Search results for Messenger | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybercriminal groups are constantly evolving to find new ways to pilfer financial information, and the latest trick in their arsenal is to leverage the messaging app Telegram to their benefit. In what's a new tactic adopted by Magecart groups, the encrypted messaging service is being used to send stolen payment details from compromised websites back to the attackers. "For threat actors, this data exfiltration mechanism is efficient and doesn't require them to keep up infrastructure that could be taken down or blocked by defenders," Jérôme Segura of Malwarebytes said in a Monday analysis . "They can even receive a notification in real time for each new victim, helping them quickly monetize the stolen cards in underground markets." The TTP was first publicly documented by security researcher @AffableKraut in a Twitter thread last week using data from Dutch cybersecurity firm Sansec. Injecting e-skimmers on shopping websites by exploiting a known

Threat actors have begun to use the Tox peer-to-peer instant messaging service as a command-and-control method, marking a shift from its earlier role as a contact method for ransomware negotiations. The findings from Uptycs, which analyzed an Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) artifact (" 72client ") that functions as a bot and can run scripts on the compromised host using the Tox protocol. Tox is a  serverless protocol  for online communications that offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protections by making use of the Networking and Cryptography library ( NaCl , pronounced "salt") for encryption and authentication. "The binary found in the wild is a stripped but dynamic executable, making decompilation easier," researchers Siddharth Sharma and Nischay Hedge  said . "The entire binary appears to be written in C, and has only  statically linked  the c-toxcore library." It's worth noting that c-toxcore is a  reference implementation  of

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Recently the Facebook-owned messaging app dropped its $1 annual subscription fee to make WhatsApp Free for Lifetime . Now, WhatsApp has plans to introduce a new feature that would allow its users to integrate their Facebook accounts with the most widely used messaging app. So far, the social media giant has been focusing on its own messaging platform, Messenger and both WhatsApp and Facebook have been working separately in terms of adding new features. WhatsApp to Share User Data With Facebook Android developer Javier Santos spotted a new feature in the latest beta build of WhatsApp, which indicates that soon you'll start seeing some features interconnected between WhatsApp and Facebook. The feature (optional, for now), dubbed " Share my account info ," when selected will share your personal WhatsApp account information with Facebook in order "to improve your Facebook experience," according to the description. Although it's uncle

WARNING: If you are Turkish and using or have installed ByLock —a little-known encrypted messaging app—you could be detained by Turkish authorities. You might be thinking why??? Because using this app in Turkish is illegal since last year. The background story begins here... Remember the deadliest Turkey's failed coup attempt? In July 2016, a section of the Turkish military launched a coordinated operation—by deploying soldiers, tanks on the streets of major Turkish cities—to topple the government and unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan . The Turkish government blamed Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish preacher who lives in the United States, for leading the July 15-16 attempted coup , though Gülen denied any involvement. In the aftermath of the coup attempt, Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MİT), the Turkish intelligence agency investigated and found that the ByLock messaging app was used as a communication tool by tens of thousands of Gülen movement followers to c

Popular Smartphone Messaging app  WhatsApp 's $19 billion acquisition by Social Network giant Facebook  made Headlines this week. While Some are applauding the move, and many other users are worried about WhatsApp's future and their privacy after this acquisition. Why So Serious? WhatsApp currently having 450 million active users and processes 50 billion messages a day. Service charges a nominal service fee of $1/year, that means Facebook is buying at $42.22 per user. $19 Billion / 450 million users  = $42.22 per user These figures show ,  obviously future revenue from WhatsApp can't cover the acquisition cost in the short or mid-term. " You can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication. There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product. " WhatsApp founder said in a  blog post . So, What Facebook is

What would require crashing the wildly popular WhatsApp messaging application? Nearly 4000 Smileys . Yes, you can crash your friends'  WhatsApp , both WhatsApp Web and mobile application, by sending them not any specially crafted messages, but just Smileys. Indrajeet Bhuyan , an independent researcher, has reported The Hacker News a new bug in WhatsApp that could allow anyone to remotely crash most popular messaging app just by sending nearly 4000 emojis to the target user, thereby affecting up to 1 Billion users. Bhuyan is the same researcher who reported a very popular WhatsApp crash bug last year that required 2000 words ( 2kb in size ) message in the special character set to remotely crash Whatsapp messenger app. After this discovery, the company patched the bug by setting up the limits of characters in WhatsApp text messages, but unfortunately, it failed to set up limits for smileys send via WhatsApp. "In WhatsApp Web, Whatsapp allows 65500-660

