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Air-gapped computers that are isolated from the Internet or other networks and believed to be the most secure computers on the planet have become a regular target in recent years. A team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel has discovered a way to extract sensitive information from air-gapped computers – this time using radio frequency transmissions from USB connectors without any need of specialized hardware mounted on the USB. Dubbed USBee , the attack is a significant improvement over the NSA-made USB exfiltrator called CottonMouth that was mentioned in a document leaked by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. Unlike CottonMouth , USBee doesn't require an attacker to smuggle a modified USB device into the facility housing the air-gapped computer being targeted; rather the technique turns USB devices already inside the facility into an RF transmitter with no hardware modification required. Must Read: BadUSB Code Released – Turn USB Drives Into Undete...

Recently, two European countries, France and Germany, have declared war against encryption with an objective to force major technology companies to built encryption backdoors in their secure messaging services. However, another neighborhood country, Netherlands, is proactively taking down cyber criminals, but do you know how? Dutch Police has seized two servers belonging to Virtual Private Network (VPN) provider Perfect Privacy , as part of an investigation, without even providing any reason for seizures. Switzerland-based VPN provider said they came to know about the servers seizure from I3D, the company that provides server hosting across Rotterdam. For those unfamiliar, Virtual Private Networks or VPNs are easy security and privacy tools that route your Internet traffic through a distant connection, protecting your browsing, hiding your location data and accessing restricted resources. VPNs have now become a great tool not just for large companies, but also for individual...

Around five years after unknown hackers gained unauthorized access to multiple kernel.org servers used to maintain and distribute the Linux operating system kernel, police have arrested a South Florida computer programmer for carrying out the attack. Donald Ryan Austin , a 27-year-old programmer from of El Portal, Florida, was charged Thursday with hacking servers belonging to the Linux Kernel Organization ( kernel.org ) and the Linux Foundation in 2011, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. The Linux Kernel Organization runs kernel.org servers for distributing the Linux operating system kernel, which is the heart of the operating system, whereas the Linux Foundation is a separate group that supports kernel.org. According to an indictment [ PDF ] unsealed by federal prosecutors on Monday, Austin managed to steal login credentials of one of the Linux Kernel Organization system administrators in 2011 and used them to install a hard-to-detect malware backdoor, dubbe...

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...

As promised at the Black Hat and Def Con security and hacking conferences, Offensive Security – the creators of Swiss army knife for researchers, penetration testers, and hackers – has finally released the much awaited Kali Linux 2016.2. Kali Linux is an open-source Debian-based Linux distribution designed to help ethical hackers and security professionals with a wide range of tools for penetration testing, forensics, hacking and reverse engineering together into a single package. Earlier the Kali Linux distribution was known as BackTrack . Kali Linux 2016.2 is an updated Live ISO image of the popular GNU/Linux distribution that includes the latest software versions and enhancements for those who want to deploy the operating system on new systems. What's new? Besides bringing the updated Live ISOs of Kali Linux, the Kali Linux team brings multiple variants of the GNU/Linux distribution with various Desktop Environments, specifically KDE, Xfce, MATE, LXDE, and Enlighten...

Another Day, Another Data Breach! If you love to listen to music online and have an account on Last.fm website, your account details may have compromised in a data breach that leaked more than 43 Million user personal data online. Last.fm was hacked in March of 2012 and three months after the breach, London-based music streaming service admitted to the incident and issued a warning, encouraging its users to change their passwords. But now it turns out that the Last.fm data breach was massive, and four years later the stolen data have surfaced in the public. The copy of the hacked database obtained by the data breach indexing website LeakedSource contained 43,570,999 user records that were originally stolen from Last.fm on March 22, 2012, according to timestamps in the database. The leaked records include usernames, hashed passwords, email addresses, the date when a user signed up to the website, and ad-related data. Wait! Have you visited The Hacker News early this wee...