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DDoS attacks are a growing issue facing by governments and businesses. In a recent attack, thousands of legitimate WordPress websites have been hijacked by hackers, without the need for them to be compromised. Instead, the attackers took advantage of an existing WordPress vulnerability ( CVE-2013-0235 ) - “ Pingback Denial of Service possibility ”. According to security company Sucuri , in a recent amplification attack more than 162,000 legitimate Wordpress sites were abused to launch a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack . The attack exploited an issue with the XML-RPC (XML remote procedure call) of the WordPress, use to provide services such as Pingbacks, trackbacks, which allows anyone to initiate a request from WordPress to an arbitrary site. The functionality should be used to generate cross references between blogs, but it can easily be used for a single machine to originate millions of requests from multiple locations....

Adobe has released security updates to address important vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player 12.0.0.70 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh and Adobe Flash Player 11.2.202.341 and earlier versions for Linux. The new build intends to address following vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player: CVE-2014-0503 ,  reported by security researcher, ' Masato Kinugawa ', that lets   attackers bypass the same-origin policy. Attackers can exploit this issue to access resources from another origin in the context of another domain. This can facilitate cross-site request-forgery attacks. CVE-2014-0504 , reported by ' Jordan Milne ',   that could be used to read the contents of the clipboard(). The Clipboard can be used to store data, such as text and images, but flaw could allow hacker to stuff malware URLs onto your clipboard. Adobe Security Bulletin APSB14-08 tagged the updates with  Priority 2 , ' This update resolves vulnerabilitie...

Since mobile has become a basic need for every common as well as important figure now a days. So, every company is highly working to find more effective ways to protect sensitive data of their users and in the race, Vodafone lead the game. In collaboration with its security partner Giesecke & Devrient ( G&D ) which is an international leader in mobile security solutions, Vodafone is offering an end-to-end encryption for mobile communication based on the phone SIM card. Secure Data such as emails, documents, data carriers, and VPN connections will be signed and encrypted by the SIM in such a way that they are unreadable to unauthorized third parties assuring your security and privacy. SIM users have to encrypt the data by simply using a PIN and a digital signature, and the same is needed in order to decrypt the communication. " The solution uses the widespread S/MIME encryption program for email exchanges, and in the future, encryption via PGP will also be...

Facebook has several security measures to protect users' account, such as a user " access token " is granted to the Facebook application (like  Candy Crush Saga, Lexulous Word Game ), when the user authorizes it, it provides temporary and secure access to Facebook APIs. To make this possible, users have to ' allow or accep t' the application request so that an app can access your account information with the required permissions. The Access Token stores information about permissions that have been granted as well as information about when the token will expire and which app generated it. Approved Facebook apps can publish or delete content on your behalf using the access tokens, rather than your Facebook password. Access tokens are pretty sensitive, because anyone who knows the access token of a user can access the user's data and can perform any actions on behalf of the user, till the token is valid. In Past years, Many Security Researchers ...

Last week, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) ruled the National Security Agency (NSA) to do not keep Internet and phone metadata gathered through bulk surveillance programs longer than five years and destroy them. Judge Reggie Walton said, keeping records for more than 5 years " would further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government ," Later, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy and civil liberties group asked the Court to temporarily hold the destroy orders, saying the records may be used as an evidence in its lawsuits challenging the NSA surveillance . U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, who is overseeing an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA), ruled to stop the destruction of millions of Telephone records collected by the National Security Agency's surveillance program and ruled to safeguard th...

The Whistleblower and Former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden raised his voice and talked about citizen’s privacy once again. Yes, Snowden, whose leaks last year triggered debate on the massive surveillance conducted by the Government worldwide. In an interview, speaking via Google Hangout at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, SXSW in Austin, Snowden said he has no regrets over his leaks about mass surveillance programs , despite now being unable to return to the US, where he faces a criminal indictment. He said, " Every society has benefited " from the disclosures. “ Would I do this again? The answer is absolutely yes. Regardless of what happens to me, this is something we had a right to know. ” Two BAD-Geeks:  Snowden criticized both Alexander and Michael Hayden, who were his predecessor as the NSA director, and the same two officials who mainly “ harmed our Internet security and actually our national security ...

