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Google has been hit by a record-breaking $5 billion antitrust fine by the European Union regulators for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system and thwarting competitors. That's the largest ever antitrust penalty. Though Android is an open-source and free operating system, device manufacturers still have to obtain a license, with certain conditions, from Google to integrate its Play Store service within their smartphones. The European Commission levied the fine Wednesday, saying that Google has broken the law by forcing Android smartphone manufacturers to pre-install its own mobile apps and services, like Google Search, Chrome, YouTube, and Gmail, as a condition for licensing. This tactic eventually gives Google's app and services an unfair preference over other rival services, preventing rivals from innovating and competing, which is "illegal under EU antitrust rules." Google's Android operating system runs on more than 80 percen...

Microsoft today launched a new bug bounty program for bug hunters and researchers finding security vulnerabilities in its "identity services." Hacking into networks and stealing data have become common and easier than ever but not all data holds the same business value or carries the same risk. Since new security today depends on the collaborative communication of identities and identity data within, and across domains, digital identities of customers are usually the key to accessing services and interacting across the Internet. Microsoft said the company has heavily invested in the "creation, implementation, and improvement of identity-related specifications" that encourage "strong authentication, secure sign-on, sessions, API security, and other critical infrastructure tasks." Therefore, to further bolster its customers' security, the tech giant has launched an all-new, and independent bug bounty program. Dubbed Microsoft Identity Bounty ...

In a legal extradition tug-of-war between the United States and Russia, it seems France has won the game, surprisingly. A Greek court has ruled to extradite the Russian cybercrime suspect and the former operator of now-defunct BTC-e crypto exchange to France, instead of the United States or to his native Russia, according to multiple Russian news outlets. Alexander Vinnik , 38, has been accused of laundering more than $4 billion in bitcoin for criminals involved in hacking attacks, tax fraud and drug trafficking with the help of BTC-e crypto exchange. BTC-e, a digital currency exchange service operating since 2011, was seized by the authorities right after Vinnik's arrest in northern Greece in late July 2016 at the request of US law enforcement authorities. Vinnik is also accused to the failure of the once-most famous Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox , which was shut down in 2014 following a series of mysterious robberies, which totaled at least $375 million in Bitcoin...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

A 21-year-old New Jersey woman has been charged with hacking into the email accounts of pop star and actress Selena Gomez, stealing her personal photos, and then leaked them to the Internet. Susan Atrach of Ridgefield Park was charged Thursday with 11 felony counts—five counts of identity theft, five counts of accessing and using computer data to commit fraud or illegally obtain money, property or data, and one count of accessing computer data without permission. According to the prosecutors, Atrach allegedly hacked into email accounts belonging to Gomez and one of her associates several times between June 2015 and February 2016, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said in a press release . She then obtained images and other media stored there and shared them with her friends and posted them online. Gomez, who has more than 138 million followers on Instagram, was the victim of a hacking attack in August 2017, when photographs of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieb...

As it was speculated that the author of LuminosityLink RAT was arrested last year, a plea agreement made available to the public today confirmed the news. Back in September last year, Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and National Crime Agency began the crackdown on the LuminosityLink RAT, targeting sellers and users of the malware, which resulted in the seizure of a considerable number of computers and internet accounts across the world, and complete takedown of the threat. Colton Grubbs , a 21-year-old man from Kentucky, the developer of the LumunosityLink RAT has pleaded guilty to federal charges of creating, selling and providing technical support for the malware to his customers, who used it to gain unauthorized access to thousands of computers across 78 countries worldwide. First surfaced in April 2015, the LuminosityLink RAT (Remote Access Trojan), also known as Luminosity, was a hacking tool that was sold for $40, marketing itself as a legitimate tool for Wi...

The US Justice Department has announced criminal indictments against 12 Russian intelligence officers tied to the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. The charges were drawn up as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election by Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel, and former FBI director. The indictments against 12 Russian military officers were announced by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a DoJ press conference on Friday—just 3 days before the Russian leader Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump. All 12 Russian officers are members of the country's GRU military intelligence unit and are accused of carrying out "large-scale cyber operations" to hack into DNC network and steal Democrats' emails to influence the 2016 presidential election. Here's the list of all 12 defendants: Viktor Borisovich Netyksho Boris...

