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Google is planning to make Chrome faster in order to provide its users fast Internet browsing experience. Thanks to a new, open-source data and web compression algorithm for the Internet called Brotli , which Google announced last year to boost its web page performance. With Brotli, Google will speed up Chrome and users could get a significant performance boost in coming months. Google introduced Brotli last September and claimed that the new algorithm is a "whole new data format" that could reduce file sizes by up to 26 percent higher than Zopfli , the company's three-year-old web compression technology. Net result – Fast Internet Browsing In a post on Google+ on Tuesday, web performance engineer at Google Ilya Grigorik announced that the new algorithm is coming to Chrome soon, which will change the way files are compressed, improving loading speeds by a quarter. Besides faster loading speeds, Brotli also have additional benefits for smartphone users, which

Some things online can never change like -- Terrible Passwords by Humans . When it's about various security measures to be taken in order to protect your Internet security, like installing a good anti-virus or running Linux on your system doesn't mean that your work gets over here, and you are safe enough from online threats. However, even after countless warnings, most people are continuously using deadly-simple passwords, like '123456' or 'password,' to safeguard their most sensitive data. Evidence suggests that weak passwords are as popular now as they ever were, and the top 25 passwords of 2015 are very easy to guess. Password management firm SplashData on Tuesday released its annual " Worst Passwords List ". The 2015 list almost resembled the 2014 list of the worst password, but there are some interesting new entries, including the Star Wars-inspired ' solo ,' and ' starwars .' Also Read:  Best Password Manager —

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,

Apple to make future iPhones compatible with a cutting-edge technology that has the capability to transmit data at 100 times the speed of WiFi , suggests the code found within the iOS firmware. Apple may ship future iPhones with Li-Fi capabilities, a new technology that may end up replacing the widely-used Wi-Fi in the future technology. Beginning with iOS 9.1 update, the operating system's source code makes mention of " LiFiCapability " alongside declarations to other hardware and software capabilities, hinting that Apple may be experimenting with ways to integrate Li-Fi technology with future iPhones models. Li-Fi compatibility with Future iPhones Li-Fi compatibility was spotted in the code for iOS 9.1 by a Twitter user, who goes by name Chase Fromm, and was independently confirmed by Apple Insider. However, there is no such indication that Apple is actually working with Li-Fi. But, as pointed out by Apple Insider, Apple filed a patent applic

Apple has patched a critical vulnerability in its iOS operating system that allowed criminal hackers to impersonate end users' identities by granting read/write access to website's unencrypted authentication cookies. The vulnerability was fixed with the release of iOS 9.2.1 on Tuesday, almost three years after it was first discovered and reported to Apple. The vulnerability, dubbed " Captive Portal " bug, was initially discovered by Adi Sharabani and Yair Amit from online security company Skycure and privately reported to Apple in June 2013. Here's How the Vulnerability Worked The vulnerability caused due to the way iOS handles Cookie Stores at Captive Portals , generally a login page that requires users to authenticate themselves before connecting to the free or paid public Wi-Fi hotspots when they are first joining. So, when a user with a vulnerable iPhone or iPad connects to a captive-enabled network ( sample page shown in the screensho

The United States has freed 4 Iranian nationals ( including one Hacker ) and reduced the sentences of 3 others in exchange for the release of 5 Americans formerly held by Iran as part of a prisoner swap or Prisoner Exchange Program. The Iranian citizens released from the United States custody through a side deal to the Iran nuclear agreement. Iran released five Americans, including: Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian Former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati Student Matthew Trevithick Christian pastor Saeed Abedini Pastor Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari The United States pardoned seven Iranian nationals, including: Nader Modanlou Bahram Mechanic Khosrow Afqahi Arash Ghahreman Touraj Faridi Nima Golestaneh (Hacker) Ali Sabounchi "These individuals weren't charged with terrorism or any violent offenses. They are civilians, and their release is a one-time gesture to Iran given the unique opportunity offered by this moment and the larger circumstance

Rejoice for Privacy Lovers! Facebook today took a surprising move by announcing that it is bringing the free anonymizing software TOR support to its Android app , almost two years after the social network planned to make Facebook available directly over Tor network. Yes. Believe it or not, the Android version of the popular Facebook application now supports the Tor anonymity network. In October 2014, Facebook launched a .onion website on TOR in order to let its users around the world access its service more securely. Access Facebook over TOR via Orbot This latest move to expand that access to the Android app opens up the option to millions more users to maintain their privacy when they visit the world's most popular social network. Facebook says "a sizeable community of people" are already accessing the site over TOR, so the company is bringing this feature to Android via the free Orbot proxy app , which is available on the Google's Play

