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One of the biggest and most popular multi-antivirus scanning engine service has today launched a new Android sandbox service, dubbed VirusTotal Droidy , to help security researchers detect malicious apps based on behavioral analysis. VirusTotal, owned by Google, is a free online service that allows anyone to upload files to check them for viruses against dozens of antivirus engines simultaneously. Android Sandbox performs both static and dynamic analysis to automatically detect suspicious applications by executing and monitoring applications in a simulated Android OS environment. Behavioral reports for Android applications (APKs) is not new to VirusTotal, as the website already had service since 2013 that worked based on Cuckoo Sandbox , an open source automated malware analysis system. Replacing this existing system, VirusTotal Droidy has been integrated in the context of the multi-sandbox project and can extract "juicy" details, such as: Network communicatio...

Facebook dropped another bombshell on its users by admitting that all of its 2.2 billion users should assume malicious third-party scrapers have compromised their public profile information. On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that "malicious actors" took advantage of "Search" tools on its platform to discover the identities and collect information on most of its 2 billion users worldwide. The revelation once again underlines the failure of the social-media giant to protect users' privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the same information. The revelation came weeks after the disclosure of the Cambridge Analytica scandal , wherein personal data of 77 million users was improperly gathered and misused by the political consultancy firm, who reportedly also helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016. However, the latest scam revealed by the social media giant about the abuse of Facebook's search tools over the...

Security researchers at Embedi have disclosed a critical vulnerability in Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, take full control over the vulnerable network equipment and intercept traffic. The stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2018-0171) resides due to improper validation of packet data in Smart Install Client, a plug-and-play configuration and image-management feature that helps administrators to deploy (client) network switches easily. Embedi has published technical details and Proof-of-Concept (PoC) code after Cisco today released patch updates to address this remote code execution vulnerability, which has been given a base Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 9.8 (critical). Researchers found a total of 8.5 million devices with the vulnerable port open on the Internet, leaving approximately 250,000 unpatched devices open to hackers. To exploit this vu...

As speculated by the researcher who disclosed Meltdown and Spectre flaws in Intel processors, some of the Intel processors will not receive patches for the Spectre (variant 2) side-channel analysis attack In a recent microcode revision guidance ( PDF ), Intel admits that it would not be possible to address the Spectre design flaw in its specific old CPUs, because it requires changes to the processor architecture to mitigate the issue fully. The chip-maker has marked "Stopped" to the production status for a total 9 product families—Bloomfield, Clarksfield, Gulftown, Harpertown Xeon, Jasper Forest, Penryn, SoFIA 3GR, Wolfdale, and Yorkfield. These vulnerable chip families—which are mostly old that went on sale between 2007 and 2011—will no longer receive microcode updates, leaving more than 230 Intel processor models vulnerable to hackers that powers millions of computers and mobile devices. According to the revised guidance, "after a comprehensive investigatio...

Security researchers at Cisco Talos have uncovered variants of a new Android Trojan that are being distributed in the wild disguising as a fake anti-virus application, dubbed "Naver Defender." Dubbed KevDroid , the malware is a remote administration tool (RAT) designed to steal sensitive information from compromised Android devices, as well as capable of recording phone calls. Talos researchers published Monday technical details about two recent variants of KevDroid detected in the wild, following the initial discovery of the Trojan by South Korean cybersecurity firm ESTsecurity two weeks ago. Though researchers haven't attributed the malware to any hacking or state-sponsored group, South Korean media have linked KevDroid with North Korea state-sponsored cyber espionage hacking group " Group 123 ," primarily known for targeting South Korean targets. The most recent variant of KevDroid malware, detected in March this year, has the following capabilit...

In a major blow to Intel, Apple is reportedly planning to use its custom-designed ARM chips in Mac computers starting as early as 2020, ultimately replacing the Intel processors running on its desktop and laptop hardware. The company makes its own A-series custom chips for iPhones, iPads and other iThings, while the Mac devices use Intel x64 silicon. Now according to a report from Bloomberg, Apple plans to replace Intel's Mac chips with its own homegrown CPUs. The report says Apple executives have a project, codenamed " Kalamata ," that designs desktop-grade Arm-compatible processors, along with a macOS port, allowing the company to craft a uniform architecture across all of its product lines. The report also says this changeover would be part of a "multi-step transition" to make iOS devices and Macs "work more similarly and seamlessly together," helping Apple's plan (project codename ' Marzipan ') to bring iOS apps to Mac for sof...