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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...

Cybersecurity researchers have revealed an unpatched logical flaw in Microsoft Office 2016 and older versions that could allow an attacker to embed malicious code inside a document file, tricking users into running malware onto their computers. Discovered by researchers at Cymulate, the bug abuses the ' Online Video ' option in Word documents, a feature that allows users to embedded an online video with a link to YouTube, as shown. When a user adds an online video link to an MS Word document, the Online Video feature automatically generates an HTML embed script, which is executed when the thumbnail inside the document is clicked by the viewer. Researchers decided to go public with their findings three months after Microsoft refused to acknowledge the reported issue as a security vulnerability. How Does the New MS Word Attack Works? Since the Word Doc files (.docx) are actually zip packages of its media and configuration files, it can easily be opened and edited. Acco...

Signal, the popular end-to-end encrypted messaging app, is planning to roll out a new feature that aims to hide the sender's identity from potential attackers trying to intercept the communication. Although messages send via secure messaging services, like Signal , WhatsApp , and Telegram , are fully end-to-end encrypted as they transmit across their servers, each message leaves behind some of the metadata information that reveals who sent the message to whom and when. The new feature, dubbed " Sealed Sender ," announced by Signal is going to further reduce the amount of information that is accessible to the company itself. However, you should note that Signal never stores metadata or logs of information on its users like who sends messages to each other and when, but the new feature would protect the sender's identity in case the communication is somehow intercepted. How Does the Signal's Sealed Sender Feature Protect Metadata? According to a blog post ...

Microsoft Windows built-in anti-malware tool, Windows Defender, has become the very first antivirus software to have the ability to run inside a sandbox environment. Sandboxing is a process that runs an application in a safe environment isolated from the rest of the operating system and applications on a computer. So that if a sandboxed application gets compromised, the technique prevents its damage from spreading outside the closed area. Since antivirus and anti-malware tools run with the highest level of privileges to scan all parts of a computer for malicious code, it has become a desired target for attackers. The need for sandboxing an antivirus tool has become necessary after multiple critical vulnerabilities were discovered in such powerful applications, including Windows Defender, in past years that could have allowed attackers to gain full control of a targeted system. That's why Microsoft announced to add a sandbox mode to its Windows Defender. So, even if an att...

It's been quite a year for the open source platforms. Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired popular code repository hosting service GitHub for $7.5 billion , and now IBM has just announced the biggest open-source business deal ever. IBM today confirmed that it would be acquiring open source Linux firm Red Hat for $190 per share in cash, working out to a total value of approximately $34 billion. Red Hat, known for its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system, is a leading software company that offers open-source software products to the enterprise community. Even Oracle uses Red Hat's source code for its Oracle Linux product. Red Hat's last year revenue was $2.4 billion, and this year the company has earned $2.9 billion. But if Red Hat products are open source and updates are free, you might be wondering how does the company earn. Red Hat was one of the first companies who found a successful way to make money from free open-source software. It offers consul...

An Indian security researcher has discovered a highly critical flaw in X.Org Server package that impacts OpenBSD and most Linux distributions, including Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat, and Fedora. Xorg X server is a popular open-source implementation of the X11 system (display server) that offers a graphical environment to a wider range of hardware and OS platforms. It serves as an intermediary between client and user applications to manage graphical displays. According to a blog post published by software security engineer Narendra Shinde , Xorg X server doesn't correctly handle and validate arguments for at least two command-line parameters, allowing a low-privileged user to execute malicious code and overwrite any file—including files owned by privileged users like root. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2018-14665 , was introduced in X.Org server 1.19.0 package that remained undetected for almost two years and could have been exploited by a local attacker on the terminal or vi...

Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users . The fine has been imposed by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ( ICO ) and was calculated using the UK's old Data Protection Act 1998 which can levy a maximum penalty of £500,000 — ironically that's equals to the amount Facebook earns every 18 minutes. The news does not come as a surprise as the U.K.'s data privacy watchdog already notified the social network giant in July this year that the commission was intended to issue the maximum fine. For those unaware, Facebook has been under scrutiny since earlier this year when it was revealed that the personal data of 87 million users was improperly gathered and misused by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica , who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016. The ICO, who launched an investigation...