Pop Singer Justin Bieber's Twitter account hacked for around 15 minutes before it was corrected! The Twitter account with 50.2 Million Followers was compromised i.e. Twitter account with the second most Twitter followers. Spammers tweeted in Indonesian language from his hacked account with the links to a malicious twitter app named " ShootingStarPro ", and messages reading “ Justin Bieber Cemberut? ”, means - " Justin Bieber sullen? " It seems that the Justin's twitter account was hijacked by Indonesian hacker with a malicious twitter app, that further tweeted links to the a malicious website rumahfollowers[dot]tk   that hosted " ShootingStarPro " app, aimed to target his millions of followers in one shot. Justin's team quickly responded to the issue, deleted the bogus tweets and told fans " All good now. We handled it. ". He also warned his followers, " That link from earlier. Don’t click it. Virus. Going to e...

We have seen a lot of Facebook malware and virus infections spreading through friends list, and this time a new clickjacking scam campaign is going viral on Facebook. Hackers spam Facebook timeline with a friend's picture and " See (Friend)'s naked video," or "(Friend Name's) Private Video. " The Picture appears to be uploaded by a friend and definitely, you might want to see some of your Facebook friends naked, But Beware!  If you get curious and click, you will be redirected to a malicious website reports that your Flash Player is not working properly and needs to be re-installed. But in actuality it will install a malware in your system and once approved, several disguised thing can happen to you. It further installs a malicious  browser extension to spread the scam and steal users’ photos. " When the link is clicked, users are sent to a very realistic-looking mockup of a YouTube page, where the hackers will try to imme...

Last week, the Researchers at the German security company G Data Software have reported about the most complex and sophisticated rootkit  malware, Uroburos which is designed to steal data from secure facilities and has ability to take control of an infected machine, execute arbitrary commands and hide system activities. Recently, British cyber specialist BAE  has disclosed the parent Russian malware campaign dubbed as ‘ SNAKE ’ that remained almost undetected for least eight years while penetrating highly secured systems. Uroburos rootkit was one of the components of this campaign. In a separate Investigation, Western intelligence officers have found another piece of spyware , infecting hundreds of government computers across Europe and the United States, known as ' Turla '. Researchers believed that  Turla  campaign is linked to a previously known campaign ' Red October ', a massive global cyber spying operation targeting diplomatic, military and nucle...

Smartphones are always ready to connect to the Internet and contains sensitive information such as Contacts, SMS, Photos, and GPS information and this sensitive information is always in danger of leakage. According to a report, Cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers are developing 55,000 new malware variants, each and every day; and many of them try to elevate privileges for unfettered control of the user device. North Carolina State University Researchers have developed a new software, called Practical Root Exploit Containment ( PREC ) , with the sole purpose of detecting mobile malware that attempts to run Root exploits in Android devices. Root exploits take control of system administration functions of the operating system that gives the hacker an unrestricted control of user’s Smartphone. That means, an application has not permission to read your messages or contacts or the GPS location, but after getting root access it will be able to steal any data from yo...

Tor network offers users browse the Internet anonymously and is mostly used by activists, journalists to conceal their online activities from prying eyes. But it also has the Dark side, as Tor is also a Deep Web friendly tool that allows hackers and cyber criminals to carry out illicit activities by making themselves anonymous. Kaspersky security researcher reported that Tor network is currently being used to hide 900 botnet and other illegal hidden services, through its 5,500 plus nodes i.e. Server relays and 1,000 exit nodes i.e. Servers from which traffic emerges. These days, Cyber criminals are hosting malware’s Command-and-control server on an anonymous Tor network to evade detection i.e., difficult to identify or eliminate. Illegal use of the Tor network boosted up after the launch of the most popular underground Drug Market - Silk road  that also offered arms and malware to their users against Bitcoin , one of the popular crypto currency . ChewBacca , a po...

U.S. Prosecutors decided not to pursue crucial criminal charges against journalist and activist Barrett Brown , and dismiss a majority of charges related to sharing a link to a dump of credit card numbers connected to the breach of intelligence firm Stratfor. Supporters say Brown just copied the hyperlink from an the Internet chat room and then reposted the link on his own internet chat room, Project PM , that linked to stolen documents from the US government contractor, Stratfor Global Intelligence , included 860,000 e-mail addresses for Stratfor subscribers and 60,000 credit card details. Just hours after Brown's lawyers filed their comprehensive argument, the DOJ has filed a motion to dismiss all 11 charges, on Thursday.  Apart from computer fraud charges, Brown is also facing prosecution for allegedly threatening an FBI agent and for alleged obstruction of justice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) , a non-profit organization defending civil libertie...

