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Brace yourselves for a possible 'second wave' of massive global cyber attack, as SMB ( Server Message Block) was not the only network protocol whose zero-day exploits created by NSA were exposed in the Shadow Brokers dump last month. Although Microsoft released patches for SMB flaws for supported versions in March and unsupported versions immediately after the outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware, the company ignored to patch other three NSA hacking tools, dubbed " EnglishmanDentist ," " EsteemAudit ," and " ExplodingCan ." It has been almost two weeks since WannaCry ransomware began to spread, which infected nearly 300,000 computers in more than 150 countries within just 72 hours, though now it has been slowed down. For those unaware, WannaCry exploited a Windows zero-day SMB bug that allowed remote hackers to hijack PCs running on unpatched Windows OS and then spread itself to other unpatched systems using its wormable capability. ...

A 7-year-old critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in Samba networking software that could allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected Linux and Unix machines. Samba is open-source software (re-implementation of SMB networking protocol) that runs on the majority of operating systems available today, including Windows, Linux, UNIX, IBM System 390, and OpenVMS. Samba allows non-Windows operating systems, like GNU/Linux or Mac OS X, to share network shared folders, files, and printers with Windows operating system. The newly discovered remote code execution vulnerability ( CVE-2017-7494 ) affects all versions newer than Samba 3.5.0 that was released on March 1, 2010. "All versions of Samba from 3.5.0 onwards are vulnerable to a remote code execution vulnerability, allowing a malicious client to upload a shared library to a writable share, and then cause the server to load and execute it," Samba wrote in an advisory published Wed...

China is very strict about censorship, which is why the country has become very paranoid when it comes to adopting foreign technologies. The country banned Microsoft's Windows operating system on government computers in 2014 amid concerns about security and US surveillance. Even in the wake of that, China had been pushing its custom version of Windows XP and its forked version of Ubuntu Linux . To deal with this issue and target the world's largest market, Microsoft's CEO for the Greater China region last year confirmed that the company was working on a Chinese version of Windows 10 that included "more management and security controls" and less bloatware. Now, Microsoft has just announced a new version of its Windows 10, which is now ready for Chinese government agencies to use. In its event in Shanghai on Tuesday, Microsoft announced Windows 10 China Government Edition specifically designed for the Chinese government.The OS is based on Windows 1...

Samsung recently launched its new flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, with both Facial and IRIS Recognition features, making it easier for users to unlock their smartphone and signing into websites. We already knew that the Galaxy S8's facial unlock feature could be easily fooled with just a simple photograph of the device owner, but now hackers have also discovered a simple way to bypass the iris-based authentication, which Samsung wants you to think is unbeatable. All it took for German hacking group Chaos Computer Club (CCC) to break the Galaxy S8's iris-recognition system was nothing but a camera, a printer, and a contact lens. The white hat hacking group also published a video showing how to defeat Samsung's iris scanner. Video Demonstration — Bypassing Iris Scanner The process was very simple. The CCC group simply used the night mode setting on a Sony digital camera to capture a medium range photo of their subject. Since the iris...

Do you watch movies with subtitles? Just last night, I wanted to watch a French movie, so I searched for English subtitles and downloaded it to my computer. Though that film was excellent, this morning a new research from Checkpoint scared me. I was unaware that a little subtitle file could hand over full control of my computer to hackers, while I was enjoying the movie. Yes, you heard that right. A team of researchers at Check Point has discovered vulnerabilities in four of the most popular media player applications, which can be exploited by hackers to hijack " any type of device via vulnerabilities; whether it is a PC, a smart TV, or a mobile device " with malicious codes inserted into the subtitle files. " We have now discovered malicious subtitles could be created and delivered to millions of devices automatically, bypassing security software and giving the attacker full control of the infected device and the data it holds, " he added. These ...

The Russian Interior Ministry announced on Monday the arrest of 20 individuals from a major cybercriminal gang that had stolen nearly $900,000 from bank accounts after infecting over one million Android smartphones with a mobile Trojan called "CronBot." Russian Interior Ministry representative Rina Wolf said the arrests were part of a joint effort with Russian IT security firm Group-IB that assisted the massive investigation. The collaboration resulted in the arrest of 16 members of the Cron group in November 2016, while the last active members were apprehended in April 2017, all living in the Russian regions of Ivanovo, Moscow, Rostov, Chelyabinsk, and Yaroslavl and the Republic of Mari El. Targeted Over 1 Million Phones — How They Did It? Group-IB first learned of the Cron malware gang in March 2015, when the criminal gang was distributing the Cron Bot malware disguised as Viber and Google Play apps. The Cron malware gang abused the popularity of SMS-banking ...

