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

SIM cards are among the most widely-deployed computing platforms with over 7 billion cards in active use. Cracking SIM cards has long been the Holy Grail of hackers because the tiny devices are located in phones and allow operators to identify and authenticate subscribers as they use networks. A German cryptographer Karsten Nohl, the founder of Security Research Labs claims to have found encryption and software flaws that could affect millions of SIM cards, and allows hackers to remotely gain control of and also clone certain mobile SIM cards. This is the first hack of its kind in a decade. Nohl will be presenting his findings at the Black Hat security conference this year. He and his team tested close to 1,000 SIM cards for vulnerabilities, exploited by simply sending a hidden SMS. According to him, Hackers could use compromised SIMs to commit financial crimes or engage in espionage. Once a hacker copies a SIM, it can be used to make calls and send text messages imper...

It's been over a day now since Apple 's online Dev Center went offline, and latest message can be seen in the screenshot, which explains that the current maintenance has took a lot longer than they expected. " We apologize that maintenance is taking longer than expected. If your program membership was set to expire during this period, it has been extended and your app will remain on the App Store. If you have any other concerns about your account, please contact us. Thank you for your patience. " message said. Since that time, developers have been unable to access the site and cannot visit the forums or download Mac or iOS SDKs, the iOS 7 beta, or the Mavericks beta. It was first seemed like Apple having some backend issues but according to tweets from many developers, they have received a message from Apple that an attempt was made to reset their user ID's password . Such notices pointing that Apple's Developer Center website may have been compromised. But if it is a sec...

Ubuntuforums.org , The popular Ubuntu Forums site, has posted a message on its index page, informing its near 2 million users that it has suffered a serious security breach. " There has been a security breach on the Ubuntu Forums, " reads the page. The site was defaced by hacker with Twitter handle " Sputn1k_ " and Unfortunately the attacker have gotten every user's local username, encrypted password, and email address from the Ubuntu Forums database. " The Canonical IS team is working hard as we speak to restore normal operations ." page said. Canonical advises users who have used their same forum password on other sites to change it immediately. " Ubuntu One, Launchpad and other Ubuntu/Canonical services are not affected by the breach, " company stated.

Last week we explained a critical vulnerability in Facebook that discloses the primary email address of facebook user. Later the bug was patched by Facebook Security Team. Today another similar interesting Facebook hack disclosed by another bug hunter, Roy Castillo. On his blog he explained a new facebook hack method that allows anyone to grab primary emails addresses of billions of Facebook users easily. Facebook Provides a App Dashboard for creating and managing your Facebook apps, with a range of tools to help you configure, build and debug your Facebook apps. The flaw exists in App settings, where application admin can add developer's profile also, but if the user is not a verified user, a error messages on page will disclose his primary email address. Using following mentioned steps, one was able to grab email addresses of all facebook users: Collect profile links of all facebook users from Facebook People Directory i.e https://www.facebook.com/directo...

Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), hacking group known for cyber attacks against the anti-Syrian websites, has claimed that it has hacked the website of messaging application, Tango (tango.me), that includes hundreds of millions of electronic and voice data over the Internet. Hacker group tweeted a message on Twitter. " Sorry @TangoMe, We needed your database too, thank you for it! https://tango.me #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy ". In a post on their website , hackers mentioned ," The databases content a of millions of the app user's phone numbers, contacts and their emails. More than 1.5 TB of the daily-backups of the servers network has been downloaded successfully " Screenshot of the backups folder of the servers network of Tango App as shown below: Screenshot of the Tango App log : The outdated version of wordpress CMS allowed them to gain unauthorized access to the database server. At the time of reporting, administrators redirect the website t...

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) gave the green light to the Obama administration by r enewing the government's authority Friday to continue the collection of millions of Americans' telephone records. The order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been in place for years but must be renewed every three months and this month it was  expired on July 19.  The Obama administration maintains Congress shouldn't be surprised by the programs. NSA surveillance programs were  exposed in the month of June,  by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden .  He has been charged with espionage and remains in diplomatic limbo at the Moscow airport after seeking temporary asylum. President Barack Obama says the government is not listening in on calls, and  Intelligence officials say they have helped disrupt dozens of terrorist attacks, and target only foreign suspects outside the United Stat...

A cookie is a piece of data that is issued by a server in an HTTP response and stored for future use by the HTTP client. Quite simply, a cookie is a small text file that is stored by a browser on the user's machine. Cookies are plain text; they contain no executable code. The client then re-supplies the cookie value in subsequent requests to the same server. This mechanism allows the server to store user preferences and identity individual users. One of the biggest issues in cookie mechanism is how to handle them. In short, the server had no way of knowing if two requests came from the same browser, called Cookie Handling vulnerability. ' Piero Tedeschi ' reported a similar issue in ' Telecom Italia ' ( https://www.telecomitalia.it/ ), the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. This vulnerability allow a malicious user to hijack multiples accounts, just by exporting and importing the cookies from...

