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Two days ago, we reported at The Hacker News about a critical issue in the most popular image and video sharing service, Instagram app for mobiles , that allows an attacker to hijack users' account and successfully access private photos, delete victim's photos, edit comments and also post new images. Yesterday, a London developer Stevie Graham has released a tool called " Instasheep " a play on the 2010 Facebook stealer Firesheep , a Firefox extension that can be used to compromise online accounts in certain circumstances automatically using a click of mouse. Graham discovered the Instagram issue years ago and was shocked when he realized it hadn't been fixed by Facebook yet. He released the tool after claiming Facebook refused to pay a bug bounty for his reported vulnerabilities affecting the Instagram iOS mobile application. Graham tweeted about the issue: " Denied bug bounty. Next step is to write automated tool enabling mass hijacking of accounts, " he wrote. " ...

Good News for Privacy Lovers!! An open source software group Open Whisper Systems has released the first free and Open Source phone call application for iPhone users, which is specifically designed to make secure and encrypted calls. When we talk about the privacy of our messages and voice calls, Open Whisper Systems has usually a very strong track record. Whisper is the company behind the development of RedPhone and TextSecure for Android, providing encrypted calls and texts respectively to users. Moving on to iOS devices , the company decided to produce simplest and easiest interfaces yet. Better known as Signal , a free iOS app designed to enable easy and strongly encrypted voice calls . The Signal application for iPhone is completely compatible with OWS's time-tested and well-known RedPhone . Eventually, Signal will be a combination of both RedPhone and TextSecure in a single Android application , according to a blog post . Signal makes use of end-to-en...

Due to the majority in the mobile platform, Google's Android operating system has been a prior target for cybercriminals and a recently exposed weakness in the way the operating system handles certificate validation, left millions of Android devices open to attack. Researchers at BlueBox security , who identified the vulnerability, dubbed the flaw as Fake ID , which affects all versions of Android operating system from 2.1 ( released in 2010 ) up to Android 4.4, also known as KitKat . ALL VERSIONS ARE VULNERABLE UPTO KITKAT Researchers marked the vulnerability as critical because it could allow a fake and malicious app to masquerade as a legitimate and trusted application, enabling an attacker to perform various actions such as inserting malicious code into a legitimate app, infiltrating your personal information or even take complete control of an affected device. Specifically, devices running the 3LM administration extension are at risk for a complete compromise, whic...

Scammers have again targeted more than one billion active users of the popular social networking giant Facebook, to infect as many victims as possible. Not by serving fake post, neither by providing malicious video link, instead this time scammers have used a new way of tricking Facebook users into injecting or placing malicious JavaScript or client-side code into their web browsers. This malicious code could allow an attacker to gain access to victims' accounts, thereby using it for fraud, to send spams, and promoting further attacks by posting the scam on timeline to victims' friends. This technique is known as Self Cross-site Scripting or Self XSS. Self-XSS (Self Cross-Site Scripting) scam is a combination of social engineering and a browser vulnerability , basically designed to trick Facebook users' into providing access to their account. Once an attacker or scammer gets access to users' Facebook account, they can even post and comment on things on users' behalf. ...

Chinese hackers infiltrated the databases of three Israeli defense contractors and stole plans for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, according to an investigation by a Maryland-based cyber security firm ' Cyber Engineering Services Inc. (CyberESI) '. Not just this, the hackers were also able to nab plans regarding other missile interceptors, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, ballistic rockets and the Arrow III missile interceptor which was designed by Boeing and other U.S.-based companies. The intrusions were thought to be executed by Beijing's infamous " Comment Crew " hacking group – a group of cyber warriors linked to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) – into the corporate networks of top Israeli defense technology companies, including Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, between 10 October 2011 and 13 August 2012. The three Israeli defense technology companies were responsible for the developmen...

In the era of Government surveillance, ensuring the security and safety of our private communications regardless of platform – email, VOIP, message, even cookies stored – should be the top priority of the Internet industry. Some industry came together to offer Encryption as the protection against government surveillance, but some left security holes that may expose your personal data. A critical issue on Instagram's Android Application has been disclosed by a security researcher that could allow an attacker to hijack users' account and successfully access private photos, delete victim's photos, edit comments and also post new images. Instagram , acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion, is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. ...