Security researchers have uncovered a "highly targeted" mobile malware campaign that has been operating since August 2015 and found spying on 13 selected iPhones in India. The attackers, who are also believed to be operating from India, were found abusing mobile device management (MDM) protocol—a type of security software used by large enterprises to control and enforce policies on devices being used their employees—to contol and deploy malicious applications remotely. Exploiting Apple MDM Service to Remotely Control Devices To enroll an iOS device into the MDM requires a user to manually install enterprise development certificate, which enterprises obtained through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Companies can deliver MDM configuration file through email or a webpage for over-the-air enrollment service using Apple Configurator. Once a user installs it, the service allows the company administrators to remotely control the device, install/remove apps, in...

Google has by default enabled a security feature called "Site Isolation" in its web browser with the release of Chrome 67 for all desktop users to help them protect against many online threats, including Spectre and Meltdown attack . Site Isolation is a feature of the Google Chrome web browser that adds an additional security boundary between websites by ensuring that different sites are always put into separate processes, isolated from each other. Since each site in the browser gets its own sandboxed process, the feature makes it harder for untrusted websites to access or steal information of your accounts on other websites. In January this year when Google Project Zero researchers disclosed details of Spectre and Meltdown CPU vulnerabilities, the tech giant recommended Chrome desktop users to manually turn on Site Isolation feature on their devices to mitigate speculative side-channel attacks. "Even if a Spectre attack were to occur in a malicious web page, ...

You never know what you will find on the hidden Internet ' Dark Web .' Just about an hour ago we reported about someone selling remote access linked to security systems at a major International airport for $10 . It has been reported that a hacker was found selling sensitive US Air Force documents on the dark web for between $150 and $200. Cybercrime tracker Recorded Future today reported that it discovered a hacker attempting to sell secret documents about the MQ-9 Reaper drone used across federal government agencies for only a few hundred dollars on a Dark Web forum last month. First introduced in 2001, the MQ-9 Reaper drone is currently used by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, NASA, the CIA, and the militaries of several other countries. The tech intelligence's Insikt Group analysts found the hacker during their regular monitoring of the dark web for criminal activities. They posed as potential buyers and engaged the new...

If you can't find it on Google, you will definitely find it on the Dark Web . Black markets on the Dark web are not known for just buying drugs, it is a massive hidden network where you can buy pretty much anything you can imagine—from pornography, weapon, and counterfeit currencies, to hacking tools, exploits, malware, and zero-days. One such type of underground marketplace on Dark Web is RDP Shop, a platform from where anyone can buy RDP access (remote desktop protocol) to thousands of hacked machines for a small fee. While investigating several underground RDP shops, security researchers from the McAfee's Advanced Threat Research team discovered that someone is selling remote access linked to security systems at a major International airport for as low as $10. Yes, that's $10, I didn't miss any zeros. Instead of buying RDP credential, researchers used the Shodan search engine to find the correct IP address of the hacked Windows Server machine, whose ad...

Facebook has been fined £500,000 ($664,000) in the U.K. after the country's data protection watchdog concluded that its data-sharing scandal broke the law, making it as the social network's first fine over the Cambridge Analytica scandal . Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, and equals to what Facebook earns every 8 minutes. Facebook has been under scrutiny since earlier this year when it was revealed that personal data of 87 million users was improperly gathered and misused by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016. According to the social media giant, a Cambridge University lecturer named Aleksandr Kogan collected the users' data legitimately through a quiz app but then violated its terms by sharing the data with Cambridge Analytica, which was then hired by the Trump presidential campaign. The UK's Information Commissioner's...

Intel has paid out a $100,000 bug bounty for new processor vulnerabilities that are related to Spectre variant one ( CVE-2017-5753 ). The new Spectre-class variants are tracked as Spectre 1.1 (CVE-2018-3693) and Spectre 1.2, of which Spectre 1.1 described as a bounds-check bypass store attack has been considered as more dangerous. Earlier this year, Google Project Zero researchers disclosed details of Variants 1 and 2 (CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715), known as Spectre, and Variant 3 (CVE-2017-5754), known as Meltdown. Spectre flaws take advantage of speculative execution, an optimization technique used by modern CPUs, to potentially expose sensitive data through a side channel by observing the system. Speculative execution is a core component of modern processors design that speculatively executes instructions based on assumptions that are considered likely to be true. If the assumptions come out to be valid, the execution continues, otherwise discarded. New Spectre-Cla...

