The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Source for Cybersecurity News — Index Page

The 22-year-old British security researcher who gained fame for discovering the " kill switch " that stopped the outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware —has been reportedly arrested in the United States after attending the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas. Marcus Hutchins, operates under the alias MalwareTech on Twitter, was detained by the FBI in the state of Nevada, a friend of Hutchins confirmed Motherboard. At the time of writing, it is unclear why the Internet's ' accidental hero ' has been detained by the FBI, but his arrest has sparked an endless debate in the security community. Hutchins became famous over two months ago when the WannaCry ransomware began hitting businesses, organisations and individuals across the world, and he accidentally halted its global spread by registering a domain name hidden in the malware. hxxp://www[.]iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea[.]com The domain as mentioned above was responsible for keeping Wa...

The cyber criminals behind the global WannaCry ransomware attack that caused chaos worldwide have finally cashed out their ransom payments. Nearly three months ago, the WannaCry ransomware shut down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses worldwide, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries, encrypting files and then charging victims $300-$600 for the keys. WannaCry was really bad, as the nasty ransomware forced the British NHS (National Health Service) to shut down hospitals and doctor's surgeries, and infected a Spanish telecommunications company and Russian mobile operator, among much more. Even a month after the outbreak, the WannaCry ransomware was found infecting systems at Honda Motor Company , forcing the factory to shut down its production, and 55 speed and traffic light cameras in Victoria, Australia. Overall, the hackers behind WannaCry made $140,000 in Bitcoins from the victims who paid for the decryption keys—but for ...

In last 20 years, we have seen hundreds of caper/heist movies where spies or bank robbers hijack surveillance cameras of secure premises to either stop recording or set up an endless loop for covert operations without leaving any evidence. Whenever I see such scenes in a movie, I wonder and ask myself: Does this happen in real-life? Yes, it does, trust me—at least CIA agents are doing this. WikiLeaks has just unveiled another classified CIA project, dubbed ' Dumbo ,' which details how CIA agents hijack and manipulate webcams and microphones in Hollywood style "to gain and exploit physical access to target computers in CIA field operations." The Dumbo CIA project involves a USB thumb drive equipped with a Windows hacking tool that can identify installed webcams and microphones, either connected locally, wired or wirelessly via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Once identified, the Dumbo program allows the CIA agents to: Mute all microphones Disables all network ad...

A newly released report by cybersecurity firm CTM360 reveals a large-scale scam operation utilizing fake news websites—known as Baiting News Sites (BNS)—to deceive users into online investment fraud across 50 countries. These BNS pages are made to look like real news outlets: CNN, BBC, CNBC, or regional media. They publish fake stories that feature public figures, central banks, or financial brands, all claiming to back new ways to earn passive income. The goal? Build trust quickly and steer readers toward professional-looking scam platforms like Trap10, Solara Vynex, or Eclipse Earn. Scammers use sponsored ads on Google, Meta, and blog networks to push traffic to these sites. Ads often carry clickbait headlines—"You won't believe what a prominent public figure just revealed"—paired with official photos or national flags to make them feel legit. Clicking the ad directs users to a fake article, which then redirects them to a fraudulent trading platform. Many of these scams follow a...

From past few years, spammers and cyber criminals were buying web extensions from their developers and then updating them without informing their users to inject bulk advertisements into every website user visits in order to generate large revenue. But now they have shifted their business model—instead of investing, spammers have started a new wave of phishing attacks aimed at hijacking popular browser extensions. Just two days ago, we reported how cyber criminals managed to compromise the Chrome Web Store account of a German developer team and hijacked Copyfish extension , and then modified it with ad-injection capabilities to distribute spam correspondence to users. Now just yesterday, another popular Chrome extension ' Web Developer ' was hijacked by some unknown attackers, who updated the software to directly inject advertisements into the web browser of over its 1 million users. Chris Pederick , the creator of Web Developer Chrome extension that offers various w...

By this time, almost every one of you owns at least one internet-connected device—better known as the " Internet of things "—at your home, but how secure is your device? We have recently seen Car hacking that could risk anyone's life, Hoverboard hacking, even hacking of a so-called smart Gun and also the widespread hacks of insecure CCTV cameras, routers and other internet-connected home appliances. But this did not stop vendors from selling unsecured Internet-connected smart devices, and customers are buying them without giving a sh*t about the security of their smart devices. However, the massive cyber attack on a popular DNS service provider that shut down a large portion of the Internet last year made us all fear about the innocent-looking IoT devices, which surround us every day, but actually, poses a threat to global cyber security. Not anymore! A bipartisan group of senators have now introduced a new bill aimed at securing internet-connected devices b...

