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Creator of the GNU Project & Free Software Foundation's Leader Richard Stallman has called out Ubuntu as being "spyware". Why ?  Because the operating system sends data to Ubuntu maker Canonical when a user searches the desktop. How ? Due to the Amazon search capabilities that have been integrated into Ubuntu's  Unity desktop environment with the Dash. First introduced in Ubuntu 12.10. Surveillance Program ?  Stallman equates the Amazon search integration into the Ubuntu desktop as having installed surveillance code. He said, " Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) " Stallman's post , " The ads are not the core of the problem ," " The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it doe...

Rootkit named as "Necurs" infect 83,427 unique machines during the month of November 2012. It is a multi-purpose rootkits capable of posing a threat to both 32 and 64-bit Windows systems. Distributed via drive-by download on the websites that host the BlackHole exploit kit. Like other rootkits it is able to hide itself from detection and also capable of downloading additional malware from outside. Attackers can maintain remote access to a machine this way in order to monitor activity, send spam or install scareware. Rootkit also stop security applications from functioning and hence no detection. Microsoft list this as  Trojan:Win32/Necurs . Trojan:Win32/Necurs is a family of malware that work together to download additional malware and enable backdoor access and control of your computer. The malware can be installed on its own or alongside rogue security software, such as Rogue:Win32/Winwebsec. The malware downloads itself into the folder " %windi...

According to reports, the hackers targeted personal computers retired Admiral Mike Mullen , the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The FBI is hunting for foreign hackers. Mullen is currently teaching WWS 318: U.S. Military and National and International Diplomacy and will teach an unnamed graduate seminar in the spring. According to Mullen's aides, however, he did not save or view classified information on his personal computers. Agents from an FBI cyber-security unit contacted Mullen in late October or early November, and asked that he surrender his computers in connection with the ongoing inquiry. Mullen agreed, and in early November at least one FBI agent collected the computers at his office at the U.S. Naval Institute. One official said that evidence gathered by the FBI points to China as the origin of the hacking, and that it appeared the perpetrators were able to access a personal email account of Mullen. Officials said that...

Samsung which is currently believed to the highest Smartphones Seller in the World is now providing a Remote tracking solution in all its smartphones to Track the lost phone with the name " Samsung Dive ". The Service is based on the Architecture which primarily acquires precise location of the smart phone using it GPS and other subsidiary location acquisition techniques. The Service is basically meant to be used by the users to track their phone in case of theft or lost phone. Security Researcher Jiten Jain discovered that this GPS based location tracking service provided by manufacturer (Samsung) is also vulnerable to Theft and Malwares. To use this inbuilt tracking Service, User has to simply create an account with Samsung (www.samsungdive.com). Users than have to enable remote services to track device and wipe data remotely. The permission can be disabled or modified only by the Samsung account holder after logging in and cannot be disabled by anyone else...

A new version of the Zeus botnet was used to steal about $47 million from European banking customers in the past year. This Zeus variant Trojan is blamed for attacks that stole more than 36 million Euros ($47 million U.S. dollars) from an estimated 30,000 consumer and corporate accounts at European banks. Dubbed "Eurograbber"  is more than just another banking Trojan. It's an exploitation of fundamental online banking authentication practices that could strike any institution. With the phone number and platform information, the attacker sends a text message to the victim's phone with a link to a site that downloads what it says is "encryption software" for the device. Customers become victims of Eurograbber by clicking on malicious links that may come in phishing-attack emails and then after injecting scripts to browser , the malware intercepts two-step authentication text messages sent to customers' phones. Customers at an estimated 30 banks fell vic...

Like many other security issues that now affect computer users, there is a growing threat known as phishing". Phishing attacks are perpetrated by criminals who send deceptive emails in order to lure someone into visiting a fraudulent web site or downloading malicious software, expressly for stealing sensitive information such as credit card numbers, account information, passwords, etc. Cyber criminals continue to evolve and refine their attack tactics to evade detection and use techniques that work. Spear phishing emails are on the rise because they work. We have notice many times that Spear Phishing Attacks are really Successful in order to compromise Enterprise Networks and Stealing Data. From last one month I was getting mails from an unknown spoofed email id regrading a paypal warning with subject " Your account has been limited until we hear from you ! " Guess what, even I am not using that email for my Paypal account, from here I just judge that it's...