A new critical zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux kernel that could allow attackers to gain root level privileges by running a malicious Android or Linux application on an affected device. The critical Linux kernel flaw ( CVE-2016-0728 ) has been identified by a group of researchers at a startup named Perception Point. The vulnerability was present in the code since 2012, and affects any operating system with Linux kernel 3.8 and higher , so there are probably tens of millions of computers, both 32-bit and 64-bit, exposed to this flaw. However, the most bothersome part is that the problem affects Android versions KitKat and higher , which means about 66 percent of all Android devices are also exposed to the serious Linux kernel flaw. Impact of the Zero-Day Vulnerability An attacker would only require local access to exploit the flaw on a Linux server. If successfully exploited, the vulnerability can allow attackers to get root access

Good News for WhatsApp users! The widely popular messaging service is going completely free. And you'll be able to use WhatsApp without paying a penny. Old WhatsApp users might not be aware of this, but WhatsApp introduced the subscription fees for its service a few years ago, forcing new users to pay an annual 99 cents (~$1) subscription fee after the first year. However, WhatsApp announced Monday that the Facebook-owned company is dropping its annual subscription fee to make its service free to all users. While announcing the plan today, WhatsApp's founder Jan Koum stated that the annual subscription fee was still a barrier to some users. "As we have grown, we have found that this approach has not worked well," WhatsApp admitted in a company blog post today. "Many WhatsApp users do not have a debit or credit card number, and they worried they'd lose access to their friends and family after their first year." What will be What

Remember The Fappening incident? Took place in mid-2014, in the incident, anonymous hackers flooded the Internet with private photographs of major celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence , Kim Kardashian , Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst. The Fappening was the result of the hack of thousands of Apple's iCloud accounts, including those belonging to Hollywood actresses, models and major celebrities. Main Culprit Behind The Fappening However, now two years later, new court documents reveal the name of the FBI's top suspected hacker: Ed Majerczyk . In October of 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the home of Ed Majerczyk, a Chicago man believed to be the chief culprit behind a series of 2014 leaked celebrity photos that came to be known as ' The Fappening ' or ' Celebgate '. The man allegedly suspected of illegally accessing iCloud accounts from his home in Chicago. Also, the FBI found some sexual photographs lifted from

Great news for Hackers and Bug-hunters who enjoy Programming and playing around with Software. A worldwide group of like-minded computer programmers is hosting The Next Hacker IPPC event on the 26th and 27th of February in Berlin, Germany, where participants can meet hackers and programmers from around the world while getting an opportunity to participate in one of the major hacking-related events in history. Yes, The Next Hacker is inviting Java programmers to participate in its International Programming Player Competition (IPPC) , which is going to be held on the second day of the event, i.e., 27th of February. The first day of 2016 IPPC event will offer technical sessions on programming, an open panel discussion with renowned hackers and programmers, as well as an opportunity for the world's top programmers to meet leading high-tech companies worldwide. The Next Hacker is an outstanding programming event with more than 5,000 attendees – no less than 3,000 c

IT security firm Trustwave has been sued by a Las Vegas-based casino operator for conducting an allegedly "woefully inadequate" investigation following a network breach of the casino operator's system. Affinity Gaming , an operator of 5 casinos in Nevada and 6 elsewhere in the United States, has questioned Trustwave's investigation for failing to shut down breach that directly resulted in the theft of credit card data, allowing credit card thieves to maintain their foothold during the investigation period. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Nevada, is one of the first cases of its kind where a client challenges a cyber security firm over the quality of its investigation following a hacking attack. Casino Sued an IT Security Firm Affinity Gaming said it hired Trustwave in late 2013 to analyze and clean up computer network intrusions that allowed attackers to obtain its customers' credit card data. It was reported that the details

