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Whether you're a developer, designer or a writer, a good text editor always help you save time and make you work more efficiently. For example, I use Sublime a lot while programming because it includes some useful tools like 'syntax highlighting' and 'autocomplete' that every advanced text editor should have. Moreover, these advanced text editors also offer users extensibility, allowing users to install and run third-party plugins to extend the editor's functionality and most importantly its scope. However, it's a known fact that third-party plugins always pose a significant risk of hacking, whether it's about WordPress plugins or Windows' extensions for Chrome , Firefox or Photoshop. SafeBreach researcher Dor Azouri analyzed several popular extensible text editors for Unix and Linux systems, including Sublime, Vim, Emacs, Gedit, and pico/nano, and found that except for pico/nano, all of them are vulnerable to a critical privilege escala

Security researchers have discovered a massive continuously growing malware campaign that has already infected nearly 5 million mobile devices worldwide. Dubbed RottenSys , the malware that disguised as a 'System Wi-Fi service' app came pre-installed on millions of brand new smartphones manufactured by Honor, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, Samsung and GIONEE—added somewhere along the supply chain. All these affected devices were shipped through Tian Pai, a Hangzhou-based mobile phone distributor, but researchers are not sure if the company has direct involvement in this campaign. According to Check Point Mobile Security Team, who uncovered this campaign, RottenSys is an advanced piece of malware that doesn't provide any secure Wi-Fi related service but takes almost all sensitive Android permissions to enable its malicious activities. "According to our findings, the RottenSys malware began propagating in September 2016. By March 12, 2018, 4,964,460 devices were

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

Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in three popular VPN services that could leak users' real IP addresses and other sensitive data. VPN, or Virtual Private Network , is a great way to protect your daily online activities that work by encrypting your data and boosting security, as well as useful to obscure your actual IP address. While some choose VPN services for online anonymity and data security, one major reason many people use VPN is to hide their real IP addresses to bypass online censorship and access websites that are blocked by their ISPs. But what if when the VPN you thought is protecting your privacy is actually leaking your sensitive data and real location? A team of three ethical hackers hired by privacy advocate firm VPN Mentor revealed that three popular VPN service providers—HotSpot Shield, PureVPN, and Zenmate—with millions of customers worldwide were found vulnerable to flaws that could compromise user's privacy. The team includes applicat

A massive malware outbreak that last week infected nearly half a million computers with cryptocurrency mining malware in just a few hours was caused by a backdoored version of popular BitTorrent client called MediaGet . Dubbed Dofoil (also known as Smoke Loader), the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mine Electroneum digital coins for attackers using victims' CPU cycles. Dofoil campaign that hit PCs in Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on 6th March was discovered by Microsoft Windows Defender research department and blocked the attack before it could have done any severe damages. At the time when Windows Defender researchers detected this attack, they did not mention how the malware was delivered to such a massive audience in just 12 hours. However, after investigation Microsoft today revealed that the attackers targeted the update mechanism of MediaGet BitTorrent software to push its trojanized version (m

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in Credential Security Support Provider protocol (CredSSP) that affects all versions of Windows to date and could allow remote attackers to exploit RDP and WinRM to steal data and run malicious code. CredSSP protocol has been designed to be used by RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and Windows Remote Management (WinRM) that takes care of securely forwarding credentials encrypted from the Windows client to the target servers for remote authentication. Discovered by researchers at Cybersecurity firm Preempt Security, the issue (CVE-2018-0886) is a logical cryptographic flaw in CredSSP that can be exploited by a man-in-the-middle attacker with Wi-Fi or physical access to the network to steal session authentication data and perform a Remote Procedure Call attack. When a client and server authenticate over RDP and WinRM connection protocols, a man-in-the-middle attacker can execute remote commands to compromise enterprise networks. "A