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New Attack Lets Hackers Decrypt VoLTE Encryption to Spy on Phone Calls

New Attack Lets Hackers Decrypt VoLTE Encryption to Spy on Phone Calls

Aug 13, 2020
A team of academic researchers—who previously made the headlines earlier this year for uncovering severe security issues in the 4G LTE and 5G networks —today presented a new attack called ' ReVoLTE ,' that could let remote attackers break the encryption used by VoLTE voice calls and spy on targeted phone calls. The attack doesn't exploit any flaw in the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) protocol; instead, it leverages weak implementation of the LTE mobile network by most telecommunication providers in practice, allowing an attacker to eavesdrop on the encrypted phone calls made by targeted victims. VoLTE or Voice over Long Term Evolution protocol is a standard high-speed wireless communication for mobile phones and data terminals, including Internet of things (IoT) devices and wearables, deploying 4G LTE radio access technology. The crux of the problem is that most mobile operators often use the same keystream for two subsequent calls within one radio connection to encrypt th...
Hijacking WhatsApp Account in Seconds Using This Simple Trick

Hijacking WhatsApp Account in Seconds Using This Simple Trick

Jun 05, 2015
The hugely popular smartphone messaging service WhatsApp, acquired by Facebook for over $20 billion last year, has reportedly been found to be prone to hijacking without unlocking or knowing your device password, making its hundreds of Millions of users vulnerable to, not just hackers, but also non-technical people. This trick lets anyone surrounds you to get effectively control over your WhatsApp account. The attacker needs nothing more than a phone number of the target person and access to the target mobile phone for a few seconds, even if it is locked. Hacking Whatsapp account in such scenario is not hard for your friends and colleagues. This is not actually a loophole or vulnerability in WhatsApp, and rather it is just the way WhatsApp is designed and its account setup mechanism works. NOTE: Moreover, we aren't encouraging users to hack others WhatsApp account , but the purpose of publishing this article is to warn and remind our readers that you should be extr...
Six ways your phone can be illegally tapped !

Six ways your phone can be illegally tapped !

Feb 20, 2011
Phone tapping in India has become a national concern with a leading operator revealing that at peak there are upto 100 phone tapping requests a day. In India there are ten major operators, at a conservative average of 50 taps a day per operator, there would be 182,000 authorized phone taps each year.  Not a significant number for a country of 500 million cell phones considering the real need to tap corrupt officials, drug dealers, suspected terrorists, mafia and other antisocial elements. To meet this requirement over 2000 such phone tapping equipment was imported by private security agencies, large businesses besides police and government agencies. Since phone taps are authorized only by the government, it is quite probable that some of the equipment in private hands is being used illegally for spying on politicians and businessmen.  There are six ways in which modern phone systems can be illegally tapped for corporate espionage and spying: 1)   Use of Over the Air t...
cyber security

2025 Cloud Security Risk Report

websiteSentinelOneCloud Security / Artificial Intelligence
Learn 5 key risks to cloud security such as cloud credential theft, lateral movements, AI services, and more.
cyber security

Most AI Risk Isn't in Models, It's in Your SaaS Stack

websiteRecoAI Security / (SaaS Security
Your models aren't the problem. The sprawl of your SaaS apps, AI and agents are. Here's where to start.
Saudi Prince Allegedly Hacked World's Richest Man Jeff Bezos Using WhatsApp

Saudi Prince Allegedly Hacked World's Richest Man Jeff Bezos Using WhatsApp

Jan 22, 2020
The iPhone of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos , the world's richest man, was reportedly hacked in May 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message from the personal account of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman , the Guardian newspaper revealed today. Citing unnamed sources familiar with digital forensic analysis of the breach, the newspaper claimed that a massive amount of data was exfiltrated from Bezos's phone within hours after he received a malicious video file from the Saudi prince. The mysterious file was sent when crown prince Salman and Bezos were having a friendly WhatsApp conversation, and it's 'highly probable' that it exploited an undisclosed zero-day vulnerability of WhatsApp messenger to install malware on Bezos's iPhone. "The forensic analysis found that within hours of receipt of the MP4 video file from the Crown Prince's account, massive and (for Bezos' phone) unprecedented exfiltration of data from the phone began, increasing da...
iPhone Secretly Sends Your Call History to Apple Even If iCloud Backups are Turned Off

iPhone Secretly Sends Your Call History to Apple Even If iCloud Backups are Turned Off

