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Due to the majority in the mobile platform, Google's Android operating system has been a prior target for cybercriminals and a recently exposed weakness in the way the operating system handles certificate validation, left millions of Android devices open to attack. Researchers at BlueBox security , who identified the vulnerability, dubbed the flaw as Fake ID , which affects all versions of Android operating system from 2.1 ( released in 2010 ) up to Android 4.4, also known as KitKat . ALL VERSIONS ARE VULNERABLE UPTO KITKAT Researchers marked the vulnerability as critical because it could allow a fake and malicious app to masquerade as a legitimate and trusted application, enabling an attacker to perform various actions such as inserting malicious code into a legitimate app, infiltrating your personal information or even take complete control of an affected device. Specifically, devices running the 3LM administration extension are at risk for a complete compromise, whic...

Scammers have again targeted more than one billion active users of the popular social networking giant Facebook, to infect as many victims as possible. Not by serving fake post, neither by providing malicious video link, instead this time scammers have used a new way of tricking Facebook users into injecting or placing malicious JavaScript or client-side code into their web browsers. This malicious code could allow an attacker to gain access to victims' accounts, thereby using it for fraud, to send spams, and promoting further attacks by posting the scam on timeline to victims' friends. This technique is known as Self Cross-site Scripting or Self XSS. Self-XSS (Self Cross-Site Scripting) scam is a combination of social engineering and a browser vulnerability , basically designed to trick Facebook users' into providing access to their account. Once an attacker or scammer gets access to users' Facebook account, they can even post and comment on things on users' behalf. ...

Chinese hackers infiltrated the databases of three Israeli defense contractors and stole plans for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, according to an investigation by a Maryland-based cyber security firm ' Cyber Engineering Services Inc. (CyberESI) '. Not just this, the hackers were also able to nab plans regarding other missile interceptors, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, ballistic rockets and the Arrow III missile interceptor which was designed by Boeing and other U.S.-based companies. The intrusions were thought to be executed by Beijing's infamous " Comment Crew " hacking group – a group of cyber warriors linked to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) – into the corporate networks of top Israeli defense technology companies, including Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, between 10 October 2011 and 13 August 2012. The three Israeli defense technology companies were responsible for the developmen...

While phishing and ransomware dominate headlines, another critical risk quietly persists across most enterprises: exposed Git repositories leaking sensitive data. A risk that silently creates shadow access into core systems Git is the backbone of modern software development, hosting millions of repositories and serving thousands of organizations worldwide. Yet, amid the daily hustle of shipping code, developers may inadvertently leave behind API keys, tokens, or passwords in configuration files and code files, effectively handing attackers the keys to the kingdom. This isn't just about poor hygiene; it's a systemic and growing supply chain risk. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, so do compliance requirements. Security frameworks like NIS2, SOC2, and ISO 27001 now demand proof that software delivery pipelines are hardened and third-party risk is controlled. The message is clear: securing your Git repositories is no longer optional, it's essential. Below, we look at the ris...

In the era of Government surveillance, ensuring the security and safety of our private communications regardless of platform – email, VOIP, message, even cookies stored – should be the top priority of the Internet industry. Some industry came together to offer Encryption as the protection against government surveillance, but some left security holes that may expose your personal data. A critical issue on Instagram's Android Application has been disclosed by a security researcher that could allow an attacker to hijack users' account and successfully access private photos, delete victim's photos, edit comments and also post new images. Instagram , acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion, is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. ...

A leading provider of advanced threat, security and compliance solutions, Tripwire , has announced that Craig Young , a security researcher from its Vulnerability and Exposure Research Team (VERT) , is working on a paper about SSL vulnerabilities that will be presented at DEF CON 22 Wireless Village . There are thousands of websites over Internet that contain serious mistakes in the way that Secure Sockets Layer and Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) is implemented, leaving them vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that could compromise sensitive user data such as banking credentials, credit card numbers and other information. MitM attack is one of the common and favorite techniques of attackers used to intercept wireless data traffic. Cyber criminals could able to intercept sensitive user data, including credit card numbers, PayPal credentials and social network credentials as well. Young has unearthed various situations where poor SSL implementations in co...

Great news for Hackers and Backtrack Linux fans! Offensive Security, the developers of one of the most advance open source operating system for penetration testing known as ' KALI Linux ', has finally announced the release of the latest version i.e. Kali Linux 1.0.8 . Kali Linux is based upon Debian Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing, including a variety of security/hacking tools. It is developed, maintained and funded by Offensive Security constantly providing users with the latest package updates and security fixes available. The new release supports Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) boot  that allows you to start Kali Linux 1.0.8 using a USB stick on recent hardware, and especially on Apple Macbooks Air and Retina models. " This new feature simplifies getting Kali installed and running on more recent hardware which requires EFI as well as various Apple Macbooks Air and Retina models ," reads the blog post . Althoug...