It seems like Facebook-owned popular messaging service WhatsApp is blocking links to rival messaging applications – at least Telegram app  for now. Telegram users are noticing that WhatsApp is blocking any links to the privacy-oriented messaging service Telegram.me. Although users are free to send or receive Telegram links on WhatsApp, the links appear as non-clickable that you cannot copy or forward. This strange behavior was first noticed this morning by Telegram users over on Reddit. The URLs – which are generally automatically made clickable – still appeared as plain text messages, but they didn't register as hyperlinks, blocking users from copying or forwarding them to other users or other apps. Read Also: How to Auto-BackUp Your WhatsApp Data to Google Drive with Encryption . In general, this odd behavior is done with malicious URLs such as malware or spam. The Culprit However, this strange behavior was not exhibited on every device. Only W

Facebook's Free Internet access to India has hit a hurdle: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI ) has ordered the mobile carrier to temporary suspend the Facebook's Free Basics Internet program. Facebook's Free Basics is an app that allows users to access certain Internet websites, including Facebook, for free. However, India's independent regulatory body has asked Reliance Communications – the only mobile carrier that provides Free Basics in India – to disable the free internet service temporarily while the regulator investigates whether the service violates net neutrality . Facebook's Free Basics – Free Internet for ALL Facebook introduced Free Basics ( then known as Internet.org ) app to India in February this year, offering people access to more than three dozen Web services for free. Users of Facebook's Free Basics app must have a Reliance mobile network and are limited to a range of portals including Wikipedia, BBC New

If you came across any Facebook message with a video link sent by anyone, even your friend — just don't click on it. Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted an ongoing cross-platform campaign on Facebook Messenger, where users receive a video link that redirects them to a fake website, luring them to install malicious software. Although it is still unclear how the malware spreads, researchers believe spammers are using compromised accounts, hijacked browsers, or clickjacking techniques to spread the malicious link. The attackers make use of social engineering to trick users into clicking the video link, which purports to be from one of their Facebook friends, with the message that reads "< your friend name > Video" followed by a bit.ly link, as shown. Here's How this Cross-Platform Malware Works: The URL redirects victims to a Google doc that displays a dynamically generated video thumbnail, like a playable movie, based on the sender'

APKPure, one of the largest alternative app stores outside of the Google Play Store, was infected with malware this week, allowing threat actors to distribute Trojans to Android devices. In a supply-chain attack similar to that of German telecommunications  equipment manufacturer Gigaset , the APKPure client version 3.17.18 is said to have been tampered with in an attempt to trick unsuspecting users into downloading and installing malicious applications linked to the malicious code built into the APKpure app. The development was reported by researchers from  Doctor Web  and  Kaspersky . "This trojan belongs to the dangerous Android.Triada malware family capable of downloading, installing and uninstalling software without users' permission," Doctor Web researchers said. According to Kaspersky, the APKPure version 3.17.18 was tweaked to incorporate an advertisement SDK that acts as a Trojan dropper designed to deliver other malware to a victim's device. "This

If you own an iPhone or an Android device, then the chances are high that you're familiar with the extremely popular cross-platform messaging app, WhatsApp. According to a whitehat hacker Mohammed Saeed , Whatsapp media server ( media.whatsapp.com ) interface was vulnerable to Traversal local file inclusion. This vulnerability occurs when a page include is not properly sanitized, and allows directory traversal characters to be injected. Flaw allowed hacker to gather usernames via an " /etc/passwd " file and also another sensitive files like log files i.e   "/apache/logs/error.log" or " /apache/logs/access.log ". Flaw was reported by Mohammed with proof of conpect to Whatsapp security team on 27th May and was addressed this week. If you are also penetration tester and have something buggy that can help Whatsapp team to make there service more secure, feel free to contact them at  support@whatsapp.com .

Can feds force you to unlock your iPhone or Android phone? ..."NO" A Northern California judge has ruled that federal authorities can't force you to unlock your smartphone using your fingerprints or other biometric features such as facial recognition—even with a warrant. The ruling came in the case of two unspecified suspects allegedly using Facebook Messenger to threaten a man with the release of an "embarrassing video" to the public if he did not hand over money. The federal authorities requested a search warrant for an Oakland residence, seeking to seize multiple devices connected to the suspects and then compel anybody on the premises at the time of their visit to unlock the devices using fingerprint, facial or iris recognition. However, Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California turned down the request, ruling the request was "overbroad and neither limited to a particular person nor

A credential stealer infamous for targeting Windows systems has resurfaced in a new phishing campaign that aims to steal credentials from Microsoft Outlook, Google Chrome, and instant messenger apps. Primarily directed against users in Turkey, Latvia, and Italy starting mid-January, the attacks involve the use of  MassLogger  — a .NET-based malware with capabilities to hinder static analysis — building on similar campaigns undertaken by the same actor against users in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, and Spain in September, October, and November 2020. MassLogger was first spotted in the wild last April, but the presence of a new variant implies malware authors are constantly retooling their arsenal to evade detection and monetize them. "Although operations of the Masslogger trojan have been previously documented, we found the new campaign notable for using the compiled HTML file format to start the infection chain," researchers with Cisco Talos  said  on W

