The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Source for Cybersecurity News — Index Page

Using an Android device? Beware! You have to remain more caution while opening an image file on your smartphone—downloaded anywhere from the Internet or received through messaging or email apps. Yes, just viewing an innocuous-looking image could hack your Android smartphone—thanks to three newly-discovered critical vulnerabilities that affect millions of devices running recent versions of Google's mobile operating system, ranging from Android 7.0 Nougat to its current Android 9.0 Pie. The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2019-1986, CVE-2019-1987, and CVE-2019-1988, have been patched in Android Open Source Project (AOSP) by Google as part of its February Android Security Updates . However, since not every handset manufacturer rolls out security patches every month, it's difficult to determine if your Android device will get these security patches anytime sooner. Although Google engineers have not yet revealed any technical details explaining the vulnerabilities, t...

The developers behind the privacy-minded Zcash cryptocurrency have recently discovered and patched a highly dangerous vulnerability in the most secretive way that could have allowed an attacker to coin an infinite number of Zcash (ZEC). Yes, infinite… like a never-ending source of money. Launched in October 2016, Zcash is a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that claims to be more anonymous than Bitcoin, as the sender, recipient, and value of transactions remain hidden. In a blog post published today, the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company—the startup behind Zcash—revealed that one of its employees, Ariel Gabizon, discovered the vulnerability in its code on 1st March 2018, the night prior to his talk at the Financial Cryptography conference almost a year ago. Gabizon contacted Sean Bowe, a Zcash Company's cryptographer, immediately after discovering the counterfeiting vulnerability, as dubbed by the team, and the team decided to keep the flaw secret in order to avoid the risk o...

Ever sent a message on Facebook Messenger then immediately regretted it, or an embarrassing text to your boss in the heat of the moment at late night, or maybe accidentally sent messages or photos to a wrong group chat? Of course, you have. We have all been through drunk texts and embarrassing photos many times that we later regret sending but are forced to live with our mistakes. Good news, Facebook is now giving us a way to erase our little embarrassments. After offering a similar feature to WhatsApp users two years ago, Facebook is now rolling out a long-promised option to delete text messages, photos, or videos inside its Messenger application starting from Tuesday, February 5. You Have 10 Minutes to Delete Sent Facebook Messages The unsend feature allows users to delete a message within 10 minutes of sending it, for both individual and group chats. Previously, Messenger offered the "delete" option that allowed users to only delete messages for them—but t...

You've always been warned not to share remote access to your computer with any untrusted people for many reasons—it's basic cyber security advice, and common sense, right? But what if I say, you should not even trust anyone who invites or offers you full remote access to their computers? Security researchers at cybersecurity firm Check Point have discovered more than two dozen vulnerabilities in both open-source RDP clients and Microsoft's own proprietary client that could allow a malicious RDP server to compromise a client computer, reversely. RDP, or Remote Desktop Protocol, allows users to connect to remote computers. The protocol is usually used by technical users and IT administrators to remotely connect to other devices on the network. RDP was initially developed by Microsoft for its Windows operating system, but there are several open source clients for the RDP protocol that can be used on Linux as well as Unix systems. Check Point researchers recently ...

With so many data breaches happening almost every week, it has become difficult for users to know if their credentials are already in possession of hackers or being circulated freely across the Internet. Thankfully, Google has a solution. Today, February 5, on Safer Internet Day, Google launches a new service that has been designed to alert users when they use an exact combination of username and password for any website that has previously been exposed in any third-party data breach. The new service, which has initially been made available as a free Chrome browser extension called Password Checkup , works by automatically comparing the user's entered credential on any site to an encrypted database that contains over 4 billion compromised credentials. If the credentials are found in the list of compromised ones, Password Checkup will prompt users to change their password. Wondering if Google can see your login credentials? No, the company has used a privacy-oriented i...

It's 2019, and just opening an innocent looking office document file on your system can still allow hackers to compromise your computer. No, I'm not talking about yet another vulnerability in Microsoft Office, but in two other most popular alternatives— LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice —free, open source office software used by millions of Windows, MacOS and Linux users. Security researcher Alex Inführ has discovered a severe remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in these two open source office suites that could be triggered just by opening a maliciously-crafted ODT (OpenDocument Text) file. The attack relies on exploiting a directory traversal flaw, identified as CVE-2018-16858, to automatically execute a specific python library bundled within the software using a hidden onmouseover event. To exploit this vulnerability, Inführ created  an ODT file with a white-colored hyperlink (so it can't be seen) that has an "onmouseover" event to trick victim...