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Indian government get access to BlackBerry messages After a battle lasting almost two years, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has knuckled under to the Indian government, giving security forces in that country access to private instant messages. RIM decided to set up Blackberry servers that were stationed in Mumbai, India. If you were thinking that this move could only lead to the Indian government seeking more control over what goes in and out of RIM's Blackberry servers, you would be right on the money. Not only has the Indian government gotten their way with the Blackberry servers, but they will now be able to tap into BBM messages. This was confirmed by Indian security agencies who revealed that the process to decrypt the 256-bit encrypted data used by BBM is underway and would be up and running soon, claiming that the interception of BBM messages will be used in case where the government suspects that crimes or terror plots are being hatched. It should also be noted t...

Opera releases monthly data generated by its users. In November 2010, Opera reported significant increases in unique users, pages viewed, and data consumed via its Mini browser. Around 80 million people used the Opera Mini browser in November, viewing 44.6 billion pages. According to Opera, its server-side compression reduced 6.3 petabytes of data. Year-over-year, Opera Mini's page views grew by 103.1%. The number of unique users increased by 28.4%, with the average user viewing 422 web pages per month. Each user consumed about 10MB of data, with the average web page size being just 2KB. In 2009, Facebook was the most visited mobile site, according to Opera. This year, Google regained the top spot globally. The top 10 websites globally, as ranked by Opera, are: Google Facebook Vkontakte.ru YouTube Odnoklassniki.ru Yandex.ru Yahoo My.opera Mail.ru Getjar In the U.S., the top 10 websites are more familiar: Google Facebook YouTube Wikipedia Yahoo My.opera Accuwe...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Websense ThreatSeeker Network intercepted a malware campaign targeting BlackBerry customers. These fake emails state that the recipient has successfully created a BlackBerry ID. According to Security Labs , those users who are targeted receive an email with the subject line " Your BlackBerry ID has been created ." The email encourages users to follow instructions in the attached file on how to " enjoy the full benefits " of their ID. The malware comes attached to an email that is an exact copy of the email you receive when creating a new BlackBerry ID. It teases you by asking you to download an attachment that allows you to fully appreciate the BlackBerry user experience. Those who open the attached .zip file will drop a handful of executable files that will modify the system registry to start malware programs upon the machine's next startup.

Russian firm Elcomsoft unveils tool to crack BlackBerry encryption security A Russian security company has upgraded a phone-password cracking suite with the ability to figure out the master device password for Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices. Elcomsoft said that before it developed the product, it was believed that there was no way to figure out a device password on a BlackBerry smartphone or PlayBook tablet. BlackBerry smartphones are configured to wipe all data on the phone if a password is typed incorrectly 10 times in a row, the company said. " ElcomSoft Phone Password Breaker " does exactly what it says, enabling its users to recover plain-text passwords governing encrypted backups for BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablets. (The password-breaking tool also works on Apple devices running iOS, such as iPhones and iPads.) The new feature is wrapped into Elcomsoft's Phone Password Breaker. It costs £79 ($123) for the home edition and £199 for the fu...

As we reported yesterday that, your Smartphone is a goldmine for the US National Security Agency (NSA), they have the full access to your Data available on your Smartphones including Android , iPhone and Blackberry. But among other Smartphones,  iPhone apparently is the most popular with the National Security Agency. Another NSA presentation leaked by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and published by German paper Der Spiegel , describing Steve Jobs as the real Big Brother and iPhone buyers as the "zombies" . By cracking mobile operating systems and eavesdropping on mobile communications, the data obtained in this way includes contacts, call lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information. " Such as a iPhone picture of a foreign government official who took selfies while watching TV, and a picture of an unknown man, apparently an Afghani fighter, in the mountains of Afghanistan. And remember the iPhone's location bug? That enabled tracking of people over exten...

Research in Motion has found a security flaw and recommended that user disable JavaScript in browsers on certain phones, threatening the BlackBerry maker's iron-clad reputation for security. "The issue could result in remote code execution on affected BlackBerry smartphones," the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said. "Successful exploitation of the vulnerability requires the user to browse to a website that the attacker has maliciously designed." The flaw is in the WebKit browser that RIM includes in version 6 of its BlackBerry OS. RIM said hackers can steal data from users' memory cards on some BlackBerry devices. They can also install malware by exploiting the hole, but the company said that even if attacked, the phone's emails and contacts would be safe. The publicity is particularly bad for the company who stakes its reputation on the security and privacy of its service. RIM, which has been forced to use more third-party software to compete w...