Some critical vulnerabilities have been reported in Apache Tomcat, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions and cause a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. These vulnerabilities affect Apache Tomcat 6.x and Apache Tomcat 7.x . Apache Tomcat vulnerabilities CVE-2012-4534 Apache Tomcat denial of service CVE-2012-3546 Apache Tomcat Bypass of security constraints CVE-2012-4431 Apache Tomcat Bypass of CSRF prevention filter According to CVE-2012-4431 , The CSRF prevention filter could be bypassed if a request was made to a protected resource without a session identifier present in the request. CVE-2012-4534, DOS includes vulnerabilities ranging from excessive resource consumption (e.g. causing a system to use a lot of memory) to crashing an application or an entire system. Whereas, CVE-2012-3546 - where malicious users or people can bypass certain security mechanisms of the application. The act...

A new trojan horse app called Dockster is targeting Mac users by exploiting a known Java vulnerability CVE-2012-0507. The trojan is apparently being delivered through a website (gyalwarinpoche.com) dedicated to the Dalai Lama and once installed can collect user keystrokes and other personal information. Mac in Danger ?  Earlier this spring, a Russian security firm discovered a trojan piece of malware which took advantage of a Java vulnerability on many computers, Macs and PCs alike. This trojan, known as "Flashback," was used to enlist some 600,000 infected computers into a botnet. Malware also provides an interface that allows attackers to download and execute additional malware. Dockster has been found to use the same exploit code as the previous SabPab virus to gain access through a backdoor. Dockster is also said to launch an agent called mac.dockset.deman, which restarts each time a user logs in to their Mac. Dockster is only the latest Mac-bas...

Even if you are considered to be a white hat hacker, you are always still walking a fine line between being a bad guy and a good guy in many people eyes. There are a lot of people out there who believe that there should be no hacking at all being done and everyone who does it should be considered a criminal. Of course that is a very small myopic view of how being a white hat hacker really works but there is always going to be an element of that kind of thought out there. There are just a lot of people out there who believe that if you ban hacking outright that it will never be done. And that is simply just not true and is a pure fantasy. But if you really want to be a good and effective white hat hacker, then there are some elements about the other side that you should really get to know. If you want to be able to beat your enemies then you should be able to figure out how they operate. It is not enough for you to be able to take a look at their attacks and try to study their patterns...

It's known, drones are privileged vehicles for reconnaissance and attacks, technology has achieved level of excellence and their use is largely diffused, that's why defense companies are providing new solution to make them increasingly effective. But the incredible amount of technological components could be itself a point of weakness, last year in fact an U.S. stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel drone was captured by Iranian military near the city of Kashmar. The vehicle was used in reconnaissance mission, it took off from near Afghanistan, exactly from Kandahar airfield. In this hours government of Teheran has announced to have captured a new drone, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi reported that on Dec. 5th Iranian defense has captured a Scan Eagle drone that violated the fly zone over the Persian Gulf, around Kharg Island, in southern Iran. The zone is a strategic area, the place provides a sea port for the export o...

Instagram - Facebook's popular photo sharing app for iOS, is currently has a vulnerability that could make your account susceptible to hackers. A security researcher Carlos Reventlov  published on Friday another attack on Facebook's Instagram photo-sharing service that could allow a hacker to seize control of a victim's account. " The Instagram app communicates with the Instagram API via HTTP and HTTPs connections. Highly sensitive activities, such as login and editing profile data, are sent through a secure channel. However, some other request are sent through plain HTTP without a signature, those request could be exploited by an attacker connected to the same LAN of the victim's iPhone. " Vulnerability Details --   The vulnerability is in the 3.1.2 version of Instagram's application, which is  susceptible to "eavesdropping and man in the middle attacks that could lead an evil user to delete photos and download private media without the victim's con...

A notorious group of Internet trolls says it has unleashed a worm that has littered Tumblr blogs with inflammatory and racist posts. A massive bug affecting some 8,600 unique Tumblr users.  Gay Nigger Association of America , took responsibility for the attack. The infected post begins: " Dearest 'Tumblr' users  , This is in response to the seemingly pandemic growth and world-wide propagation of the most fucking worthless, contrived, bourgeoisie, self-congratulating and decadent bullshit the internet ever had the fortune of faciliating ." How worm work ?  Worm took advantage of Tumblr's reblogging feature, meaning that anyone who was logged into Tumblr would automatically reblog the infectious post if they visited one of the offending pages. Naked Security said . In a message posted to the company's official Twitter account, the blogging site said, " We are aware that there is a viral post circulating on Tumblr. We are working to resolve the issue as sw...