Nov 18, 2016
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,...
Hackers can spy on your calls and track location, using just your phone number

Hackers can spy on your calls and track location, using just your phone number

Apr 19, 2016
In Brief The famous '60 Minutes' television show shocked some viewers Sunday evening when a team of German hackers demonstrated how they spied on an iPhone used by U.S. Congressman, then recorded his phone calls and tracked his movement through Los Angeles. Hackers leverage a security flaw in SS7 (Signalling System Seven) protocol that allows hackers to track phone locations, listen in on calls and text messages. The global telecom network SS7 is still vulnerable to several security flaws that could let hackers and spy agencies listen to personal phone calls and intercept SMSes on a potentially massive scale, despite the most advanced encryption used by cellular networks. All one need is the target's phone number to track him/her anywhere on the planet and even eavesdrop on the conversations. SS7 or Signalling System Number 7 is a telephony signaling protocol used by more than 800 telecommunication operators around the world to exchange information with one ...
Phone Phreaking using Bluebox Demonstrated in India

Phone Phreaking using Bluebox Demonstrated in India

Apr 15, 2012
Phone Phreaking  using Bluebox   Demonstrated  in India Christy Philip Mathew , an Indian Information Security Instructor and Hacker demonstrated Phone Phreaking  using Bluebox in his lab. This time we have something really special that would remind us the phone phreaking. Actually Phone Phreaking reminds us about the life of Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak and John Drapper, mean the olden times when they used to play around with the bluebox. What is Blue Box : This device is certainly one of the most unique pieces of electronic equipment that I have been able to collect so far. It is essentially a hacking tool disguised to look like a common 1970's Texas Instruments hand held electronic calculator. Basically a real calculator was sacrificed and modified to produce audio frequency signaling tones which allowed the user to freely (and illegally) access the Bell Telephone System long distance network. The origin of the name " blue box " was due to the f...
Call spoofing - Evolution of Cybercrime in Growing Children

Call spoofing - Evolution of Cybercrime in Growing Children

Dec 23, 2011
Call spoofing - Evolution of Cybercrime in Growing Children The Hacker News & 5 Other Top IT Security Sites are Sponsoring a Special Edition January 2012 Magazine under a Cyber Security Awareness Campaign called " ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK ". Our goal is to provide the most up-to-date information on a wide variety of topics that address the tricky and complicated world of hackers and hacking. Lets know about " Call spoofing " and How much easy it is for kids to do Call spoofing. First of all the term ' cyber crime ' is a misnomer. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. Both include conduct whether act or omission, which cause breach of rules of law and counterbalanced by the sanction of the state. Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality, target or a means for perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime. The computer may be used as a tool in the follo...
New SIM Card Flaw Lets Hackers Hijack Any Phone Just By Sending SMS

New SIM Card Flaw Lets Hackers Hijack Any Phone Just By Sending SMS

Sep 12, 2019
Cybersecurity researchers today revealed the existence of a new and previously undetected critical vulnerability in SIM cards that could allow remote attackers to compromise targeted mobile phones and spy on victims just by sending an SMS. Dubbed " SimJacker ," the vulnerability resides in a particular piece of software, called the S@T Browser (a dynamic SIM toolkit), embedded on most SIM cards that is widely being used by mobile operators in at least 30 countries and can be exploited regardless of which handsets victims are using. What's worrisome? A specific private company that works with governments is actively exploiting the SimJacker vulnerability from at least the last two years to conduct targeted surveillance on mobile phone users across several countries. S@T Browser , short for SIMalliance Toolbox Browser, is an application that comes installed on a variety of SIM cards, including eSIM, as part of SIM Tool Kit (STK) and has been designed to let mobile...
New Android Malware Secretly Records Phone Calls and Steals Private Data

