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In September, Google added the remote Device locking Capability to its Android Device Manager , allowing users to lock their phone if it's stolen or lost. The mechanism allows user to override the existing device lock scheme and set password scheme for better security. But Recently, Curesec Research Team  from Germany has discovered an interesting vulnerability ( CVE-2013-6271 ) in   Android 4.3 that allows a rogue app to remove all existing device locks activated by a user. ' The bug exists on the "com.android.settings.ChooseLockGeneric class". This class is used to allow the user to modify the type of lock mechanism the device should have. ' CRT team says in a blog post Android OS has several device lock mechanisms like PIN, Password, Gesture and even faces recognition to lock and unlock a device. For modification in password settings, the device asks the user for confirmation of the previous lock. But if some malicious application is installed on the...

In October, A Security researcher ' Craig Heffner ' discovered a backdoor vulnerability ( CVE-2013-6027 ) with certain D-Link routers that allow cyber criminals to alter a router setting without a username or password. Last week, D-Link has released new version of Firmware for various vulnerable router models, that patches the unauthorized administrator access backdoor. Heffner  found that the web interface for some D-Link routers could be accessed if the browser's user agent string is set to xmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtide . From last month, D-Link was working with Heffner and other security researchers, to find out more about the backdoor and now the Company has released the updates for the following models: DIR-100 DIR-120 DI-524 DI-524UP DI-604UP DI-604+ DI-624S TM-G5240 The company advised users to do not enable the Remote Management feature, since this will allow malicious users to use this exploit from the internet and also warned t...

The increasing public attention of Bitcoin did not go unnoticed by Cyber Criminals who have begun unleashing Bitcoin Mining malware. Security researchers at Malwarebytes warned about a new malware threat, in which Bitcoin Miners are bundled with third party potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that come bundled with legitimate applications. Malware allow cybercriminals to utilize systems' computing resources for their own gain. " This type of system hijacking is just another way for advertising based software to exploit a user into getting even more cash. " The malware is found to be using ' jhProtominer ' a popular mining software that runs via the command line, to abuse the CPUs and GPUs of infected computers to generate Bitcoins. Upon further investigation Malwarebytes found that the parent of the Bitcoin miner was " monitor.exe ", a part of YourFreeProxy application, which " beacons out constantly, waiting for commands from a remote server, eventually downlo...

Today Vodafone Iceland was hacked by the Turkish group of hackers Maxn3y (@AgentCoOfficial) who in the past has stolen data from airports' systems, electronic giants and fast food company. The hackers announced via Twitter  that he has successfully compromised Vodafone Iceland server and defaced the official website ( Vodafone . is ), including various other sub-domains including the company mobile site. The hackers disclosed a compressed 61.7MB rar file which is locked with password TURKISH and that contains a collection of files including one titled users.sql that appears to contain the 77,000 user accounts.  The file includes user names, social security numbers, encrypted passwords as many other encrypted information. The portal CyberWarNews posted the list of files disclosed and provided information on their content. Following the complete list of files leaked: v2.sql Multimedia database, nothing critical, 400K of user tracking and logging with user agents, refers ...

Google's Nexus Smartphones are vulnerable to SMS-based DOS attack , where an attacker can force it to restart, freeze, or lose network connection by sending a large number of special SMS messages to them. The vulnerability, discovered by Bogdan Alecu , a system administrator at Dutch IT services company Levi9, and affects all Android 4.x firmware versions on Google Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5. The problem is with how the phones handle a special type of text message, known as a flash SMS. By sending around 30 Flash SMS ( Flash SMS is a type of message that normally is not stored by the system and does not trigger any audio alerts ) messages to Nexus phone an attacker can cause the phone to malfunction. He presented the vulnerability on Friday at the DefCamp security conference in Bucharest, Romania. In an email exchange with me, he said ' I was testing different message types and for the class 0 messages I noticed that the popup being displayed al...

A Symantec researcher has discovered a new Linux worm, targeting machine-to-machine devices, and exploits a PHP vulnerability ( CVE-2012-1823 ) to propagate that has been patched as far back as May 2012. Linux worm, which has been dubbed Linux.Darlloz , poses a threat to devices such as home routers and set-top boxes, Security Cameras, and even industrial control systems. It is based on proof-of-concept code released in late October and it helps spread malware by exploiting a vulnerability in php-cgi . " Upon execution, the worm generates IP addresses randomly, accesses a specific path on the machine with well-known ID and passwords, and sends HTTP POST requests, which exploit the vulnerability. If the target is unpatched, it downloads the worm from a malicious server and starts searching for its next target. " the Symantec researchers explained. The malware does not appear to perform any malicious activity other than silently spreading itself and wiping a load of sy...