unlocking pretty much every iPhone running iOS 11 and older versions, Forbes reports. In its own literature [ PDF ] "Advanced Unlocking and Extraction Services," Cellebrite says its services can break the security of "Apple iO...

If you have installed world's most popular torrent download software, μTorrent, then you should download its latest version for Windows as soon as possible. Google's security researcher at Project Zero discovered a serious remote code execution vulnerability in both the 'μTorrent desktop app for Windows' and newly launched 'μTorrent Web' that allows users to download and stream torrents directly into their web browser. μTorrent Classic and μTorrent Web apps run in the background on the Windows machine and start a locally hosted HTTP RPC server on ports 10000 and 19575, respectively, using which users can access its interfaces over any web browser. However, Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy found that several issues with these RPC servers could allow remote attackers to take control of the torrent download software with little user interaction. According to Ormandy, uTorrent apps are vulnerable to a hacking technique called the "domain name s...

Yes, your smartphone is spying on you. But, the real question is, should you care? We have published thousands of articles on The Hacker News, warning how any mobile app can turn your smartphone into a bugging device—' Facebook is listening to your conversations', ' Stealing Passwords Using SmartPhone Sensors', 'Your Headphones Can Spy On You' and 'Android Malware Found Spying Military Personnel' to name a few. All these stories have different objectives and targets but have one thing in common, i.e., apps running in the background covertly abuse ‘ permissions ’ without notifying users. Installing a single malicious app unknowingly could allow remote attackers to covertly record audio, video, and taking photos in the background. But, not anymore! In a boost to user privacy, the next version of Google's mobile operating system, Android P, will apparently block apps idling in the background from accessing your smartphone's camera a...

Only a single character can crash your iPhone and block access to the Messaging app in iOS as well as popular apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Outlook for iOS, and Gmail. First spotted by Italian Blog Mobile World, a potentially new severe bug affects not only iPhones but also a wide range of Apple devices, including iPads, Macs and even Watch OS devices running the latest versions of their operating software. Like previous 'text bomb' bug, the new flaw can easily be exploited by anyone, requiring users to send only a single character from Telugu—a native Indian language spoken by about 70 million people in the country. Once the recipient receives a simple message containing the symbol or typed that symbol into the text editor, the character immediately instigates crashes on iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and Apple TVs running Apple's iOS Springboard. Apps that receive the text bomb tries to load the character, but fails and refuses to function prope...

Bitmessage developers have warned of a critical 'remotely executable' zero-day vulnerability in the PyBitmessage application that was being exploited in the wild. Bitmessage is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to users. Since it is decentralized and trustless communications, one need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. Those who unaware, PyBitmessage is the official client for Bitmessage messaging service. According to Bitmessage developers, a critical zero-day remote code execution vulnerability, described as a message encoding flaw, affects PyBitmessage version 0.6.2 for Linux, Mac, and Windows and has been exploited against some of their users. "The exploit is triggered by a malicious message if you are the recipient (including joined chans). The attacker ran an automated script but also opened, or tried to open, a remote reverse shell," Bitmessage core developer Peter Šurda ex...

A serious vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft-owned most popular free web messaging and voice calling service Skype that could potentially allow attackers to gain full control of the host machine by granting system-level privileges to a local, unprivileged user. The worst part is that this vulnerability will not be patched by Microsoft anytime soon. It's not because the flaw is unpatchable, but because fixing the vulnerability requires a significant software rewrite, which indicates that the company will need to issue an all-new version of Skype rather than just a patch. The vulnerability has been discovered and reported to Microsoft by security researcher Stefan Kanthak and resides in Skype's update installer, which is susceptible to Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) hijacking. According to the researcher, a potential attacker could exploit the "functionality of the Windows DLL loader where the process loading the DLL searches for the DLL to be loaded fi...

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday for this month falls the day before the most romantic day of the year. Yes, it's Valentine's, and the tech giant has released its monthly security update for February 2018, addressing a total of 50 CVE-listed vulnerabilities in its Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, web browsers and other products. Fourteen of the security updates are listed as critical, 34 are rated as important, and 2 of them are rated as moderate in severity. The critical update patches serious security flaws in Edge browser and Outlook client, an RCE in Windows' StructuredQuery component, and several memory corruption bugs in the scripting engines used by Edge and Internet Explorer. Critical Microsoft Outlook Vulnerability One of the most severe bugs includes a memory corruption vulnerability ( CVE-2018-0852 ) in Microsoft Outlook, which can be exploited to achieve remote code execution on the targeted machines. In order to trigger the vulnerability...

A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in the desktop version for end-to-end encrypted Telegram messaging app that was being exploited in the wild in order to spread malware that mines cryptocurrencies such as Monero and ZCash. The Telegram vulnerability was uncovered by security researcher Alexey Firsh from Kaspersky Lab last October and affects only the Windows client of Telegram messaging software. The flaw has actively been exploited in the wild since at least March 2017 by attackers who tricked victims into downloading malicious software onto their PCs that used their CPU power to mine cryptocurrencies or serve as a backdoor for attackers to remotely control the affected machine, according to a blogpost on Securelist. Here's How Telegram Vulnerability Works The vulnerability resides in the way Telegram Windows client handles the RLO (right-to-left override) Unicode character (U+202E), which is used for coding languages that are written from right to left, li...

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics taking place in South Korea was disrupted over the weekend following a malware attack before and during the opening ceremony on Friday. The cyber attack coincided with 12 hours of downtime on the official website for the Winter Games, the collapse of Wi-Fi in the Pyeongchang Olympic stadium and the failure of televisions and internet at the main press center, leaving attendees unable to print their tickets for events or get venue information. The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics organizing committee confirmed Sunday that a cyber attack hit its network helping run the event during the opening ceremony, which was fully restored on 8 am local time on Saturday—that's full 12 hours after the attack began. Multiple cybersecurity firms published reports on Monday, suggesting that the cause of the disruption was "destructive" wiper malware that had been spread throughout the Winter Games' official network using stolen credentials. Dubbed...