Yet another incident which showcases that you should not explicitly trust user-controlled software repositories. One of the most popular Linux distros Arch Linux has pulled as many as three user-maintained software repository AUR packages after it was found hosting malicious code. Arch Linux is an independently developed, general-purpose GNU/Linux distribution composed predominantly of free and open-source software, and supports community involvement. Besides official repositories like Arch Build System (ABS), Arch Linux users can also download software packages from several other repositories, including AUR (Arch User Repository), a community-driven repository created and managed by Arch Linux users. Since AUR packages are user-produced content, Arch maintainers always suggest Linux users to carefully check all files, especially PKGBUILD and any .install file for malicious commands. However, this AUR repository has recently been found hosting malware code in several inst...

It's time to gear up your systems and software for the latest July 2018 Microsoft security patch updates. Microsoft today released security patch updates for 53 vulnerabilities, affecting Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Edge, ChakraCore, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, PowerShell, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Office and Office Services, and Adobe Flash Player. Out of 53 vulnerabilities, 17 are rated critical, 34 important, one moderate and one as low in severity. This month there is no critical vulnerability patched in Microsoft Windows operating system and surprisingly, none of the flaw patched by the tech giant this month is listed as publicly known or under active attack. Critical Flaws Patched In Microsoft Products Most of the critical issues are memory corruption flaws in IE, Edge browser and Chakra scripting engine, which if successfully exploited, could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a targeted system in the context of the cur...

Adobe has released security patches for a total 112 vulnerabilities in its products, most of which have a higher risk of being exploited. The vulnerabilities addressed in this month's patch Tuesday affect Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Connect, Adobe Acrobat, and Reader. None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild. Adobe Flash Player (For Desktops and Browsers) Security updates include patches for two vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player for various platforms and application, as listed below. One of which has been rated critical (CVE-2018-5007), and successful exploitation of this "type confusion" flaw could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system in the context of the current user. This flaw was discovered and reported to Adobe by willJ of Tencent PC Manager working with Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative. Withou...

Security researchers from Check Point Threat Intelligence Team have discovered the comeback of an APT (advanced persistent threat) surveillance group targeting institutions across the Middle East, specifically the Palestinian Authority. The attack, dubbed "Big Bang," begins with a phishing email sent to targeted victims that includes an attachment of a self-extracting archive containing two files—a Word document and a malicious executable. Posing to be from the Palestinian Political and National Guidance Commission, the Word document serves as a decoy to distract victims while the malware is installed in the background. The malicious executable, which runs in the background, act as the first stage info-stealer malware designed for intelligence gathering to identify potential victims (on the basis of what is unclear as of now), and then it accordingly downloads the second stage malware designed for espionage. "While the analysis...discloses the capabilities of ...

With the release of iOS 11.4.1, Apple has finally rolled out a new security feature designed to protect your devices against USB accessories that connect to the data port, making it harder for law enforcement and hackers to break into your iPhone or iPad without your permission. Dubbed USB Restricted Mode , the feature automatically disables data connection capabilities of the Lightning port on your iPhone or iPad if the device has been locked for an hour or longer, while the port can still be used for device charging. In other words, every time you lock your iPhone, a countdown timer of an hour gets activated in the background, which if completed, enables the USB restricted mode to prevent unauthorized access to the data port. Once the USB Restricted Mode gets activated, there's no way left for breaking into an iPhone or iPad without the user's permission. The feature would, no doubt, defeat law enforcement's use of special unlocking hardware made by Cellebrite ...

Digitally signed malware has become much more common in recent years to mask malicious intentions. Security researchers have discovered a new malware campaign misusing stolen valid digital certificates from Taiwanese tech-companies, including D-Link, to sign their malware and making them look like legitimate applications. As you may know, digital certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign computer applications and software and are trusted by your computer for execution of those programs without any warning messages. However, malware author and hackers who are always in search of advanced techniques to bypass security solutions have seen been abusing trusted digital certificates in recent years. Hackers use compromised code signing certificates associated with trusted software vendors in order to sign their malicious code, reducing the possibility of their malware being detected on targeted enterprise networks and consumer...

Besides Timehop , another data breach was discovered last week that affects users of one of the largest web hosting companies in Germany, DomainFactory, owned by GoDaddy. The breach initially happened back in last January this year and just emerged last Tuesday when an unknown attacker himself posted a breach note on the DomainFactory support forum. It turns out that the attacker breached company servers to obtain the data of one of its customers who apparently owes him a seven-figure amount, according to Heise . Later the attacker tried to report DomainFactory about the potential vulnerability using which he broke into its servers, but the hosting provider did not respond, and neither disclosed the breach to its customers. In that situation, the attacker head on to the company's support forum and broke the news with sample data of a few customers as proof, which forced DomainFactory to immediately shut down the forum website and initiate an investigation. Attacker G...