A previously unknown threat actor dubbed  NewsPenguin  has been linked to a phishing campaign targeting Pakistani entities by leveraging the upcoming international maritime expo as a lure. "The attacker sent out targeted phishing emails with a weaponized document attached that purports to be an exhibitor manual for PIMEC-23," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team said . PIMEC , short for Pakistan International Maritime Expo and Conference, is an  initiative  of the Pakistan Navy and is organized by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs with an aim to "jump start development in the maritime sector." It's scheduled to be held from February 10-12, 2023. The Canadian cybersecurity company said the attacks are designed to target marine-related entities and the event's visitors by tricking the message recipients into opening the seemingly harmless Microsoft Word document. Once the document is launched and macros are enabled, a method called  remote templa...

Carriers, developers, and phone makers are rolling out new services and features to protect mobile devices from malicious attacks and data breaches. As people increasingly use smartphones for email, banking, and document access, the wireless industry is addressing mobile device security. According to Chris Knotts, vice president of technology and innovation at IT consulting company Force 3, there is a "consumerization of IT," where more employees use personal mobile devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets for work purposes. IT administrators recognize that mobile devices are here to stay and need to be secured against attacks and data breaches. This effort extends beyond IT administrators. Carriers and phone makers are deploying new features and services to enhance mobile device security, as noted by the Wall Street Journal. Edward G. Amoroso, chief security officer of AT&T, stated, "Everyone is realizing that this is an uncontrolled environment. We don'...

After being embroiled into controversies over its data sharing practices , it turns out that Facebook had granted inappropriate access to its users' data to more than 60 device makers, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, and Samsung. According to a lengthy report published by The New York Times, the social network giant struck data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device manufacture companies so that they could offer Facebook messaging functions, "Like" buttons, address books, and other features without requiring their users to install a separate app. The agreements were reportedly made over the last 10 years, starting before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones. Most notably, the publication suggests that the partnerships could be in breach of a 2011 consent decree by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which barred Facebook from granting other companies access to data of users' Facebook friends without their explicit consent...

The Pakistan-nexus  Transparent Tribe  actor has been linked to a new set of attacks targeting Indian government, defense, and aerospace sectors using cross-platform malware written in Python, Golang, and Rust. "This cluster of activity spanned from late 2023 to April 2024 and is anticipated to persist," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a technical report published early last week. The spear-phishing campaign is also notable for its abuse of popular online services such as Discord, Google Drive, Slack, and Telegram, once again underscoring how threat actors are  adopting legitimate programs  into their attack flows. According to BlackBerry, the targets of the email-based attacks included three companies that are crucial stakeholders and clients of the Department of Defense Production ( DDP ). All the three companies targeted are headquartered in the Indian city of Bengaluru. While the names of the firms were not disclosed, i...

Chinese cyber espionage group APT41 has been linked to seemingly disparate malware campaigns, according to fresh research that has mapped together additional parts of the group's network infrastructure to hit upon a state-sponsored campaign that takes advantage of COVID-themed phishing lures to target victims in India.  "The image we uncovered was that of a state-sponsored campaign that plays on people's hopes for a swift end to the pandemic as a lure to entrap its victims," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence team said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "And once on a user's machine, the threat blends into the digital woodwork by using its own customized profile to hide its network traffic." APT41 (aka Barium or Winnti) is a moniker assigned to a prolific Chinese cyber threat group that carries out state-sponsored espionage activity in conjunction with financially motivated operations for personal gain as far back as 2012. Calling the gro...

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as SideWinder has been accused of deploying a backdoor in attacks directed against Pakistan government organizations as part of a campaign that commenced in late November 2022. "In this campaign, the SideWinder advanced persistent threat (APT) group used a server-based polymorphism technique to deliver the next stage payload," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a technical report published Monday. Another campaign discovered by the Canadian cybersecurity company in early March 2023 shows that Turkey has also landed in the crosshairs of the threat actor's collection priorities. SideWinder  has been on the radar since at least 2012 and it's primarily known to target various Southeast Asian entities located across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Suspected to be an Indian state-sponsored group, SideWinder is also tracked under the monikers APT-C-17, APT-Q-39, Ha...

BlackBerry OS fell during the second day of the Pwn2Own hacking competition as a result of a drive-by download attack that chained together several exploits. The trio that managed to hack RIM's mobile operating system, Vincenzo Iozzo, Willem Pinckaers and Ralf Philipp Weinmann, exploited two vulnerabilities in the open-source WebKit layout engine in order to do it. The attack was launched from a specially crafted web page that stole information like contacts and images from the device and also wrote a file to the storage system. The hackers chained together an exploit for an information disclosure bug and one for an integer overflow vulnerability, but what's most impressive is that they did it without any documentation. They didn't have access to any debugging tool, like the ones available for other systems, that could have helped them determine how the attack code interacts with the system. Instead, they had to rely on exploiting a separate bug to read the device...