Although the wave of WannaCry and Petya ransomware has now been slowed down, money-motivated hackers and cyber criminals have taken lessons from the global outbreaks to make their malware more powerful. Security researchers have now discovered at least one group of cyber criminals that are attempting to give its banking Trojan the self-spreading worm-like capabilities that made recent ransomware attacks go worldwide. The new version of credential stealing TrickBot banking Trojan, known as " 1000029 " ( v24 ), has been found using the Windows Server Message Block (SMB)—that allowed WannaCry and Petya to spread across the world quickly. TrickBot is a banking Trojan malware that has been targeting financial institutions across the world since last year. The Trojan generally spreads via email attachments impersonating invoices from a large unnamed "international financial institution," but actually leads victims to a fake login page used to steal credenti...

Do you own an Amazon Echo? So are you also worried about hackers turning out your device into a covert listening device? Just relax, if there's no NSA, no CIA or none of your above-skilled friends after you. Since yesterday there have been several reports on Amazon Echo hack that could allow a hacker to turn your smart speaker into a covert listening device, but users don't need to worry because the hack is not simple, requires physical access to the device and does not work on all devices, as well. Amazon Echo is an always-listening voice-activated smart home speaker that is designed to play music, set alarms, answer questions via the Alexa voice assistant, and control connected smart home devices like WeMo, Hive and Nest. Hack Turns Amazon Echo Into Spying Device (But It's Complex) Now researchers from MWR InfoSecurity have demonstrated a hack, showing how hackers can exploit a vulnerability in some models of Amazon Echo to turn them into covert listening d...

Cyber criminals are becoming more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day. They have now shifted from traditional to more clandestine techniques that come with limitless attack vectors and are harder to detect. Security researchers have discovered that one of the most dangerous Android banking Trojan families has now been modified to add a keylogger to its recent strain, giving attackers yet another way to steal victims sensitive data. Kaspersky Lab's Senior malware analyst Roman Unuchek spotted a new variant of the well-known Android banking Trojan, dubbed Svpeng , in the mid of last month with a new keylogger feature, which takes advantage of Android's Accessibility Services. Trojan Exploits 'Accessibility Services' to Add Keylogger Yes, the keylogger added in the new version of Svpeng takes advantage of Accessibility Services — an Android feature that provides users alternative ways to interact with their smartphone devices. This change makes...

If you are a die heart fan of 'Game of Thrones' series, there's good news for you, but obviously bad for HBO. Hackers claim to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data from HBO, including episodes of HBO shows yet to release online and information on the current season of Game of Thrones. What's more? The hackers have already leaked upcoming episodes of the shows "Ballers" and "Room 104" on the Internet. Additionally, the hackers have also released a script that is reportedly for the upcoming fourth episode of "Game of Thrones" Season 7 . According to Entertainment Weekly , hackers claim to have obtained 1.5 terabytes of data from the entertainment giant and informed several reporters about the hack via anonymous email sent on Sunday. Though HBO has confirmed the cyber attack on its network and released a statement, the company did not confirm what the hackers have stolen more information, and whether or not upcoming episodes of the ...

Phishers have recently hacked an extension for Google Chrome after compromising the Chrome Web Store account of German developer team a9t9 software and abused to distribute spam messages to unsuspecting users. Dubbed Copyfish, the extension allows users to extract text from images, PDF documents and video, and has more than 37,500 users. Unfortunately, the Chrome extension of Copyfish has been hijacked and compromised by some unknown attacker, who equipped the extension with advertisement injection capabilities. However, its Firefox counterpart was not affected by the attack. The attackers even moved the extension to their developer account, preventing its developers from removing the infected extension from the store, even after being spotted that the extension has been compromised. "So far, the update looks like standard adware hack, but, as we still have no control over Copyfish, the thieves might update the extension another time… until we get it back," the de...

Reportedly, at least one senior cyber security analyst working with Mandiant, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm owned by the FireEye, appears to have had its system compromised by hackers, exposing his sensitive information on the Internet. On Sunday, an anonymous group of hackers posted some sensitive details allegedly belonged to Adi Peretz , a ‎Senior Threat Intelligence Analyst at Mandiant, claiming they have had complete access to the company's internal networks since 2016. The recent hack into Mandiant has been dubbed Operation # LeakTheAnalyst . Further Leaks from Mandiant Might Appear The hackers have leaked nearly 32 megabytes of data—both personal and professional—belonging to Peretz on Pastebin as proof, which suggests they have more Mandiant data that could be leaked in upcoming days. "It was fun to be inside a giant company named "Mandiant" we enjoyed watching how they try to protect their clients and how their dumb analysts are trying to reverse ...

Image Credit: @tjhorner Today, election hacking is not just about hacking voting machines, rather it now also includes hacking and leaking dirty secrets of the targeted political parties—and there won't be a perfect example than the last year's US presidential election . But, in countries like America, even hacking electronic voting machines is possible—that too, in a matter of minutes. Several hackers reportedly managed to hack into multiple United States voting machines in a relatively short period—in some cases within minutes, and in other within a few hours—at Def Con cybersecurity conference held in Las Vegas this week. Citing the concern of people with the integrity and security of American elections , for the first time, Def Con hosted a " Voting Machine Village " event, where tech-savvy attendees tried to hack some systems and help catch vulnerabilities. Voting Machine Village provided 30 different pieces of voting equipment used in American election...