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Google has once again released the details of a new privilege escalation bug in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system before Microsoft planned to patch the bug, triggering a new quarrel between the two tech giants. This is second time in less than a month when the Google's security research team known as Project Zero released details of the vulnerability in Microsoft's operating system, following its 90-day public disclosure deadline policy. Google Project Zero team routinely finds vulnerabilities in different products from different companies. The vulnerabilities then get reported to the affected software vendors and if they do not patch the flaws in 90 days, Google automatically makes the vulnerability along with its details public. DISCLOSURE OF TWO SECURITY HOLES IN LESS THAN A MONTH Two weeks back, Google Project Zero team disclosed details of an elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerability  affecting Windows 8.1 that may have allowed hackers to modify cont

Security researchers have disclosed local zero day DLL hijacking vulnerabilities in several applications developed by Corel Software that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on victims' computer, potentially affecting more than 100 million users. The security holes were publicly disclosed by Marcos Accossatto from a vulnerability research firm Core Security after the vendor didn't respond to his private disclosure about the flaws. Corel develops wide range of products including graphics, photo, video and other media editing programs. According to the researcher, when a media file associated with one of the vulnerable Corel products is opened, the product also loads a specifically named DLL (Dynamic Link Library) file into memory if it's located in the same directory as the opened media file. These DLL files contain executable code which could allow an attacker to install malware on victims' computers by inserting malicious DLLs into the

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

Security researcher has developed a cheap USB wall charger that is capable to eavesdrop on almost any   Microsoft   wireless  keyboard . MySpace mischief-maker Samy Kamkar has released a super-creepy keystroke logger for Microsoft wireless keyboards cunningly hidden in what appears to be a rather cheap, but functioning USB wall charger. The stealthy Arduino-based device, dubbed " KeySweeper ", looks and functions just like a generic USB mobile charger, but actually sniffs, decrypts, logs, and reports back all keystrokes from a Microsoft wireless keyboard. " KeySweeper is a stealthy Ardunio-based device camouflaged as a wall charger that wirelessly sniffs, decrypts, logs and reports-back all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboard in the vicinity," Kamkar said. The security researcher has also released instructions on how to build the USB wall charger online and surprisinglyits is cheap to build and quite capable. KeySweeper includes a web

Multiple successors of the original Silk Road have come and all have been taken offline in recent years, but aside from selling illegal goods and services, they all have had one thing in common – they've all relied on the Tor network. A new version of the anonymous online black market Silk Road, has re-appeared on the dark web, but this time the website doesn't rely on the now infamous Tor network and neither it deals in only Bitcoins. The new version of the notorious online black market, dubbed " Silk Road Reload​ed ", launched Sunday on the little-known " I2P " anonymous network, dealing with a range of cryptocurrencies including the meme-inspired Dogecoin. In short, apart from the name, there is no connection between the original Silk Road website and the newly launched Silk Road Reloaded . Silk Road Reloaded is only accessible by downloading the special software called I2P (Invisible Internet Project) , or by configuring your systems

The terrible terrorist attacks in France forced the British Prime Minister David Cameron to consider banning the popular encrypted online messaging apps like Snapchat , CryptoCat ,  WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage unless the companies don't give the UK government backdoor access to their encrypted communications. Speaking at a public event in the UK this morning, Cameron said that if he wins the next election and re-elected, he would seek to ban the encrypted communication apps as part of his plans for new surveillance powers in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris . The British Prime Minister said the Paris terror attacks, including the one last week on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, outlined the need for greater access on the encrypted communications. In his remarks, the attacks were aimed at messaging apps that encrypt messages to secure users' communications. " The attacks in Paris demonstrated the scale of the threat that we face and th

The official Twitter and YouTube accounts for the US military's Central Command ( CENTCOM ) that oversees operations in Central Asia and the Middle East were hacked on Monday by a hacker group claiming association with Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS. The hacker group, appears to call itself " CyberCaliphate ", managed to gain access to the CENTCOM social accounts, and posted some screenshots of documents, allegedly internal CENTCOM documents, with links to what they described as leaked military files. Meanwhile, YouTube page related to the US military's Central Command was set to display propaganda videos in support of the terrorist group ISIS. On Twitter, the group posted a Pastebin message that declared " Pentagon networks hacked. AMERICAN SOLDIERS WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS. #CyberCaliphate . " Originally, a statement posted on pastebin shared by the compromised CENTCOM account reads: " US and its satelli

Microsoft began issuing Patch Tuesday updates publically in advance over ten years ago, but from next every second Tuesday of the Month, if you want to see what security patches Microsoft is going to issue, then you will have to pay for it. UPDATE ALERTS FOR PAID CUSTOMERS ONLY Yes right, Microsoft has decided to ditch its Advanced Notification Service (ANS) and will no longer be releasing a public blog post to preview what is to come on Patch Tuesday. Microsoft is facing fierce criticism by industry experts for its decision to make advanced security bulletin available only to those who pay a premium. Note: Only advance notifications are now paid, but security updates/patches are free. NO MORE "OUT-OF-BAND" PUBLIC SECURITY ALERTS In the post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog , Chris Betz, senior director at Microsoft's security research arm, said: " more and more customers today are seeking to cut through the clutter and obtain s

The hackers group responsible for the last year's largest hacking attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment left many clues which proves that the Sony's hackers , who called themselves Guardians of Peace (GOP) , linked to North Korea, as claimed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) at Fordham University in New York on Wednesday, the director of the FBI defended his bureau's claim and said that the North Korean government was involved in the massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures – saying skeptics " don't have the facts that I have ." " There's not much I have high confidence about, " James Comey said, as reported by the FBI New York field office's official Twitter feed. " I have very high confidence... on North Korea. " According to Comey, the hackers usually relied on proxy connections to hide their real IP address each time they sent threatening

The popular copy and paste website ' Pastebin ' created a decade ago for software developers and even by hackers groups to share source code, dumps and stolen data, has more recently been leveraged by cyber criminals to target millions of users. Compromising a website and then hosting malware on it has become an old tactic for hackers, and now they are trying their hands in compromising vast majority of users in a single stroke. Researchers have discovered that hackers are now using Pastebin to spread malicious backdoor code. According to a blog post published yesterday by a senior malware researcher at Sucuri , Denis Sinegubko, the hackers are leveraging the weakness in older versions of the RevSlider , a popular and a premium WordPress plugin. The plugin comes packaged and bundled into the websites' themes in such a way that many website owners don't even know they have it. In order to exploit the vulnerability, first hackers look for a RevSlider plugin i

Security researchers have uncovered a malvertising campaign used to distribute malware to visitors of The Huffington Post website, as well as several other sites, through malicious advertisements served over the AOL  advertising  network . At the end of last year, Cyphort Labs, security firm specialized in detecting malware threats, came across some malicious advertisements that were being served on the United States and Canadian versions of the popular news website The Huffington Post . The malicious advertisements eventually redirected visitors of the news website to other websites hosting exploit kits, in order to attack victims' computers and install malware. Researchers discovered that the malvertising campaign originates with ads being served by AOL's Advertising.com network. Once clicked, users are redirected through a series of redirects, some of which used HTTPS encrypted connections, to a page that served either the Neutrino Exploit Kit or the Sweet Orange E