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Adobe has released August 2018 security patch updates for a total of 11 vulnerabilities in its products, two of which are rated as critical that affect Adobe Acrobat and Reader software. The vulnerabilities addressed in this month updates affect Adobe Flash Player, Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Acrobat and Reader applications. None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild. Adobe Acrobat and Reader (Windows and macOS) Security researchers from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative and Cybellum Technologies have discovered and reported two critical arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities respectively in Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC for Windows and macOS. According to the Adobe advisory, the flaw (CVE-2018-12808) reported by Cybellum Technologies is an out-of-bounds write flaw, whereas the bug (CVE-2018-12799) reported by Zero Day Initiative is an

What maximum a remote attacker can do just by having your Fax machine number? Believe it or not, but your fax number is literally enough for a hacker to gain complete control over the printer and possibly infiltrate the rest of the network connected to it. Check Point researchers have revealed details of two critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities they discovered in the communication protocols used in tens of millions of fax machines globally. You might be thinking who uses Fax these days! Well, Fax is not a thing of the past. With more than 300 million fax numbers and 45 million fax machines in use globally, Fax is still popular among several business organizations, regulators, lawyers, bankers, and real estate firms. Since most fax machines are today integrated into all-in-one printers, connected to a WiFi network and PSTN phone line, a remote attacker can simply send a specially-crafted image file via fax to exploit the reported vulnerabilities and seize co

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use snapshots, agents, or any other periodic data protection methodology. Zerto has no impact on production workloads and can achieve RPOs in the region of 5-15 seconds across thousands of virtual machines simultaneously. For example, the environment in the image below has nearly 1,000 VMs being protected with an average RPO of just six seconds! Application-Centric Protection: Group Your VMs to Gain Application-Level Control   You can protect your VMs with the Zerto application-centric approach using Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs). This logical grouping of VMs ensures that your whole applica

Security researchers at Check Point Software Technologies have discovered a new attack vector against the Android operating system that could potentially allow attackers to silently infect your smartphones with malicious apps or launch denial of service attacks. Dubbed Man-in-the-Disk , the attack takes advantage of the way Android apps utilize 'External Storage' system to store app-related data, which if tampered could result in code injection in the privileged context of the targeted application. It should be noted that apps on the Android operating system can store its resources on the device in two locations—internal storage and external storage. Google itself offers guidelines to Android application developers urging them to use internal storage, which is an isolated space allocated to each application protected using Android's built-in sandbox, to store their sensitive files or data. However, researchers found that many popular apps—including Google Translate

Google tracks you everywhere, even if you explicitly tell it not to. Every time a service like Google Maps wants to use your location, Google asks your permission to allow access to your location if you want to use it for navigating, but a new investigation shows that the company does track you anyway. An investigation by Associated Press revealed that many Google services on Android and iPhone devices store records of your location data even when you have paused "Location History" on your mobile devices. Disabling " Location History " in the privacy settings of Google applications should prevent Google from keeping track of your every movement, as its own support page states: "You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored." However, AP found that even with Location History turned off, some Google apps automatically store "time-stamped location data" on users without ask

Your Mac computer running the Apple's latest High Sierra operating system can be hacked by tweaking just two lines of code, a researcher demonstrated at the Def Con security conference on Sunday. Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA hacker and now Chief Research Officer of Digita Security, uncovered a critical zero-day vulnerability in the macOS operating system that could allow a malicious application installed in the targeted system to virtually "click" objects without any user interaction or consent. To know, how dangerous it can go, Wardle explains : "Via a single click, countless security mechanisms may be completely bypassed. Run untrusted app? Click...allowed. Authorize keychain access? Click...allowed. Load 3rd-party kernel extension? Click...allowed. Authorize outgoing network connection? click ...allowed." Wardle described his research into "synthetic" interactions with a user interface (UI) as "The Mouse is Mightier than the Sword,"