Anonymous claimed it had stolen and leaked over 2,000 usernames and passwords for Hill staffers in an anti- PRISM protest, calling the move a pivotal moment for Congress. The Twitter handle @OpLastResort which claims to be affiliated with the famous hacktivist group posted the data and also tweeted: " We mean it. This is a pivotal moment for America, and we will not tolerate failure ." Congress actually fosters decent password best practices, requiring a special character, an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, and a number to make up a code between 6-10 characters. What is perhaps most interesting about the hacked passwords is that they exemplify, in many cases they are just dictionary words with numbers tacked on to the end, the names of the staffers' bosses, or their favorite sports team, so the claimed hack and leaked database was probably outdated or fake. But the security advisory that was sent out to staffers said, "Early today, hackers disclo...

Google being one of the top web based service provider, has huge number of Internet users availing the free and paid services for their day-to-day personal and/or professional needs. Many of them have configured their mobile phone number for their account password recovery options. Certainly, when comes the mobility, many of these users prefer Google's android based smart phones and tablets to access these services anytime, anywhere. In case of issues in accessing GMAIL services, user is been provided with the option to reset the account password by simply asking Google to send a verification code on the pre-registered mobile number. On the other hand, Android (mobile operating system from Google) based devices are bundled with security features to keep the privacy of user data/information intact. The user can opt to set the security level from none to Password (High), this ensures that, to access the mobile device and information within it, the user needs to pass through ...

Privacy protection in the services we use on a daily basis has been a big topic of conversation following accusations that Google, Microsoft, Apple and other large tech companies were working with government agencies to provide user data. According to a new report by CNet , Google may introduce encryption for users' data generated on their Google Drive to protect its customers' privacy against attempts by the U.S. government to access the data. Why Encryption ?  Secure encryption of users' private files means that Google would not be able to divulge the contents of stored communications even if NSA submitted a legal order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or if police obtained a search warrant for domestic law enforcement purposes. "Mechanisms like this could give people more confidence and allow them to start backing up potentially their whole device, " said Seth Schoen, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Many companies use SSL and HTTPS to ...

Anonymous hackers claimed yesterday that they have broken into a server used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and leaked the database  ( password : fema ) includes - names, addresses and other information of FEMA contractors, private defense contractors, federal agents and local authorities. Hack was performed in response to Homeland Security training exercises that centered on a fictional version of the hacker collective.FEMA, under the Department of Homeland Security, conducts an National Level Exercise (NLE) each year. " This is a message from some of us, to FEMA, to various world governments and to their complicit corporate lackeys who dwell in the shadows as well as to the 2.5 billion regular people who use the internet and have found that their right to privacy has been utterly destroyed. " hackers said. The dump contains a table of user IDs and MD5 hashes of corresponding passwords and leaked mailing addresses connected to some of the ...

Tumblr posted a blog post Tuesday night warning users to change their passwords and released a very important security update for iOS users after identifying a breach that compromised their passwords. It seems that, under certain circumstances, the prior versions of the iPhone and iPad apps would allow an individual with malicious intent to sniff or intercept passwords as they are in transit across a local network. The problem arose because the iPad and iPhone apps fail to log users in through a secure server.  The vulnerability does not seem to have affected Tumblr's Android app. The company urged users to download the latest version of the Tumblr app, which is available in the Apple iTunes Store. The company did not provide further details on the breach. It's also good practice to use different passwords across different services by using an app like 1Password or LastPass. It doesn't appear that any passwords got in the hands of malicious individuals, t...

Recent disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden claiming that internet traffic is being intercepted and used by the Americans in their war on terror, force to re-think about the user's privacy and online anonymity. It has been relatively common knowledge for years that wherever we go on the web, we leave clear tracks, so it shouldn't really have come as much of a surprise to discover this has been going on. The best thing you can do to stay anonymous online is to hide your IP address . If someone knows your IP address, it is the easiest way to trace your online activity back to you and they can easily determine the geographic location of the server that hosts that address and get a rough idea of where you're located. TOR is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. Browsing with TOR is a lot like simultaneously using hundreds of different proxies that are randomized periodically. ...

TrueCaller, a popular app built by a Swedish company and world's largest collaborative phone directory compromised by Syrian Electronic Army hackers. Truecaller was running an outdated version (3.5.1) of blogging software WordPress for its web interface and there are millions of Phonebook records available in their database that were reportedly stolen by hackers, as claimed on their twitter account. Syrian Electronic Army also claimed that the database contains million of access codes of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Gmail Accounts of different users, that can be used to post update from compromised Accounts. In total, the hackers claimed to downloaded more than 7 databases fro Truecaller server of 450GB in size. At the time of reporting this news, Truecaller website is still under maintenance and index page saying, " We are doing some upgrades. Thank you for your patience ." SEA also posted a database screenshot on twitter, showing the phonebook l...