After the discovery of a critical vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to view private Yahoo Mail images, Yahoo retired the image-processing library ImageMagick. ImageMagick is an open-source image processing library that lets users resize, scale, crop, watermarking and tweak images. The tool is supported by PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C++, and many other programming languages. This popular image-processing library made headline last year with the discovery of the then-zero-day vulnerability, dubbed ImageTragick , which allowed hackers to execute malicious code on a Web server by uploading a maliciously-crafted image. Now, just last week, security researcher Chris Evans demonstrated an 18-byte exploit to the public that could be used to cause Yahoo servers to leak other users' private Yahoo! Mail image attachments. 'Yahoobleed' Bug Leaks Images From Server Memory The exploit abuses a security vulnerability in the ImageMagick library, which Evans dubbed...

A security researcher has identified a new strain of malware that also spreads itself by exploiting flaws in Windows SMB file sharing protocol, but unlike the WannaCry Ransomware that uses only two leaked NSA hacking tools , it exploits all the seven. Last week, we warned you about multiple hacking groups exploiting leaked NSA hacking tools, but almost all of them were making use of only two tools: EternalBlue and DoublePulsar. Now, Miroslav Stampar, a security researcher who created famous 'sqlmap' tool and now a member of the Croatian Government CERT, has discovered a new network worm, dubbed EternalRocks , which is more dangerous than WannaCry and has no kill-switch in it. Unlike WannaCry, EternalRocks seems to be designed to function secretly in order to ensure that it remains undetectable on the affected system. However, Stampar learned of EternalRocks after it infected his SMB honeypot . The NSA exploits used by EternalRocks, which Stampar called " Do...

Is your router collects data on your network? Netgear last week pushed out a firmware update for its wireless router model NightHawk R7000 with a remote data collection feature that collects router's analytics data and sends it to the company's server. For now, the company has rolled out the firmware update for its NightHawk R7000, but probably other router models would receive the update in upcoming days. The Netgear's alleged router analytics data collects information regarding: Total number of devices connected to the router IP address MAC addresses Serial number Router's running status Types of connections LAN/WAN status Wi-Fi bands and channels Technical details about the use and functioning of the router and the WiFi network. The company said it is collecting the data for routine diagnostic to know how its products are used and how its routers behave. "Technical data about the functioning and use of our routers and their WiFi network ...

In order to keep its billions of users safe, Google has introduced another security defense for its Android devices, called Google Play Protect . Google Play Protect , which is part of the Google Play Store app, uses machine learning and app usage analysis to weed out the dangerous and malicious apps, which have always been albatross around the tech giant's neck. Since Google Play Protect actually comes with the Google Play Store, users do not need to install or activate this security feature separately. Google Play Protect for Android devices consists: App scanning Anti-Theft Measures Browser Protection Play Protect's App Scanning Feature Google Play Protect is an always-on service on devices which said to scan 50 billion apps each day across a billion Android devices to ensure they are safe. Google already has a number of security measures in place to help keep your smartphones safe, including Verify Apps and its Bouncer service, but once apps are uploa...

Since the Shadow Brokers released the zero-day software vulnerabilities and hacking tools – allegedly belonged to the NSA's elite hacking team Equation Group – several hacking groups and individual hackers have started using them in their own way. The April's data dump was believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date, as it publicly leaked lots of Windows hacking tools , including dangerous Windows SMB exploit. After the outbreak of WannaCry last week, security researchers have identified multiple different campaigns exploiting Windows SMB vulnerability (CVE-2017-0143), called Eternalblue , which has already compromised hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. I have been even confirmed by multiple sources in hacking and intelligence community that there are lots of groups and individuals who are actively exploiting Eternalblue for different motives. Moreover, the Eternalblue SMB exploit ( MS17-010 ) has now been ported to  Met...

WikiLeaks has published a new batch of the ongoing Vault 7 leak , detailing a spyware framework – which "provides remote beacon and loader capabilities on target computers" – allegedly being used by the CIA that works against every version of Microsoft's Windows operating systems, from Windows XP to Windows 10. Dubbed Athena/Hera , the spyware has been designed to take full control over the infected Windows PCs remotely, allowing the agency to perform all sorts of things on the target machine, including deleting data or uploading malicious software, and stealing data and send them to CIA server. The leak, which includes a user manual of Athena, overview of the technology, and demonstration on how to use this spyware, reveals that the program has two implications: Primary: Athena for XP to Windows 10  Secondary: Hera for Windows 8 through Windows 10 According to the whistleblower organization, Athena has the ability to allow the CIA agents to modify its co...