Bought a new Android phone? What if I say your brand new smartphone can be hacked remotely? Nearly all Android phones come with useless applications pre-installed by manufacturers or carriers, usually called bloatware, and there's nothing you can do if any of them has a backdoor built-in—even if you're careful about avoiding sketchy apps. That's exactly what security researchers from mobile security firm Kryptowire demonstrated at the DEF CON security conference on Friday. Researchers disclosed details of 47 different vulnerabilities deep inside the firmware and default apps (pre-installed and mostly non-removable) of 25 Android handsets that could allow hackers to spy on users and factory reset their devices, putting millions of Android devices at risk of hacking. At least 11 of those vulnerable smartphones are manufactured by companies including Asus, ZTE, LG, and the Essential Phone, and being distributed by US carriers like Verizon and AT&T. Other majo

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been seen as a potential solution for automatically detecting and combating malware, and stop cyber attacks before they affect any organization. However, the same technology can also be weaponized by threat actors to power a new generation of malware that can evade even the best cyber-security defenses and infects a computer network or launch an attack only when the target's face is detected by the camera. To demonstrate this scenario, security researchers at IBM Research came up with DeepLocker —a new breed of "highly targeted and evasive" attack tool powered by AI," which conceals its malicious intent until it reached a specific victim. According to the IBM researcher, DeepLocker flies under the radar without being detected and "unleashes its malicious action as soon as the AI model identifies the target through indicators like facial recognition, geolocation and voice recognition." Describing it as the "sp

Security researchers at Trustwave have released a new open-source tool that uses facial recognition technology to locate targets across numerous social media networks on a large scale. Dubbed Social Mapper, the facial recognition tool automatically searches for targets across eight social media platforms, including—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, the Russian social networking site VKontakte, and China's Weibo and Douban—based on their names and pictures. The tool's creators claim they developed Social Mapper intelligence-gathering tool predominantly to help pen testers and red teamers with social engineering attacks. Although the searches of names and pictures can already be performed manually, Social Mapper makes it possible to automate such scans far faster and "on a mass scale with hundreds or thousands of individuals" at once. "Performing intelligence gathering online is a time-consuming process, it typically starts by attempting to

WhatsApp, the most popular messaging application in the world, has been found vulnerable to multiple security vulnerabilities that could allow malicious users to intercept and modify the content of messages sent in both private as well as group conversations. Discovered by security researchers at Israeli security firm Check Point, the flaws take advantage of a loophole in WhatsApp's security protocols to change the content of the messages, allowing malicious users to create and spread misinformation or fake news from "what appear to be trusted sources." The flaws reside in the way WhatsApp mobile application connects with the WhatsApp Web and decrypts end-to-end encrypted messages using the protobuf2 protocol . The vulnerabilities could allow hackers to misuse the 'quote' feature in a WhatsApp group conversation to change the identity of the sender, or alter the content of someone else's reply to a group chat, or even send private messages to one of

The source code of the popular social media app Snapchat was recently surfaced online after a hacker leaked and posted it on the Microsoft-owned code repository GitHub. A GitHub account under the name Khaled Alshehri with the handle i5xx , who claimed to be from Pakistan, created a GitHub repository called Source-Snapchat with a description " Source Code for SnapChat ," publishing the code of what purported to be Snapchat's iOS app. The underlying code could potentially expose the company's extremely confidential information, like the entire design of the hugely-successful messaging app, how the app works and what future features are planned for the app. Snapchat's parent company, Snap Inc., responded to the leak by filing a copyright act request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), helping it takedown the online repository hosting the Snapchat code. SnapChat Hack: Github Took Down Repository After DMCA Notice Though it is not clear

Facebook has open sourced Fizz—a library designed to help developers implement TLS 1.3 protocol with all recommended security and performance related configurations. Since late last month, Google Chrome web browser has started marking all non-HTTPS websites as 'Not Secure' in an effort to make the web a more secure place, forcing website administrators to switch to HTTPS. TLS 1.3 is the newest and most secure cryptographic protocol of the Transportation Layer Security (TLS), the successor to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which encrypts data in transit between clients and servers to prevent data theft or tampering. To make internet traffic more secure, TLS 1.3 incorporates several new features like encrypting handshake messages to keep certificates private, redesigning the way secret keys are derived, and a zero round-trip (0-RTT) connection setup, making certain requests faster than TLS 1.2. Written in C++ 14, Fizz is a reliable and highly performant TLS library that

