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The hacking group that recently hacked HBO has just dropped its second trove of documents, including a month emails of one of the company's executives, and a detailed script of the upcoming fifth episode of "Game of Thrones" Season 7, set to be aired on August 13. The latest release is the second leak from the hackers who claimed to have obtained around 1.5 terabytes of information from HBO, following the release of upcoming episodes of "Ballers" and "Room 104," and a script of the fourth episode of "Game of Thrones." With the release of another half-gigabyte sample of its stolen HBO data, the hacking group has finally demanded a ransom worth millions of dollars from the entertainment giant in order to prevent further leaks. The latest HBO data dump includes company's several internal documents, including emails, employment agreements, financial balance sheets, and marketing-strategy PDFs, along with the script of the yet-to-ai

" Privacy " is a bit of an Internet buzzword nowadays as the business model of the Internet has now shifted towards data collection. Although Virtual Private Network (VPN) is one of the best solutions to protect your privacy and data on the Internet, you should be more vigilant while choosing a VPN service which actually respects your privacy. If you are using popular free virtual private networking service Hotspot Shield , your data could be at a significant risk. A privacy advocacy group has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against virtual private networking provider Hotspot Shield for reportedly violating its own privacy policy of "complete anonymity" promised to its users. The 14-page-long complaint filed Monday morning by the Centre for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a US non-profit advocacy group for digital rights, accused Hotspot Shield of allegedly tracking, intercepting and collecting its customers' data. Develo

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

A Dutch security researcher has uncovered a slew of security vulnerabilities in an essential component of solar panels which could be exploited to cause widespread outages in European power grids. Willem Westerhof, a cybersecurity researcher at Dutch security firm ITsec, discovered 21 security vulnerabilities in the Internet-connected inverters – an essential component of solar panel that turns direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC). According to Westerhof, the vulnerabilities leave thousands of Internet-connected power inverters installed across Europe vulnerable. Westerhof demonstrates that it is possible for hackers to gain control of a large number of inverters and switch them OFF simultaneously, causing an imbalance in the power grid that could result in power outages in different parts of Europe. The vulnerabilities affect solar panel electricity systems, also known as photovoltaics (PV), made by German solar equipment company SMA, which if exploited in mass

Marcus Hutchins, the malware analyst who helped stop global Wannacry menace , has reportedly pleaded not guilty to charges of creating and distributing the infamous Kronos banking malware and is set to release on $30,000 bail on Monday. Hutchins, the 23-year-old who operates under the alias MalwareTech on Twitter, stormed to fame and hailed as a hero over two months ago when he stopped a global epidemic of the WannaCry ransomware attack by finding a kill switch in the malware code. MalwareTech Arrested After Attending Def Con Event Hutchins was recently arrested at the McCarran International Airport before he could board his flight back to the U.K. after attending Def Con event for his alleged role in creating and distributing the Kronos Banking Trojan between 2014-2015. Kronos is a Banking Trojan designed to steal banking credentials and personal information from victims' computers, which was sold for $7,000 on Russian online forums. MalwareTech to Pay $30,000 for

A Russian man accused of infecting tens of thousands of computer servers worldwide to generate millions in fraudulent payments has been imprisoned for 46 months (nearly four years) in a United States' federal prison. 41-year-old Maxim Senakh , of Velikii Novgorod, was arrested by Finnish police in August 2015 for his role in the development and maintenance of the infamous Linux botnet called Ebury that siphoned millions of dollars from victims worldwide. Senakh was extradited to the United States in February 2016 to face charges and pleaded guilty in late March this year after admitting of creating a massive Ebury botnet and personally being profited from the scheme. First spotted in 2011, Ebury is an SSH backdoor Trojan for Linux and Unix-style operating systems, such as FreeBSD or Solaris, which gives attackers full shell control of an infected machine remotely even if the password for affected user account is changed regularly. Senakh and his associates used the malw

The 22-year-old British security researcher who gained fame for discovering the " kill switch " that stopped the outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware —has been reportedly arrested in the United States after attending the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas. Marcus Hutchins, operates under the alias MalwareTech on Twitter, was detained by the FBI in the state of Nevada, a friend of Hutchins confirmed Motherboard. At the time of writing, it is unclear why the Internet's ' accidental hero ' has been detained by the FBI, but his arrest has sparked an endless debate in the security community. Hutchins became famous over two months ago when the WannaCry ransomware began hitting businesses, organisations and individuals across the world, and he accidentally halted its global spread by registering a domain name hidden in the malware. hxxp://www[.]iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea[.]com The domain as mentioned above was responsible for keeping Wa

