The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Site — Index Page

Hacking multiple computers across the world just got easier for the United States intelligence and law enforcement agencies from today onwards. The changes introduced to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by the United States Department of Justice came into effect on Thursday, after an effort to block the changes failed on Wednesday. The change grants the FBI much greater powers to hack into multiple computers within the country, and perhaps anywhere in the world, with just a single warrant authorized by any US judge (even magistrate judges). Usually, magistrate judges only issue warrants for cases within their jurisdiction. That's the same the FBI did in its 2015 investigation into child pornography site Playpen, in which the agency hacked into some 8,700 computers across 120 different countries. The Supreme Court approved the changes to Rule 41 in April, allowing any U.S. judge to issue search warrants that give the FBI and law enforcement agenc

The critical Firefox vulnerability being actively exploited in the wild to unmask Tor users has been patched with the release of new browser updates. Both Mozilla and Tor Project has patched the vulnerability that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on Windows operating system via memory corruption vulnerability in Firefox web browser. Tor Browser Bundle is a repackaged version of the open-source Mozilla Firefox browser that runs connections through the Tor anonymizing network configured to hide its user's public IP address. However, the exploit code released by an unnamed online user was currently being exploited against Tor Browser users to leak the potentially identifying information of Tor users. "The security flaw responsible for this urgent release is already actively exploited on Windows systems," an official of the anonymity network wrote in an advisory published on Wednesday.  "Even though there is currently...no similar explo

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Recent corporate breaches have taught us something important — the average enterprise user is spectacularly bad at choosing good passwords. As modern enterprise is becoming a hybrid organization with infrastructure spread across on-premises data centers as well as in the cloud, security of information, applications, and assets has become a paramount concern. Cyber security is no longer an optional strategy for businesses, where limited visibility into the password practices of employees and ineffective monitoring of privileged credentials could end up an organization with a serious security breach and identity theft. The first line of defense for any organization or company is passwords, but most organizations grossly underestimate the need to comply with corporate password policies and meet IT regulatory requirements. Large enterprises have a policy in place that requires end users to choose strong passwords that can withstand dictionary and brute-force attacks, but it come

If you own an Android smartphone, Beware! A new Android malware that has already breached more than 1 Million Google accounts is infecting around 13,000 devices every day. Dubbed Gooligan , the malware roots vulnerable Android devices to steal email addresses and authentication tokens stored on them. With this information in hands, the attackers are able to hijack your Google account and access your sensitive information from Google apps including Gmail, Google Photos, Google Docs, Google Play, Google Drive, and G Suite. Researchers found traces of Gooligan code in dozens of legitimate-looking Android apps on 3rd-party app stores, which if downloaded and installed by an Android user, malware starts sending your device's information and stolen data to its Command and Control (C&C) server. "Gooligan then downloads a rootkit from the C&C server that takes advantage of multiple Android 4 and 5 exploits including the well-known VROOT (CVE-2013-6282) and Towelroot (CV

Barrett Brown , a journalist, formerly served as an unofficial spokesman for the hacktivist collective Anonymous, finally walked free from prison on Tuesday morning after serving more than four years behind bars. The Dallas-born investigative journalist was arrested in 2012 from his home while he was in the middle of an online chat after posting tweets and YouTube video threatening revenge against an FBI agent. Brown, 35, initially attracted the law enforcement attention in 2011 when he shared a hyperlink to an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel where Anonymous members were distributing stolen information from the hack at security think tank Strategic Forecasting or Stratfor. The hack allegedly exposed 200 gigabytes of data, which included email addresses and credit card information from Stratfor clients, including the US Army, US Air Force, and Miami Police Department. Originally facing sentence to more than 100 years in prison, Brown was convicted in January 2015 under