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Facebook has been caught practicing the worst ever user-verification mechanism that could put the security of its users at risk. Generally, social media or any other online service asks users to confirm a secret code or a unique URL sent to the email address they provided for the account registration. However, Facebook has been found asking some newly-registered users to provide the social network with the passwords to their email accounts, which according to security experts is a terrible idea that could threaten privacy and security of its users. First noticed by Twitter account e-Sushi using the handle @originalesushi, Facebook has been prompting users to hand over their passwords for third-party email services, so that the company can "automatically" verify their email addresses. However, the prompt only appears for email accounts from certain email providers which Facebook considers to be suspicious. "Tested it myself registering 3 times with 3 differe...

Mark J Cox, one of the founding members of the Apache Software Foundation and the OpenSSL project, today posted a tweet warning users about a recently discovered important flaw in Apache HTTP Server software. The Apache web server is one of the most popular, widely used open-source web servers in the world that powers almost 40 percent of the whole Internet. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-0211 , was discovered by Charles Fol , a security engineer at Ambionics Security firm, and patched by the Apache developers in the latest version 2.4.39 of its software released today. The flaw affects Apache HTTP Server versions 2.4.17 through 2.4.38 and could allow any less-privileged user to execute arbitrary code with root privileges on the targeted server. "In Apache HTTP Server 2.4 releases 2.4.17 to 2.4.38, with MPM event, worker or prefork, code executing in less-privileged child processes or threads (including scripts executed by an in-process scripting interprete...

In today's world, data plays a crucial role in the success of any organization, but if left unprotected, it could be a cybercriminal's dream come true. Poorly protected MongoDB, CouchDB, and Elasticsearch databases recently got a lot more attention from cybersecurity firms and media lately. More than half of the known cases of massive data breaches over the past year originated from unsecured database servers that were accessible to anyone without any password. Since the database of an organization contains its most valuable and easily exploitable data, cybercriminals have also started paying closer attention to find other insecure entry points. Though the problems with unprotected databases are no news and are widely discussed on the Internet, I want cybersecurity community and industry experts to pay some attention to thousands of unsafe Kibana instances that are exposed on the Internet, posing a huge risk to many companies. Kibana is an open-source analytics and visualiz...

Workplaces have become highly connected. Even a small business could have dozens of devices in the form of desktops, mobile devices, routers, and even smart appliances as part of its IT infrastructure. Unfortunately, each of these endpoints can now be a weak link that hackers could exploit. Hackers constantly probe networks for vulnerable endpoints to breach. For example, systems and applications that are configured using recycled user names and passwords can easily be hacked given the availability of leaked credentials online. Password management service LastPass noted that 59% of users use the same password for multiple accounts. Malware and malicious processes may also target workstations. Cybersecurity firm Symantec found a 1,000 percent increase in PowerShell script attacks in 2018. These attacks use cleverly disguised malicious processes that appear legitimate at a cursory glance. This is why IT security career is fast evolving into a huge market. However, because o...

Hackers yesterday stole nearly $19 million worth of cryptocurrency from Bithumb , the South Korea-based popular cryptocurrency exchange admitted today. According to Primitive Ventures' Dovey Wan, who first broke the information on social media, hackers managed to compromise a number of Bithumb's hot EOS and XRP wallets and transferred around 3 million EOS (~ $13 million) and 20 million XRP (~ $6 million) to his newly-created accounts. The hacker then distributedly transferred the stolen digital assets to his different accounts created on other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Huobi, HitBTC, WB, and EXmo, via ChangeNow, a non-custodial crypto swap platform does not require KYC/account. Bithumb has been hacked multiple times in the past. Last time the popular cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in June 2018, when hackers stole $31 million, and in July 2017, when hackers stole $1 million worth of EOS from many wallets belonging to its users. "And this is the se...