Apple Mac Computers are considered to be much safer than Windows computers at keeping out the viruses and malware, but the new Exploit discovered by researchers again proves it indeed quite false. Last year, The Hacker News reported a deadly simple exploit that completely bypassed one of the core security features in Mac OS X known as Gatekeeper . Apple released a patch in November, but now the same security researcher who discovered the original Gatekeeper bypass vulnerability said he found an equally obvious workaround. Patrick Wardle, ex-NSA staffer and head of research at security intelligence firm Synack, said the security patch released by Apple was " incredibly weak " and that the update was " easy to bypass " in minutes. Gatekeeper's Failure Once Again Introduced in July of 2012, Gatekeeper is Apple's anti-malware feature designed to block untrusted, dodgy apps from running, keeping Mac OS X systems safe from malware. Ho

Last month, the Norway police arrested five hackers accused of running the MegalodonHTTP Remote Access Trojan (RAT). The arrests came as part of the joint operation between Norway's Kripos National Criminal Investigation Service and Europol, codenamed " OP Falling sTAR ." According to the United States security firm, all the five men, aged between 16 and 24 years and located in Romania, France, and Norway, were charged with possessing, using and selling malware. One of those arrested also confessed to running his own web store where he sold malware, designed to take full control of target computers, harvesting passwords, and other personal data. Moreover, the malware can be used to hijack webcams in real-time, and steal documents, images, and videos as well. "Damballa's threat discovery center worked in cooperation with the Norway police over the last few months to track and identify the author of the malware dubbed MegalodonHTTP," threat

A 'Serious' security vulnerability has been discovered and fixed in OpenSSH – one of the most widely used open-source implementations of the Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol. The critical vulnerability could be exploited by hackers to force clients to leak their secret private cryptographic keys, potentially exposing users to Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks. What Causes the Flaw to occur? The serious bug was actually the result of a code that enables an experimental " roaming " feature in the OpenSSH versions 5.4 to 7.1 in order to let users resume connections. However, The roaming feature contains two different vulnerabilities: An information sharing flaw ( CVE-2016-0777 ) A less harmless buffer overflow flaw ( CVE-2016-0778 ) The vulnerability does not have any catchy name like some previous OpenSSH flaws. Impact of the Vulnerability This new feature can be exploited by hackers, who could use a malicious OpenSSH server to trick a

The buzz around The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing, and it is growing at a great pace. Every day the technology industry tries to connect another household object to the Internet. One such internet-connected household device is a Smart Doorbell. Gone are the days when we have regular doorbells and need to open the door every time the doorbell rings to see who is around. However, with these Internet-connected Smart Doorbells, you get an alert on your smartphone app every time a visitor presses your doorbell and, in fact, you can also view who's in front of your door. Moreover, you can even communicate with them without ever opening the door. Isn't this amazing? Pretty much. But what if your doorbell Reveals your home's WiFi password ? Use Smart Doorbell to Hack WiFi Password Until now, we have seen how hackers and researchers discovered security holes in Smart Cars , Smart refrigerators , Smart kettles and Internet-connected Toys , raising

Are millions of enterprise users, who rely on the next-generation firewalls for protection, actually protected from hackers? Probably Not. Just less than a month after an unauthorized backdoor found in Juniper Networks firewalls, an anonymous security researcher has discovered highly suspicious code in FortiOS firewalls from enterprise security vendor Fortinet. According to the leaked information, FortiOS operating system, deployed on Fortinet's FortiGate firewall networking equipment, includes an SSH backdoor that can be used to access its firewall equipment. Anyone can Access FortiOS SSH Backdoor Anyone with " Fortimanager_Access " username and a hashed version of the " FGTAbc11*xy+Qqz27 " password string, which is hard coded into the firewall, can login into Fortinet's FortiGate firewall networking equipment. However, according to the company's product details, this SSH user is created for challenge-and-response authenti

Nation's Top Spy Chief Got Hacked! The same teenage hacker who broke into the AOL email inbox of CIA Director John Brennan last October has now claimed to have broken into personal email and phone accounts of the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper . Clapper was targeted by the teenage hacker, who called himself Cracka and claimed to be a member of the hacker group Crackas with Attitude ( CWA ) that made headlines in October for hacking into CIA Director's email and accessing several online portals and tools used by US law enforcement agencies. Also Read: FBI Deputy Director's Email Hacked by Cracka with Attitude . Trove of Information Related to Top Spy Chief Hacked! Cracka told Motherboard that he had access to a series of accounts connected to Clapper, including: Home telephone account Internet accounts Personal email accounts His wife's Yahoo email The spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intel