The malware known as DirtyMoe has gained new worm-like propagation capabilities that allow it to expand its reach without requiring any user interaction, the latest research has found. "The worming module targets older well-known vulnerabilities, e.g.,  EternalBlue  and  Hot Potato  Windows privilege escalation," Avast researcher Martin Chlumecký  said  in a report published Wednesday. "One worm module can generate and attack hundreds of thousands of private and public IP addresses per day; many victims are at risk since many machines still use unpatched systems or weak passwords." Active since 2016, the  DirtyMoe botnet  is used for carrying out cryptojacking and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and is deployed by means of external exploit kits like  Purple Fox  or injected installers of Telegram Messenger. Also employed as part of the attack sequence is a DirtyMoe service that triggers the launch of two additional processes, namely the Core and

Last week, we exclusively reported that the popular messenger Viber was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, and Support page was defaced with the message, " The Israeli-based - Viber is spying and tracking you. " Today we found that Viber's Apple App Store description has been defaced as well. The new modified description read " We created this app to spy on you, PLEASE DOWNLOAD IT! ", It's not clear at this point if this new hack is also performed by  Syrian Electronic Army or not, but it is possible that the hackers have gained access to the other various developer-facing functions. Viber later responded after a previous attack that one of its employee's fell victim to a phishing attach and attackers could gain access to a customer support panel and support administration system, insisting that no sensitive user data was exposed. Last week, SEA was able to access the Popular messaging app Tango's website and also a World's biggest

Oh Microsoft, How could you do this to your own Internet Explorer? Microsoft had kept hidden a critical Zero-Day vulnerability of Internet explorer 8 from all of us, since October 2013. A Critical zero-day Internet Explorer vulnerability ( CVE-2014-1770 ), which was discovered by Peter 'corelanc0d3r' Van Eeckhoutte in October 2013 just goes public today by the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) website . Zero Day Initiative is a program for rewarding security researchers for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities. ZDI reportedly disclosed the vulnerability to Microsoft when it was first identified by one of its researchers, on which Microsoft responded 4 month later on February 2014 and confirmed the flaw, but neither the Microsoft patch the vulnerability nor it disclosed any details about it. But due to ZDI's 180 days public notification policy, they are obligated to publicly disclosed the details of a Zero-Day vulnerability. ZDI warned Microsoft several days ago ab

Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), hacking group known for cyber attacks against the anti-Syrian websites, has claimed that it has hacked the website of messaging application, Tango (tango.me), that includes hundreds of millions of electronic and voice data over the Internet. Hacker group tweeted a message on Twitter. " Sorry @TangoMe, We needed your database too, thank you for it! https://tango.me #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy ". In a post on their website , hackers mentioned ," The databases content a of millions of the app user's phone numbers, contacts and their emails. More than 1.5 TB of the daily-backups of the servers network has been downloaded successfully " Screenshot of the backups folder of the servers network of Tango App as shown below: Screenshot of the Tango App log : The outdated version of wordpress CMS allowed them to gain unauthorized access to the database server. At the time of reporting, administrators redirect the website t

WordPress sites are being targeted by a previously unknown strain of Linux malware that exploits flaws in over two dozen plugins and themes to compromise vulnerable systems. "If sites use outdated versions of such add-ons, lacking crucial fixes, the targeted web pages are injected with malicious JavaScripts," Russian security vendor Doctor Web  said  in a report published last week. "As a result, when users click on any area of an attacked page, they are redirected to other sites." The attacks involve weaponizing a list of known security vulnerabilities in 19 different plugins and themes that are likely installed on a WordPress site, using it to deploy an implant that can target a specific website to further expand the network. It's also capable of injecting JavaScript code retrieved from a remote server in order to redirect the site visitors to an arbitrary website of the attacker's choice. Doctor Web said it identified a second version of the backdoor

In the fight against encryption , Apple has positioned itself as a staunch defender of its user privacy by refusing the federal officials to provide encryption backdoors into its products, as well as implementing better encryption for its products. However, a new report from a security firm suggests Apple's online syncing service iCloud secretly stores logs of its users' private information for as long as four months — even when iCloud backup is switched off. Russian digital forensics firm Elcomsoft discovered that Apple's mobile devices automatically send its users' call history to the company's servers if iCloud is enabled, and stored that data for up to four months. And it turns out that there is no way for iCloud users to stop this phone call syncing service unless they completely disable the cloud synchronization feature. Elcomsoft, which sells software to extract data from Apple's iCloud backups and works with police and intelligence agencies,