According to a report, All major Indian telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Tata Tele services, have agreed to share real-time interception of BlackBerry calls and data services on their networks with Security agencies to meet the December 31 deadline fixed by the Indian government . Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of BlackBerry, has been directed to provide the resolution and web-browsing needs of the BlackBerry Internet Services. This is to be done in discussion with concerned service providers and law interception organisations. Earlier in 2011, the government set the deadline for RIM to come up with facilities for interception, or face closure of their operations in India. The security agencies in the country have been trying to get the company to install local servers so they could access and monitor the stream of messages going back and forth to implement better security in the country. The Ministry for Home Affairs ordere...

National Security Agency (NSA)  has the capability to access a broad range of data on most Smartphones out there, including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices, according to the  documents provided by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to the  German news agency Der Spiegel report. A 2009 NSA document states that it can " see and read SMS traffic ". This data includes Contact, call lists, SMS traffic, notes and location data about where a user has been, the NSA has set up teams to specialize in cracking each operating system. The leaked information also revealed that the NSA has organized a working group for each operating system. The documents also state the NSA has successfully accessed BlackBerry email data, a system previously thought to be very secure. Recently, two Guardian reporters , the Newspaper primarily responsible with leaking NSA documents, discovered a mystery app on their iPhones . It has no title, no...

Soon in December this year, India's new surveillance program - Centralized Monitoring System (CMS) will be able to analyze all telecommunications and Internet communications in India by the government and its agencies.  This means that everything we say or text over the phone, write, post or browse over the Internet will be centrally monitored by Indian authorities. Law enforcement and government agencies intercept, monitor, and analyze communications in order to uncover leads and build the evidence needed to neutralize terrorism and crime. Few days back, BlackBerry has given the necessary permissions for the Indian government to intercept messages sent from BlackBerry devices . According to latest reports - Verint Systems , Israel's cyber intelligence solutions provider , are soon to get a contract from the Indian government to track encrypted communication services such as Gmail, Yahoo . mail, BlackBerry services, Skype and so on. " Ver...

The threat actor known as Blind Eagle has been linked to a new campaign targeting various key industries in Colombia. The activity, which was detected by the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team on February 20, 2023, is also said to encompass Ecuador, Chile, and Spain, suggesting a slow expansion of the hacking group's victimology footprint. Targeted entities include health, financial, law enforcement, immigration, and an agency in charge of peace negotiation in Colombia, the Canadian cybersecurity company said. Blind Eagle, also known as  APT-C-36 , was  recently covered  by Check Point Research, detailing the adversary's advanced toolset comprising Meterpreter payloads that are delivered via spear-phishing emails. The latest set of attacks involves the group impersonating the Colombian government tax agency, the National Directorate of Taxes and Customs (DIAN), to phish its targets using lures that urge recipients to settle "outstanding obligations." Th...

The Russian state-sponsored cyber espionage group known as Gamaredon has continued its digital onslaught against Ukraine, with recent attacks leveraging the popular messaging app Telegram to strike military and law enforcement sectors in the country. "The Gamaredon group's network infrastructure relies on multi-stage Telegram accounts for victim profiling and confirmation of geographic location, and then finally leads the victim to the next stage server for the final payload," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This kind of technique to infect target systems is new." Gamaredon , also known by names such as Actinium, Armageddon, Iron Tilden, Primitive Bear, Shuckworm, Trident Ursa, and Winterflounder, is known for its assaults aimed at Ukrainian entities since at least 2013. Last month, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42  disclosed  the threat actor's unsuccessful attempts to break into an unnamed petrol...

Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered five new samples of the ZeuS-in-the-Mobile (ZitMo) malware package, targeting Android and BlackBerry devices. Zitmo (Zeus in the mobile) is the name given to the mobile versions of Zeus, and it's been around for a couple of years already, mostly infecting Android phones. The Zitmo variant has reportedly been operating for at least two years targeting Android phones by masquerading as banking security application or security add-on. ZitMo gets hold of banking information by intercepting all text messages and passing them on to attackers' own devices. It gets onto devices inside malicious applications, which users are duped into downloading. In this case, the malicious app was posing as security software called 'Zertifikat'. Once installed, the packages forward all incoming SMS messages to one of two command and control numbers located in Sweden, with the aim of snaring secure codes and other data. Kaspersky found mobile users ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called  LightSpy . "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a report published last week. There is evidence to suggest that the campaign may have targeted India based on  VirusTotal   submissions  from within its borders. First documented in 2020 by Trend Micro and Kaspersky,  LightSpy  refers to an advanced iOS backdoor that's distributed via watering hole attacks through compromised news sites. A subsequent analysis from ThreatFabric in October 2023  uncovered  infrastructure and functionality overlaps between the malware and DragonEgg, a fully-featured Android spyware attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41 (aka Winnti)...