The Russian government is offering almost 4 million ruble which is approximately equal to $111,000 to the one who can devise a reliable technology to decrypt data sent over the Tor , an encrypted anonymizing network used by online users in order to hide their activities from law enforcement, government censors, and others. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) issued a notice on its official procurement website, originally posted on July 11, under the title " шифр «ТОР (Флот)» " ;which translates as " cipher 'TOR' (Navy) " an open call for Tor-cracking proposals whose winner will be chosen by August 20. The MIA specifically wants researchers to " study the possibility of obtaining technical information about users and users' equipment on the Tor anonymous network, " according to a translated version of the Russian government's proposal. Only Russian nationals and companies are allowed to take part in the competition " in o...

Data security is a big task for businesses as well as a challenge for IT leaders, whether it be securing networks or devices. Past few months, we often came across various data breaches, the largest among all was Target data breach , which cost a business nearly $50,000 in lost productivity, replacement and data recovery.  Once a bad actor has stolen your hardware or compromised your network, the ability to lock down sensitive data is predominant. To help mitigate these threats in order to protect businesses against data breaches without even damaging performance, Intel has announced its latest enterprise-class solid state drives (SSDs) that are self-encrypting, packaged with some powerful security and management features. The New Intel SSD 2500 Pro Series of solid state drives offers significant performance with hardware-based 256-bit self-encryption to reduce the impact on the performance. Intel SSD 2500 Pro Series will be offered in both 2.5-inch SATA and...

Security researchers from Russian Internet giant Yandex have discovered a new piece of malware that is being used to target Linux and FreeBSD web servers in order to make them a part of the wide botnet, even without the need of any root privileges. Researchers dubbed the malware as Mayhem, a nasty malware modular that includes a number of payloads to cause malicious things and targets to infect only those machines which are not updated with security patches or less likely to run security software. So far, researchers have found over 1,400 Linux and FreeBSD servers around the world that have compromised by the malware , with potentially thousands more to come. Most of the compromised machines are located in the USA, Russia, Germany and Canada. Three security experts, Andrej Kovalev, Konstantin Ostrashkevich and Evgeny Sidorov , who work at Russia-based Internet portal Yandex, discovered the malware targeting *nix servers . They were able to trace transmissions from th...

A French information security company VUPEN has recently disclosed that it held onto a serious Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability for at least three years before revealing it at the Pwn2Own hacker competition held in March this year. The critical zero-day vulnerability affected versions 8, 9, 10 and 11 of Internet Explorer browser that allowed attackers to remotely bypass the IE Protected Mode sandbox. An attacker can exploit this issue to gain elevated privileges. VULNERABILITY DISCLOSURE TIMELINE According to a disclosure made by the security company last week, the vulnerability with ID  CVE-2014-2777  was discovered by the company on 12 February 2011, which was  patched by Microsoft  last month. 12 February 2011 - IE Zero-day discovered by Vupen. 13 March 2014 - Vupen reported to Microsoft. 11 June 2014 - Microsoft Released patch and publicly released the advisory . Sandbox is security mechanism used to run an application in a restricted environme...

The users of WordPress, a free and open source blogging tool as well as content management system (CMS), that have a popular unpatched wordPress plugin installed are being cautioned to upgrade their sites immediately. A serious vulnerability in the WordPress plugin, MailPoet , could essentially allows an attacker to inject any file including malware, defacements and spam, whatever they wanted on the server and that too without any authentication. MailPoet, formerly known as Wysija Newsletter , is a WordPress plugin with more than 1.7 million downloads that allows developers running WordPress to send newsletters and manage subscribers within the content management system. In a blog post, the security researcher and CEO of the security firm Sucuri , Daniel Cid, pointed out the vulnerability to be serious and said that within three weeks since the vulnerability unveiled, over 50,000 websites have been remotely exploited by the cybercriminals to install backdoors targeting the vulner...

The critical zero-day security flaws, discovered in the privacy and security dedicated Linux-based Tails operating system by the researcher at Exodus Intelligence that could help attackers or law enforcements to de-anonymize anyone's identity, actually lie in the I2P software that's bundled with the Operating System. Exodus Intelligence has released some details and a video evidence that demonstrate an exploit against the found vulnerability unmasking an anonymous user of the Tails operating system. The researchers at Exodus claims they can use the vulnerability to upload malicious code to a system running Tails, execute the payload remotely, and de-anonymize the targeted users' public IP address as well. Tails is a security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution and a suite of applications that can be carried on a USB stick, an SD card or a DVD. It keeps users' communications private by running all connectivity through Tor , the network that routes traffic through ...