' Satoshi Nakamoto ', the mysterious founder and creator of the biggest digital cryptocurrency ' Bitcoin ' has reportedly been unmasked as a 64-year-old father of six living in Temple City, Southern California. Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world in 2008, but his identity has remained unknown. Till now, there was speculation that he might be a rebellious young programmer based in Tokyo, who took up the Nakamoto moniker as an alias. B ut t he most astonishing thing about this Japanese-American man is that, his real name is Satoshi Nakamoto , who has been finally identified by Newsweek magazine . Newsweek journalist, Leah McGrath Goodman also had a face-to-face meeting with Satoshi Nakamoto, and during an interview he said, " I am no longer involved in that [Bitcoin] and I cannot discuss it, " he said. " It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection. " and even he kep...

Explosive revelations of massive surveillance programs conducted by government agencies by the former contractor Edward Snowden triggered new debate about the security and privacy of each individual who is connected somehow to the Internet and after the Snowden’s disclosures they think that by adopting encrypted communications, i.e. SSL enabled websites, over the Internet, they’ll be secure. People do care of their privacy and many have already changed some of their online habits, like by using HTTPS instead of HTTP while they are surfing the Internet. However, HTTPS may be secured to run an online store or the eCommerce Web site, but it fails as a privacy tool. The US researchers have found a traffic analysis of ten widely used HTTPS-secured Web sites “ exposing personal details, including medical conditions, financial and legal affairs and sexual orientation. ” The UC Berkeley researchers Brad Miller, A. D. Joseph and J. D. Tygar and Intel Labs' researchers, Li...

Android platform is becoming vulnerable day by day and hackers always try to manipulate android by applying novel techniques. In this regard, Symantec researchers have found a new android malware toolkit named “ Dendroid ”. Previously Symantec found an Android Remote admin tool named AndroRAT is believed to be the first malware APK binder. However, Dendroid runs on HTTP with many malicious features. Dendroid toolkit is able to generate a malicious apk file that offers amazing features like: Can delete call logs Open web pages Dial any number Record calls SMS intercepting Upload images, video Open an application Able to perform DoS attack Can change the command and control server The author of Dendroid also offers 24/7 customer support for this RAT and Android users can buy this toolkit at $300 by paying Bitcoin , Lifecoin. Experts at Symantec said that Dendroid has some connection with the previous AndroRAT toolkit . Dendroid being an HTTP RAT offers PHP ...

The Continuous Growth of spyware, their existence, and the criminals who produce & spread them are increasing tremendously. It’s difficult to recognize spyware as it is becoming more complex and sophisticated with time, so is spreading most rapidly as an Internet threat. Recently, The security researchers have unearthed a very complex and sophisticated piece of malware that was designed to steal confidential data and has ability able to capture network traffic. The Researchers at the German security company G Data Software , refer the malware as Uroburos , named after an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, and in correspondence with a string ( Ur0bUr()sGotyOu# ) lurking deep in the malware's code.  The researchers claimed that the malware may have been active for as long as three years before being discovered and appears to have been created by Russian developers. Uroburos is a rootkit designed to steal data from secure fa...

Cryptocat , an open source encrypted web-based chat client, is now available for iOS Devices from the  Apple's App store , which was initially rejected by the Apple last December. It is not clear why it was rejected previously, but the good news is that, now ' Cryptocat ' is available for all iOS Devices. So far Cryptocat was only available for Linux and Mac OS X, and as an extension for web browsers Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome 3, Apple Safari and Opera . Cryptocat has become quite popular in the wake of the NSA Controversy, because of its end-to-end encryption that doesn’t allow anyone in the middle to read your messages. Cryptocat for iPhone uses the OTR protocol for private conversations, a cryptographic protocol for secure instant messaging, and perfect forward secrecy, a system that constantly generates new user keys. So, snoops cannot decrypt older messages. It doesn't require any username or account rather just one time nickname makes the...

With revelations of NSA spying and some of the most jaw-dropping surveillance leaks, many people feel unencrypted and central-server service is bad in most of the cases, but end-to-end encryption can be used to reduce this problem. Worldwide Government surveillance raises privacy concerns and acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook also made us think about the security concern with chat applications as well; though it was not so secure previously. People who care about having their SMS and Instant messages protected from prying eyes, now they can use end-to-end encrypted services, like  TextSecure .  It is a free Android-based messaging app, completly open-source , easy to use and designed with privacy in mind. Encrypting the stored data on the servers is as important as transferring data over an encrypted connection, but the most important factor of the encryption is that ' who has the decryption key '. If the company has the keys, then Government could snoop thro...