The cyber criminals behind the global WannaCry ransomware attack that caused chaos worldwide have finally cashed out their ransom payments. Nearly three months ago, the WannaCry ransomware shut down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses worldwide, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries, encrypting files and then charging victims $300-$600 for the keys. WannaCry was really bad, as the nasty ransomware forced the British NHS (National Health Service) to shut down hospitals and doctor's surgeries, and infected a Spanish telecommunications company and Russian mobile operator, among much more. Even a month after the outbreak, the WannaCry ransomware was found infecting systems at Honda Motor Company , forcing the factory to shut down its production, and 55 speed and traffic light cameras in Victoria, Australia. Overall, the hackers behind WannaCry made $140,000 in Bitcoins from the victims who paid for the decryption keys—but for

In last 20 years, we have seen hundreds of caper/heist movies where spies or bank robbers hijack surveillance cameras of secure premises to either stop recording or set up an endless loop for covert operations without leaving any evidence. Whenever I see such scenes in a movie, I wonder and ask myself: Does this happen in real-life? Yes, it does, trust me—at least CIA agents are doing this. WikiLeaks has just unveiled another classified CIA project, dubbed ' Dumbo ,' which details how CIA agents hijack and manipulate webcams and microphones in Hollywood style "to gain and exploit physical access to target computers in CIA field operations." The Dumbo CIA project involves a USB thumb drive equipped with a Windows hacking tool that can identify installed webcams and microphones, either connected locally, wired or wirelessly via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Once identified, the Dumbo program allows the CIA agents to: Mute all microphones Disables all network ad

From past few years, spammers and cyber criminals were buying web extensions from their developers and then updating them without informing their users to inject bulk advertisements into every website user visits in order to generate large revenue. But now they have shifted their business model—instead of investing, spammers have started a new wave of phishing attacks aimed at hijacking popular browser extensions. Just two days ago, we reported how cyber criminals managed to compromise the Chrome Web Store account of a German developer team and hijacked Copyfish extension , and then modified it with ad-injection capabilities to distribute spam correspondence to users. Now just yesterday, another popular Chrome extension ' Web Developer ' was hijacked by some unknown attackers, who updated the software to directly inject advertisements into the web browser of over its 1 million users. Chris Pederick , the creator of Web Developer Chrome extension that offers various w

By this time, almost every one of you owns at least one internet-connected device—better known as the " Internet of things "—at your home, but how secure is your device? We have recently seen Car hacking that could risk anyone's life, Hoverboard hacking, even hacking of a so-called smart Gun and also the widespread hacks of insecure CCTV cameras, routers and other internet-connected home appliances. But this did not stop vendors from selling unsecured Internet-connected smart devices, and customers are buying them without giving a sh*t about the security of their smart devices. However, the massive cyber attack on a popular DNS service provider that shut down a large portion of the Internet last year made us all fear about the innocent-looking IoT devices, which surround us every day, but actually, poses a threat to global cyber security. Not anymore! A bipartisan group of senators have now introduced a new bill aimed at securing internet-connected devices b

Although the wave of WannaCry and Petya ransomware has now been slowed down, money-motivated hackers and cyber criminals have taken lessons from the global outbreaks to make their malware more powerful. Security researchers have now discovered at least one group of cyber criminals that are attempting to give its banking Trojan the self-spreading worm-like capabilities that made recent ransomware attacks go worldwide. The new version of credential stealing TrickBot banking Trojan, known as " 1000029 " ( v24 ), has been found using the Windows Server Message Block (SMB)—that allowed WannaCry and Petya to spread across the world quickly. TrickBot is a banking Trojan malware that has been targeting financial institutions across the world since last year. The Trojan generally spreads via email attachments impersonating invoices from a large unnamed "international financial institution," but actually leads victims to a fake login page used to steal credenti

Do you own an Amazon Echo? So are you also worried about hackers turning out your device into a covert listening device? Just relax, if there's no NSA, no CIA or none of your above-skilled friends after you. Since yesterday there have been several reports on Amazon Echo hack that could allow a hacker to turn your smart speaker into a covert listening device, but users don't need to worry because the hack is not simple, requires physical access to the device and does not work on all devices, as well. Amazon Echo is an always-listening voice-activated smart home speaker that is designed to play music, set alarms, answer questions via the Alexa voice assistant, and control connected smart home devices like WeMo, Hive and Nest. Hack Turns Amazon Echo Into Spying Device (But It's Complex) Now researchers from MWR InfoSecurity have demonstrated a hack, showing how hackers can exploit a vulnerability in some models of Amazon Echo to turn them into covert listening d