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Yes, you heard me right. Microsoft is taking another step forward to show its love for Linux and open source community by shipping a full Linux kernel in Windows 10 this summer. No, that doesn't mean Microsoft is making its Windows 10 a Linux distro, but the company will begin to ship an in-house custom built Linux kernel later this year starting with the Windows 10 Insider builds. Microsoft announced the move in a blog post while unveiling Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2.0 (or WSL 2 ) that will feature "dramatic file system performance increases" and support more Linux apps like Docker. So, to support this entirely new architecture for the WSL 2, Windows 10 will have its own Linux kernel. Although this is not the first time Microsoft has shipped a Linux kernel as the company has already shipped its own custom Linux kernel on Azure Sphere  last year, this is the first time a Linux kernel is shipped with Windows. Unlike Windows Subsystem for Linux version...

A hacker claims to have found a method in the code integrity mechanism in Windows RT, that allow one to bypass security mechanism preventing unauthorized software running on ARM-powered Windows RT tablets. Lets see, How to Run traditional desktop apps on Windows RT in a Hackers  Way! A hacker called ' C. L. Rokr ' explain about the Windows RT exploit on his blog , which requires manipulating a part of Windows RT's system memory that governs whether unsigned apps can run. Windows RT is a special version of Microsoft Windows designed for lightweight PCs and tablets that are based on the ARM architecture, including Microsoft's Surface tablet.  Clrokr said Windows RT inherited a flaw from Windows 8 that makes the workaround possible. " Ironically, a vulnerability in the Windows kernel that has existed for some time and got ported to ARM just like the rest of Windows made this possible, ". Specifically, one needs to inject a blob of ARM code int...

Microsoft said it is developing security updates to address two loopholes that it said could be abused to stage downgrade attacks against the Windows update architecture and replace current versions of the operating system files with older versions. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2024-38202 (CVSS score: 7.3) - Windows Update Stack Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-21302 (CVSS score: 6.7) - Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Credited with discovering and reporting the flaws is SafeBreach Labs researcher Alon Leviev, who presented the findings at Black Hat USA 2024 and DEF CON 32 . CVE-2024-38202, which is rooted in the Windows Backup component, allows an "attacker with basic user privileges to reintroduce previously mitigated vulnerabilities or circumvent some features of Virtualization Based Security (VBS)," the tech giant said. It, however, noted that an attacker attempting to leverage the flaw would have to c...

Unlike the initial reports suggested about Intel chips being vulnerable to some severe ‘memory leaking’ flaws, full technical details about the vulnerabilities have now been emerged, which revealed that almost every modern processor since 1995 is vulnerable to the issues. Disclosed today by Google Project Zero , the vulnerabilities potentially impact all major CPUs, including those from AMD, ARM, and Intel—threatening almost all PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones, regardless of manufacturer or operating system. These hardware vulnerabilities have been categorized into two attacks , named Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) and Spectre (CVE-2017-5753 and CVE-2017-5715), which could allow attackers to steal sensitive data which is currently processed on the computer. Both attacks take advantage of a feature in chips known as "speculative execution," a technique used by most modern CPUs to optimize performance. "In order to improve performance, many CPUs may choose t...

Microsoft today said it will affair 12 aegis updates abutting anniversary to application 22 vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer (IE), Windows, its Internet server and Visio, the company's abstracts diagramming tool. The aggregation additionally appear it will accommodate patches abutting Tuesday for three bugs it has already acknowledged, including one that has been exploited by abyss for several weeks. "The big account is that there are three zero-days that are actuality patched," said Andrew Storms, administrator of aegis operations at nCircle Security, talking about the leash of accepted flaws. Of the three unpatched-but-admitted vulnerabilities, one is in IE, a additional is in Windows' apprehension of thumbnail images and the third is in IIS (Internet Advice Server), Microsoft's accepted Web server software. Microsoft accustomed the IE bug on Dec. 22, several weeks afterwards French aegis close Vupen issued a bare-bones advising that said all version...

Microsoft on Tuesday shipped fixes to address a total of 90 security flaws , including 10 zero-days, of which six have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 90 bugs, nine are rated Critical, 80 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is also in addition to 36 vulnerabilities that the tech giant resolved in its Edge browser since last month. The Patch Tuesday updates are notable for addressing six actively exploited zero-days - CVE-2024-38189 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Microsoft Project Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2024-38178 (CVSS score: 7.5) - Windows Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability CVE-2024-38193 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-38106 (CVSS score: 7.0) - Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-38107 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Power Dependency Coordinator Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-38213 (CVS...

It's be Just hours Windows Phone 8 has been released - and hackers have already dished out a malware prototype for the platform. Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system. Windows Phone 8 Microsoft’s latest in mobile OS technology - comes in as a direct competition to rivals Apple and Google. The research firm Gartner indicates that by 2016 the increase in Windows Phone users will slightly fall below Apple`s iOS users. To be showcased at the International Malware Conference, MalCon - on 24th November in India, the prototype has been created by Shantanu Gawde, who has previously created a malware that utilized the famed Xbox Kinect. Windows Phone 8 replaces its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based on the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8, allowing applications to be easily ported between the two platforms. While no further details of the malware are available at this point of time, it will ...

Details have emerged about a now-patched actively exploited security flaw in Microsoft Windows that could be abused by a threat actor to gain elevated privileges on affected systems. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2023-29336 , is rated 7.8 for severity and concerns an elevation of privilege bug in the Win32k component. "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," Microsoft  disclosed  in an advisory issued last month as part of Patch Tuesday updates. Avast researchers Jan Vojtěšek, Milánek, and Luigino Camastra were credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. Win32k.sys is a kernel-mode driver and an integral part of the Windows architecture, being responsible for graphical device interface (GUI) and window management. While the exact specifics surrounding in-the-wild abuse of the flaw is presently not known, Numen Cyber has deconstructed the patch released by Microsoft to craft a proof-of-concept ( PoC ) expl...