Researchers at mobile security firm Lookout discovered a security flaw in Google Glass which allowed them to capture data without the user's knowledge, when the user merely took a photo that captured a malicious QR code. Lookout was able to force Google Glass to silently connect to a Wi-Fi access point, which let the researchers view all of the data flowing to and from the device. When combined with an Android 4.0.4 web vulnerability , the hack apparently gave researchers full control of the Glass headset. The problem was that Google Glass could be told to execute a QR code without the user having to give permission. Because of Glass's limited user interface, Google set up the device's camera to automatically process any QR code in a photograph. In a video posted on YouTube, Lookout Security described the vulnerability: " That access point in turn allowed us to spy on the connections Glass made, from web requests to images uploaded to the Cloud ." said Mar...

Android Security Squad, the China-based group that  uncovered a second Android master key vulnerability that might be abused to modify smartphone apps without breaking their digital signatures.  The whole point of digitally signing a document or file is to prove the file hasn't been modified. The process uses a form of public-key cryptography . In Chinese version of hacking attack, malicious code can be added into the file headers, but the method is limited because targeted files need to be smaller than 64K in size. APK files are packed using a version of the widespread ZIP archiving algorithm. Most ZIP implementations won't permit two same-named files in one archive, but the algorithm itself doesn't forbid that possibility. So basically, two versions of the classes.dex file are placed inside of the package, the original and a hacked alternative. When checking an app's digital signature, the Android OS looks at the first matching file, but when act...

Ransomware is a type of malware that attempts to extort money from a computer user by infecting and taking control of the victim's machine, or the files or documents stored on it. This kind of malware has typically been the domain of Windows users, but has made its way to OS X. A new piece of FBI themed Ransomware Malware is targeting Mac OS X and hijacking the user's browser with a notice demanding payment of $300 in order to release control of the application and accusing them of illegally accessing pornography. The address bar shows a URL clearly trying to fool users - fbi.gov.id657546456-3999456674.k8381.com  and the warnings appearing to be from the FBI tell the victim: " you have been viewing or distributing prohibited Pornographic content.. To unlock your computer and to avoid other legal consequences, you are obligated to pay a release fee of $300. " According to Malwarebytes , ransomware page is being pushed onto unsuspecting users browsing r...

There's a scam spreading through Twitter Direct messages (DMs) and fake emails, appealing users to visit a fake twitter phishing site i.e " twittler.com ". Scam uses a hijacked Twitter account to send out direct messages that appear completely legitimate. Security blogger, Janne Ahlberg blogged about this new phishing scam, " This is a nasty trick especially when the sender is someone you know and trust. If you receive a suspicious DM or email from a person you know and trust, just warn him/her – the account is most likely hijacked and controlled by the attackers. " The webpage resembles a Twitter login page and is trying to obtain your Twitter login credentials with a domain name looks very similar to original Twitter.com , with two extra word "LL" in it.   To play it safe, double-check your browser address bar to make sure that's where you are on orginal website  twitter.com before logging in. If you enter your Twitter usern...

Edward Snowden has helped to make the world a little bit better and safer. A Swedish professor of sociology has nominated NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In his letter addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, sociology professor Stefan Svallfors recommended the Snowden be a candidate, for his " heroic effort at a great personal cost " shedding light on the expansive cyber-spying conducted by the NSA . A nomination for Snowden would be symbolic because it shows ' that individuals can stand up for fundamental rights and freedoms .' he said. But it may be too late for Snowden to receive the award this year, so he will not be eligible for this year's prize, which will be awarded in December, but could be considered for 2014. The head of the International Committee of the Russian State Duma Aleksey Pushkov tweeted, " Not in a million years will the United States allow Snowden to get the Peace Prize. But h...

You've got to ask yourself one question. How much hassle does patching cause you? Is the second Tuesday of each month something you dread, or is it just another day for you? If you spend days and days testing and deploying patches; if you stay up until the wee hours of the morning one weekend each month; if you have a current profile on every single server in your environment; then patching is likely to be a heavy burden. But there is another way. Patching is not something that should be a major pain each month. It should be a simple and straightforward administrative task. Admins who patch by hand or are worried about some patch crashing critical systems each month should consider automated patch management. This strategy will boost efficiency and give you back your weekends, and ensure that your systems can be patched quickly, efficiently and safely. Automated patch management helps IT admins patch their servers and workstations in the most efficient way possible, by removi...