New Android Malware Secretly Records Phone Calls and Steals Private Data

Apr 03, 2018
Security researchers at Cisco Talos have uncovered variants of a new Android Trojan that are being distributed in the wild disguising as a fake anti-virus application, dubbed "Naver Defender." Dubbed KevDroid , the malware is a remote administration tool (RAT) designed to steal sensitive information from compromised Android devices, as well as capable of recording phone calls. Talos researchers published Monday technical details about two recent variants of KevDroid detected in the wild, following the initial discovery of the Trojan by South Korean cybersecurity firm ESTsecurity two weeks ago. Though researchers haven't attributed the malware to any hacking or state-sponsored group, South Korean media have linked KevDroid with North Korea state-sponsored cyber espionage hacking group " Group 123 ," primarily known for targeting South Korean targets. The most recent variant of KevDroid malware, detected in March this year, has the following capabilit...
Premium-Rate Phone Fraudsters Hack VoIP Servers of 1200 Companies

Premium-Rate Phone Fraudsters Hack VoIP Servers of 1200 Companies

Nov 05, 2020
Cybersecurity researchers today took the wraps off an on-going cyber fraud operation led by hackers in Gaza, West Bank, and Egypt to compromise VoIP servers of more than 1,200 organizations across 60 countries over the past 12 months. According to findings published by Check Point Research, the threat actors — believed to be located in the Palestinian Gaza Strip — have targeted Sangoma PBX, an open-sourced user interface that's used to manage and control Asterisk VoIP phone systems, particularly the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servers. "Hacking SIP servers and gaining control allows hackers to abuse them in several ways," the cybersecurity firm noted in its analysis. "One of the more complex and interesting ways is abusing the servers to make outgoing phone calls, which are also used to generate profits. Making calls is a legitimate feature, therefore it's hard to detect when a server has been exploited." By selling phone numbers, call plans, and...
British Hacker Accused of Blackmailing healthcare Firms Extradited to U.S.

British Hacker Accused of Blackmailing healthcare Firms Extradited to U.S.

Dec 19, 2019
A British man suspected to be a member of ' The Dark Overlord ,' an infamous international hacking group, has finally been extradited to the United States after being held for over two years in the United Kingdom. Nathan Francis Wyatt , 39, appeared in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, on Wednesday to face charges related to his role in hacking healthcare and accounting companies in the U.S. and then threatening to publish stolen information unless victims paid a ransom in Bitcoin. According to a court indictment unsealed yesterday, Wyatt faces one count of conspiracy, two counts of aggravated identity theft and three counts of threatening to damage a protected computer. However, the suspect has not yet pledged guilty to any of the charges in the U.S. federal court, where he appeared after fighting for 11 months to avoid being extradited from Britain. Cyber Attacks by The Dark Overlord Group British police first arrested Wyatt in September 2016 during an inves...
FBI Deputy Director's Email Hacked by Teenager Who Hacked CIA Chief

FBI Deputy Director's Email Hacked by Teenager Who Hacked CIA Chief

Nov 06, 2015
The same group of teenage hackers that hacked the AOL email account of the CIA director John Brennan two weeks ago has now hacked into AOL email accounts of the FBI Deputy Director, Mark Giuliano and his wife. Yesterday, Cracka , a member of the teenage hacktivist group known as ' Crackas With Attitude ' (CWA) posted a new trove of information belong to thousands of government employees online; however they claim to have accessed far more than that. The hackers claimed to have obtained the personal information by hacking into AOL email accounts of the Giuliano and his wife. More Than 3,500 Government Employees Doxxed The published information includes more than 3,500 names, email addresses and contact numbers of law enforcement and military personnel. Though the FBI officials couldn't immediately verify the claims, Infowars has confirmed the authenticity of several people listed, which includes everyone from local police officers to FBI and mili...
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