A new variant of the Spectre (Variant 1)  side-channel vulnerability has been discovered that affects all  modern Intel CPUs , and probably some AMD processors as well, which leverage speculative execution for high performance, Microsoft and Red Hat warned. Identified as CVE-2019-1125, the vulnerability could allow unprivileged local attackers to access sensitive information stored in the operating system privileged kernel memory, including passwords, tokens, and encryption keys, that would otherwise be inaccessible. Speculative execution is a core component of modern microprocessor design that speculatively executes instructions based on assumptions that are considered likely to be true. If the assumptions come out to be valid, the execution continues, otherwise discarded. Such speculative executions also have side effects that are not restored when the CPU state is unwound, leading to information disclosure, which can then be accessed using side-channel attacks . ...

TrueCrypt , the popular and reputed open source file and disk encryption Software for Windows, OSX and Linux, has abruptly closed down Wednesday recommending its users to use Microsoft's Bitlocker. TrueCrypt is a free, open-source and cross-platform encryption program, thereby one of the world's most-used encryption tool, trusted by tens of millions of users and recommended by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden . TRUECRYPT IS NOT SECURE On Wednesday afternoon, the users of TrueCrypt encryption tool redirected to the project's official SourceForge-hosted page that displays a mysterious security warning message that the popular encryption tool has been discontinued and that users should switch to an alternative. The official website for the TrueCrypt software warns the user that the open source encryption software is no longer secure and informs that the development of the software has been terminated. At the top of TrueCrypt page on SourceForge display...

Windows 8 PCs contain a new technology called Secure Boot that only boots devices that have been verified by Microsoft. Also Microsoft's own Offline Defender won't boot on Windows 8 PCs with Secure Boot on. Neither will Norton's Bootable Recovery Tool. We asked the guys at FixMeStick how their external hardware-based anti-malware device can boot on brand new Windows 8 hardware with Secure boot on, as well as 10 year old PCs with 32 processors running XP. Here's their answer: 1. It got a Master Boot Record. : In other words, it boots on BIOS-based PCs, essentially all PCs prior to Windows 8. 2. and it got UEFI boot partition : It also got a UEFI boot partition, so it will boot on PCs with the latest UEFI firmware too. 3. It's 32 bit : There's a 32 bit operating system on the stick so it will work with 32 bit microprocessors. Most rescue ISOs\disks are 32 bit only, so by default they work on 32 bit processors and 64 bit processors. 4. and it's 64...

Are you using Linux or Mac OS? If you think your system is not prone to viruses, then you should read this. Wide-range of cybercriminals are now using a new piece of 'undetectable' spying malware that targets Windows, macOS, Solaris and Linux systems. Just last week we published a detailed article on the report from EFF/Lookout that revealed a new advanced persistent threat (APT) group, called Dark Caracal , engaged in global mobile espionage campaigns. Although the report revealed about the group's successful large-scale hacking operations against mobile phones rather than computers, it also shed light on a new piece of cross-platform malware called CrossRAT (version 0.1), which is believed to be developed by, or for, the Dark Caracal group. CrossRAT is a cross-platform remote access Trojan that can target all four popular desktop operating systems, Windows, Solaris, Linux, and macOS, enabling remote attackers to manipulate the file system, take screenshots, ru...

Security researchers claimed to have discovered 13 critical Spectre/Meltdown -like vulnerabilities throughout AMD's Ryzen and EPYC lines of processors that could allow attackers to access sensitive data, install persistent malware inside the chip, and gain full access to the compromised systems. All these vulnerabilities reside in the secure part of the AMD's Zen architecture processors and chipsets—typically where device stores sensitive information such as passwords and encryption keys and makes sure nothing malicious is running when you start your PC. The alleged vulnerabilities are categorized into four classes—RYZENFALL, FALLOUT, CHIMERA, and MASTERKEY—and threaten wide-range of servers, workstations, and laptops running vulnerable AMD Ryzen, Ryzen Pro, Ryzen Mobile or EPYC processors. Discovered by a team of researchers at Israel-based CTS-Labs, newly disclosed  unpatched vulnerabilities defeat AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology and could ...

Is TrueCrypt Audited Yet? Yes, In Part!  One of the world's most-used open source file encryption software trusted by tens of millions of users - TrueCrypt is being audited by a team of experts to assess if it could be easily exploited and cracked. Hopefully it has cleared the first phase of the audit and given a relatively clean bill of health. TrueCrypt is a free, open-source and cross-platform encryption program available for Windows, OSX and Linux that can be used to encrypt individual folders or encrypt entire hard drive partitions including the system partition.  The program is also capable to do some amazing things, such as can create a hidden operating system on a computer, essentially an OS within an OS where users can keep their most secret files. EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE TrueCrypt developers are anonymous and used the aliases “ ennead ” and “ syncon ”, perhaps to avoid unwelcome attention from their own governments. But when we talk about ...

The U.S. government on Wednesday warned of nation-state actors deploying specialized malware to maintain access to industrial control systems (ICS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) devices. "The APT actors have developed custom-made tools for targeting ICS/SCADA devices," multiple U.S. agencies  said  in an alert. "The tools enable them to scan for, compromise, and control affected devices once they have established initial access to the operational technology (OT) network." The joint federal advisory comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The custom-made tools are specifically designed to single out Schneider Electric programmable logic controllers (PLCs), OMRON Sysmac NEX PLCs, and Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) servers. On top of that, the unnamed actors...