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As part of its " Vault 7 " series, Wikileaks — the popular whistle-blowing platform — has just released another batch of classified documents focused on exploits and hacking techniques the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) designed to target Apple MacOS and iOS devices. Dubbed " Dark Matter ," the leak uncovers macOS vulnerabilities and attack vectors developed by a special division of the CIA called Embedded Development Branch (EDB) – the same branch that created ' Weeping Angel ' attack – and focused specifically on hacking Mac and iOS firmware. CIA Infects Apple Devices With Unremovable Malware The newly released documents revealed that CIA had also been targeting the iPhone since 2008. The Agency has created a malware that is specially designed to infect Apple firmware in a way that the infection remains active on MacOS and iOS devices even if the operating system has been re-installed. According to Wikileaks, the released documents also gives a c...

A Russian man accused of developing and distributing the Citadel Banking Trojan , which infected nearly 11 Million computers globally and caused over $500 Million in losses, has finally pleaded guilty to charges of computer fraud. Mark Vartanyan, 29, who was very well known as " Kolypto ," pleaded guilty in an Atlanta courtroom on Monday to charges related to computer fraud and is now co-operating with federal prosecutors in return for a reduced sentence of no more than five years in prison. Vartanyan, a native of Moscow, was arrested in Norway in October 2014 and extradited to the United States in December last year. He was involved in the development, improvement, maintenance and distribution of the nasty Citadel Trojan. "This successful extradition is yet another example of how cooperation among international law enforcement partners can be used to disrupt and dismantle global cyber syndicates," said U.S. Attorney John Horn. "This defendant's...

Chinese Hackers have taken Smishing attack to the next level, using rogue cell phone towers to distribute Android banking malware via spoofed SMS messages. SMiShing — phishing attacks sent via SMS — is a type of attack wherein fraudsters use number spoofing attack to send convincing bogus messages to trick mobile users into downloading a malware app onto their smartphones or lures victims into giving up sensitive information. Security researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have uncovered that Chinese hackers are using fake base transceiver stations (BTS towers) to distribute " Swearing Trojan ," an Android banking malware that once appeared neutralized after its authors were arrested in a police raid. This is the first ever reported real-world case in which criminals played smart in such a way that they used BTS — a piece of equipment usually installed on cellular telephone towers — to spread malware. The phishing SMS, which masquerades itself as the on...

If you use iCloud to sync your Apple devices, your private data may be at risk of getting exposed or deleted by April 7th. It has been found that a mischievous group of hackers claiming to have access to over 300 million iCloud accounts is threatening Apple to remotely wipe data from those millions of Apple devices unless Apple pays it $75,000 in crypto-currency or $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards. The hacking group, who identified themselves as 'Turkish Crime Family,' has demanded a ransom to be paid in Bitcoin or Ethereum, another popular crypto-currency. Motherboard broke this story on Tuesday after a hacker claiming to represent the alleged hacking group shared screenshots of alleged emails between the group and Apple's security team with the publication. "I just want my money and thought this would be an interesting report that a lot of Apple customers would be interested in reading and hearing," the hacker told Motherboard. The screenshots o...

A team of security researchers from Cybellum, an Israeli zero-day prevention firm, has discovered a new Windows vulnerability that could allow hackers to take full control of your computer. Dubbed DoubleAgent , the new injecting code technique works on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems, starting from Windows XP to the latest release of Windows 10. What's worse? DoubleAgent exploits a 15-years-old undocumented legitimate feature of Windows called " Application Verifier ," which cannot be patched. Application Verifier is a runtime verification tool that loads DLLs (dynamic link library) into processes for testing purpose, allowing developers quickly detect and fix programming errors in their applications. Unpatchable Microsoft Application Verifier Exploit The vulnerability resides in how this Application Verifier tool handles DLLs. According to the researchers, as part of the process, DLLs are bound to the target processes in a Windows Regist...

Are you curiously googling or searching torrents for photos or videos of Emma Watson, Amanda Seyfried, Rose McGowan, or any other celebrities leaked in The Fappenning 2.0 ? If yes, then beware, you should not click any link promising Fappenning celebrity photos . Cybercriminals often take advantage of news headlines in order to trap victims and trick them into following links that may lead to websites containing malware or survey scams. Last week, a few private photos of Emma Watson and Amanda Seyfried — ranging from regular selfies to explicitly sexual photos — were circulating on the Internet forums, including Reddit and 4chan, with UK's TV presenter Holly Willoughby and US actor Rose McGowan among the latest alleged victims. Now, according to the security researchers from MalwareBytes, scammers are exploiting this new batch of leaked celebrity photos and videos by using their stolen selfies to lure victims on social media sites and making dollars. Also Read: Hacke...

