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A team of security researchers has discovered another serious side-channel vulnerability in Intel CPUs that could allow an attacker to sniff out sensitive protected data, like passwords and cryptographic keys, from other processes running in the same CPU core with simultaneous multi-threading feature enabled. The vulnerability, codenamed PortSmash (CVE-2018-5407), has joined the list of other dangerous side-channel vulnerabilities discovered in the past year, including Meltdown and Spectre , TLBleed , and Foreshadow . Discovered by a team of security researchers from the Tampere University of Technology in Finland and Technical University of Havana, Cuba, the new side-channel vulnerability resides in Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the company's implementation of Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT). Simultaneous MultiThreading is a performance feature that works by splitting up each physical core of a processor into virtual cores, known as threads, allowing each core to...

Joshua Adam Schulte , a 30-year-old former CIA computer programmer who was indicted over four months ago  for masterminding the largest leak of classified information in the agency's history, has now been issued three new charges. The news comes just hours after Schulte wrote a letter to the federal judge presiding over his case, accusing officials at Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center of interfering with his case pleading and subjecting him to "cruel and unusual punishment" in pre-trial detention. "The shit-filled showers where you leave dirtier than when you entered; the flooding of the tiers and cages with ice-cold water; the constant blast of cold air as we are exposed to extreme cold without blankets or long-sleeve shirts; the uncontrollable lights that are always on as we are sleep deprived...No human being should ever have to experience this torture," Schulte wrote. Schulte, who once designed hacking tools and malware for both the CIA and ...

Security researchers have unveiled details of two critical vulnerabilities in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chips embedded in millions of access points and networking devices used by enterprises around the world. Dubbed BleedingBit , the set of two vulnerabilities could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and take full control of vulnerable devices without authentication, including medical devices such as insulin pumps and pacemakers, as well as point-of-sales and IoT devices. Discovered by researchers at Israeli security firm Armis, the vulnerabilities exist in Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Stack chips made by Texas Instruments (TI) that are being used by Cisco, Meraki, and Aruba in their enterprise line of products. Armis is the same security firm that last year discovered BlueBorne , a set of nine zero-day Bluetooth-related flaws in Android, Windows, Linux and iOS that affected billions of devices, including smartphones, laptops, TVs, watches and automobile audi...

Apple introduces a new privacy feature for all new MacBooks that "at some extent" will prevent hackers and malicious applications from eavesdropping on your conversations. Apple's custom T2 security chip in the latest MacBooks includes a new hardware feature that physically disconnects the MacBook's built-in microphone whenever the user closes the lid, the company revealed yesterday at its event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Though the new T2 chip is already present in the 2018 MacBook Pro models launched earlier this year, this new feature got unveiled when Apple launched the new Retina MacBook Air and published a full security guide for T2 Chip yesterday. "This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed," Apple explained in the guide [ PDF ]. The tech giant furt...

It's only been a few hours since Apple releases iOS 12.1 and an iPhone enthusiast has managed to find a passcode bypass hack, once again, that could allow anyone to see all contacts' private information on a locked iPhone. Jose Rodriguez , a Spanish security researcher, contacted The Hacker News and confirmed that he discovered an iPhone passcode bypass bug in the latest version of its iOS mobile operating system, iOS 12.1, released by Apple today. To demonstrate the bug, Rodriguez shared a video with The Hacker News, as shown below, describing how the new iPhone hack works, which is relatively simple to perform than his previous passcode bypass findings. Instead, the issue resides in a new feature, called Group FaceTime , introduced by Apple with iOS 12.1, which makes it easy for users to video chat with more people than ever before—maximum 32 people. How Does the New iPhone Passcode Bypass Attack Work? Unlike his previous passcode bypass hacks, the new method w...

Microsoft silently patched a bug in its Windows 10 operating system with the October 2018 update (version 1809) that allowed Microsoft Store apps with extensive file system permission to access all files on users' computers without their consent. With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced a common platform, called Universal Windows Platform (UWP), that allows apps to run on any device running Windows 10, including desktop PC, Xbox, IoT, Surface Hub, and Mixed-reality headset. UWP apps have the ability to access certain API, files like pictures, music, or devices like camera and microphone, by declaring required permissions in their package manifest (configuration) file. By default, UWP apps have access to directories, where the app is installed on the users' system and where the app can store data (local, roaming and temporary folders). However, to access other files on a system, including sensitive resources, Microsoft offers several types of capabilities that an applicati...