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The National Crime Agency (NCA) of United Kingdom is forcing the British citizen, and political hacktivist Lauri Love accused of hacking to hand over encryption keys to equipment seized from his home. Love, 31, is currently fighting extradition to the United States where he faces up to 99 years in prison for allegedly hacking into the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), the US Missile Defence Agency, NASA and Federal Reserve Bank of New York during 2012 and 2013. US Prosecutors claim that Love was allegedly involved in #OpLastResort , an online protest linked with the Anonymous group, following the persecution and untimely death of activist Aaron Swartz , who committed suicide in 2013 while under federal charges for data theft. Love was initially arrested from his home in Stradishall, England in October 2013 by the NCA and had criminal charges filed against him in New York, East Virginia, and New Jersey. During a court hearing at Westminster Magistrates on Tues...

What do you do to protect your ' Privacy ' while using your computer? FBI Director James Comey uses tape to cover up his laptop webcam to ensure Privacy. Yes, you heard it right. During the Q&A session at Kenyon College last week, Comey said that he uses tape to cover his laptop webcam in order to mitigate the danger of secret surveillance. While giving a speech about encryption and privacy, Comey repeated his argument that " absolute privacy " hampers the law enforcement and has never existed in America – until now, when by default encryption offered by big tech giants created boundaries where law enforcement can't enter, even with a court order. This isn't the first time Comey made this kind of statement. Comey has always suggested tech companies to adopt encryption techniques that help federal agencies intercept end-to-end encrypted communications when necessary. But after his speech, Comey said something that generated hilarity...

If you are a Microsoft's Windows user, you may have encountered the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) . The Blue Screen of Death generally appears when Windows encounters any critical error due to software or hardware issues, displaying a sad face and no information other than "Your PC ran into a problem." However, now the company is apparently giving its infamous Blue Screen of Death a makeover. With the Microsoft's Anniversary Update, the company is making the Blue Screen of Death a little helpful for its users. Microsoft is adding QR code to its Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in Windows 10 that will make it easier for users to identify potential issues with their devices. The new QR codes are featured in the Redmond's latest Windows 10 Preview, Build 14316, which will debut this summer as the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Must Read:   Step-by-Step Tutorial to Run Ubuntu on latest Windows 10 Preview Build . Now, when your operating...

Two Google engineers have developed a draft version of an API called WebUSB that would allow you to connect your USB devices to the Web safely and securely, bypassing the need for native drivers. WebUSB – developed by Reilly Grant and Ken Rockot – has been introduced to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Incubator Community Group (W3C WICG), is build to offer a universal platform that could be adopted by browser makers in future versions of their software. Connecting USB Devices to the Web WebUSB API allows USB-connected devices, from keyboards, mice, 3D printers and hard drives to complex Internet of Things (IoTs) appliances, to be addressed by Web pages. The aim is to help hardware manufacturers have their USB devices work on any platform, including Web, without having any need to write native drivers or SDKs for a dedicated platform. Besides controlling the hardware, a Web page could also install firmware updates as well as perform other essential tasks. Howev...

Ransomware has risen dramatically since last few years and is currently one of the most popular threats on the Internet. The Ransomware infections have become so sophisticated with the time that victims end up paying ransom in order to get their critical and sensitive data back. But if you are infected with Petya Ransomware , there is good news for you. You can unlock your infected computer without paying the hefty ransom. Thanks to the Petya author who left a bug in the Ransomware code. What is Petya Ransomware? Petya is a nasty piece of ransomware that emerged two weeks ago and worked very differently from any other ransomware. The ransomware targets the victims by rebooting their Windows computers, encrypting the hard drive's master boot file, and rendering the master boot record inoperable. Also Read:  How to Decrypt CoinVault and Bitcryptor Ransomware A master boot record (MBR) is the information in the first sector of any hard disk that ide...

Be careful while buying any off-brand electronics from Amazon, as they could end up infecting you. Recently, independent security researcher Mike Olsen discovered that the CCTV surveillance devices sold on Amazon came with pre-installed malware. Olsen discovered this nasty secret after he bought a set of outdoor CCTV surveillance cameras from Amazon for one of his friends. He picked Sony Chip HD 6 Camera 1080P PoE IP CCTV surveillance camera kit sold by the Urban Security Group (USG) on Amazon, as it had good reviews and was a relatively cheap set of 6 cameras with all necessary equipment included. While helping his friend set up the cameras, Olsen logged into the administrator panel to configure the surveillance system and found that the page hosted "no normal controls or settings." Assuming that it might be bad programming, Olsen opened up the browser's developer tools and was surprised to discover a hidden iFrame loaded at the bottom of the bo...