You may be aware of the fact that a local Windows user with system rights and permissions can reset the password for other users, but did you know that a local user can also hijack other users' session, including domain admin/system user, without knowing their passwords? Alexander Korznikov, an Israeli security researcher, has recently demonstrated that a local privileged user can even hijack the session of any logged-in Windows user who has higher privileges without knowing that user's password, using built-in command line tools. This trick works on almost all versions of Windows operating system and does not require any special privileges. Korznikov is himself unable to figure out if it is a Windows feature or a security flaw. The issue discovered by Korznikov is not entirely new, as a French security researcher, namely Benjamin Delpy, detailed a similar user session hijacking technique on his blog some six years ago. Korznikov calls the attack a "privilege ...

You might have heard the latest news about Microsoft blocking new security patches and updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users running the latest processors from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and others. Don't panic, this new policy doesn't mean that all Windows 7 and 8.1 users will not be able to receive latest updates in general because Microsoft has promised to support Windows 7 until 2020 , and Windows 8.1 until 2023. But those who have upgraded their machines running older versions of Windows to the latest processors, or manually downgraded their new laptops to run Windows 7/8.1 would be out of luck. A recently published Microsoft Knowledge Base article suggests that if you are running the older version of operating systems on your computers that feature new processors, including Intel's 7th generation Core i3, i5 and i7 ("Kaby Lake"), AMD Ryzen ("Bristol Ridge") and Qualcomm 8996 chips or later, the security updates will not install. Inste...

Cisco is warning of a new critical zero-day IOS / IOS XE vulnerability that affects more than 300 of its switch models. The company identified this highest level of vulnerability in its product while analyzing " Vault 7 " — a roughly 8,761 documents and files leaked by Wikileaks last week, claiming to detail hacking tools and tactics of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The vulnerability resides in the Cluster Management Protocol (CMP) processing code in Cisco IOS and Cisco IOS XE Software. If exploited, the flaw ( CVE-2017-3881 ) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to cause a reboot of an affected device or remotely execute malicious code on the device with elevated privileges to take full control of the device, Cisco says in its  advisory . The CMP protocol has been designed to pass around information about switch clusters between cluster members using Telnet or SSH. The vulnerability is in the default configuration of affected Cisco devices,...

It's been over a week since Wikileaks promised to hand over more information on hacking tools and tactics of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the affected tech companies, following a leak of a roughly 8,761 documents that Wikileaks claimed belonged to CIA hacking units. "We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out," WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange said during a Facebook Live press conference last week. However, it looks like the things aren't that easier for tech companies as they look. After days of waiting, Assange made its first contact with Apple, Microsoft, and Google this week and finally made his intentions clear – no sharing of bugs and vulnerabilities the CIA is or was allegedly taking advantage of until certain demands are met. Multiple anonymous sources familiar with the matter told Motherboard that Assange sent an email to Apple, ...

So you are in a party with your friends, and your phone is running low on battery. Oops! The ideal solution is to charge your phone using a charger or a power bank, but not everyone carries power banks or chargers with them all the time, especially in a party. What if you can charge your phone wirelessly using another phone when it runs out of battery? Isn't that great? Well, thanks to Sony, you might soon be able to use your friends' phones to charge your own device. According to a recently published patent application, Sony is working on a new futuristic technique that enables wireless power exchange between various nearby consumer electronic devices, including smartphones, computers, microwave, washing machine, fridges, and TVs, without cords. Wireless charging isn't a new concept at all, but this is the first time when the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology is being used for power transfer wirelessly between two devices, that too over considerable distanc...

Another dangerous vulnerability has been discovered in Linux kernel that dates back to 2009 and affects a large number of Linux distros, including Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu. The latest Linux kernel flaw ( CVE-2017-2636 ), which existed in the Linux kernel for the past seven years, allows a local unprivileged user to gain root privileges on affected systems or cause a denial of service (system crash). Positive Technologies researcher Alexander Popov discovered a race condition issue in the N_HLDC Linux kernel driver – which is responsible for dealing with High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) data – that leads to double-free vulnerability. " Double Free " is one of the most common memory corruption bug that occurs when the application releases same memory location twice by calling the free() function on the same allocated memory. An unauthenticated attacker may leverage this vulnerability to inject and execute arbitrary code in the security context of curren...