The FBI didn't disclose the identity of the third-party company that helped them access the San Bernardino iPhone, but it has been widely believed that the Israeli mobile forensic firm Cellebrite was hired by the FBI to put an end to the Apple vs. FBI case. For those unfamiliar in the Apple vs. FBI case: Apple was engaged in a legal battle with the Department of Justice over a court order that was forcing the company to write software, which could disable passcode protection on terrorist's iPhone, helping them access data on it. However, Apple refused to comply with the court order, so the FBI hired an unknown third-party firm, most likely Cellebrite, who managed to successfully hack the locked iPhone 5C used by the terrorist in the San Bernardino shooting incident last year. The new method helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to hack iPhone 5C, but that wasn't the FBI's victory as the method didn't work on iPhone 5S and later iPhone...

Earlier this year, Facebook came across a bunch of duplicate SSL certificates for some of its own domains and revoked them immediately with the help of its own Certificate Transparency Monitoring Tool service. Digital certificates are the backbone of our secure Internet, which protects sensitive information and communication, as well as authenticate systems and Internet users. The Online Privacy relies heavily on SSL/TLS Certificates and encryption keys to protect millions of websites and applications. As explained in our  previous article on The Hacker News , the current Digital Certificate Management system and trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) are not enough to prevent misuse of SSL certificates on the internet. In short, there are hundreds of Certificate Authorities, trusted by your web browsers and operating systems, that has the ability to issue certificates for any domain, despite the fact you already have one purchased from another CA. An...

Do you know there is a huge encryption backdoor still exists on the Internet that most people don't know about? I am talking about the traditional Digital Certificate Management System … the weakest link, which is completely based on trust, and it has already been broken several times. To ensure the confidentiality and integrity of their personal data, billions of Internet users blindly rely on hundreds of Certificate Authorities (CA) around the globe. In this article I am going to explain: The structural flaw in current Digital Certificate Management system. Why Certificate Authorities (CA) have lost the Trust. How Certificate Transparency (CT) fixes issues in the SSL certificate system. How to early detect every SSL Certificates issued for your Domain, legitimate or rogue? First, you need to know Certificate Authority and its role: Certificate Authority and its Role A Certificate Authority (CA) is a third-party organization that acts as a centr...

More than 135 Million modems around the world are vulnerable to a flaw that can be exploited remotely to knock them offline by cutting off the Internet access. The simple and easily exploitable vulnerability has been uncovered in one of the most popular and widely-used cable modem, the Arris SURFboard SB6141 , used in Millions of US households. Security researcher David Longenecker discovered a loophole that made these modems vulnerable to unauthenticated reboot attacks. He also released his "exploit" after Arris (formerly Motorola) stopped responding to him despite a responsible disclosure. The Bug is quite silly: No Username and Password Protection. Arris does not provide any password authentication set up on the modem's user interface, thus allowing any local attacker to access the administration web interface at 192.168.100.1 without the need to enter a username and password. This issue allows a local attacker to ' Restart Cable Modem ' ...

Do you own a custom domain or a blog under the wordpress.com domain name? If yes, then there is good news for you. WordPress is bringing free HTTPS to every blog and website that belongs to them in an effort to make the Web more secure. WordPress – free, open source and the most popular a content management system (CMS) system on the Web – is being used by over a quarter of all websites across the world, and this new move represents a massive shift over to a more secure Internet WordPress announced on Friday that it has partnered with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's " Let's Encrypt " project, allowing it to provide reliable and free HTTPS support for all of its customers that use custom domains for their WordPress.com blogs. Now every website hosted on wordpress.com has an SSL certificate and will display a green lock in the address bar. "For you, the users, that means you'll see secure encryption automatically deployed on ev...

Almost two years back, Apple introduced Swift programming language at its World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) to the developers who build software applications for Apple devices. Swift was designed to make it easier for developers to create apps for Apple's mobile platform. Usually developers write complete app code and then compile it to see output, but Swift helps them see results in real time instantly while writing code. Now, reports have been emerged that the search engine giant is also considering making Swift programming language a "first class" language choice for programmers making apps for its Android platform. In between an ongoing legal battle with Oracle over Android, Google is planning to bring Swift into the Android platform with at least two major third-party developers — Facebook and Uber, reports The Next Web. Around the time when Apple officially made Swift an open source language, executives from Google, Facebook and Uber attended a m...