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—the world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors—was forced to shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories over the weekend after being hit by a computer virus. Now, it turns out that the computer virus outbreak at Taiwan chipmaker was the result of a variant of WannaCry —a massive ransomware attack that wreaked havoc across the world by shutting down hospitals, telecom providers, and many businesses in May 2017. TSMC shut down an entire day of production this weekend after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones, which could impact revenue by approx $256 million. According to the semiconductor manufacturer, its computer systems were not direct attacked by any hacker, but instead, were exposed to the malware "when a supplier installed tainted software without a virus scan" to TSMC&

If you have bet on Peppermint, Pancake or Pastry for "P" in the next version of Google's mobile operating system, sorry guys you lose because Android P stands for Android Pie . Yes, the next version of sugary snack-themed Android and the successor to Android Oreo will now be known as Android 9.0 Pie , and it has officially arrived, Google revealed on Monday. Android 9 Pie — 5 Best New Features Google says Android Pie comes with a "heaping helping of artificial intelligence baked in to make your phone smarter, simpler, and more tailored to you." 1.) AI-Powered Adaptive Battery Despite Google has made its efforts since it brought a power saving mode called Doze in  Android 6.0 Marshmallow , Battery life has always been a big concern for people. Android 9 Pie introduces a new feature called "Adaptive Battery," which uses machine learning to learn which apps you use most and prioritize battery for them accordingly. "Android 9 int

There's both good news and bad news for Fortnite game lovers. Fortnite, one of the most popular games in the world right now, is coming to Android devices very soon, but players would not be able to download Fortnite APK from the Google Play Store. Instead, Epic Games software development company has confirmed the Fortnite APK for Android will be available for download exclusively only through its official website, bypassing the Google Play Store. Why Fortnite for Android Bypassing Google Play Store? Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney cites two main reasons for this decision. First, offering Fortnite APK downloads directly from its official website will allow the company to "have a direct relationship" with its consumers. Second, since Google takes a 30 percent cut of revenue each time a user makes an in-app purchase through its Play Store, the decision will allow the company to save millions. This should not be shocking as Fortnite on iOS made $15 million in j

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—Apple's sole supplier of SoC components for iPhones and iPads, and Qualcomm's major manufacturing partner—shut down several of its chip-fabrication factories Friday night after being hit by a computer virus. The world's largest makers of semiconductors and processors TSMC lost an entire day of production after several of its factories systems were halted by a computer virus in the middle of the ramp-up for chips to be used by Apple's future lines of iPhones. Though the popular chip maker has been attacked by viruses in the past, this is the first time a virus has affected TSMC's production lines, making the incident a real big deal. Without revealing many details, TSMC said a number of its computer systems and fabrication tools were infected by the virus on Friday night, but since then it has recovered 80% of its impacted equipment, though others will be recovered by tomorrow. According to TSMC, the comput

It's time to update your Drupal websites. Drupal, the popular open-source content management system, has released a new version of its software to patch a security bypass vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to take control of the affected websites. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-14773, resides in a component of a third-party library, called Symfony HttpFoundation component , which is being used in Drupal Core and affects Drupal 8.x versions before 8.5.6. Since Symfony—a web application framework with a set of PHP components—is being used by a lot of projects, the vulnerability could potentially put many web applications at risk of hacking. Symfony Component Vulnerability According to an advisory released by Symfony, the security bypass vulnerability originates due to Symfony's support for legacy and risky HTTP headers. "Support for a (legacy) IIS header that lets users override the path in the request URL via the X-Original-URL or X-Rew

Security researchers have discovered at least three massive malware campaigns exploiting hundreds of thousands of unpatched MikroTik routers to secretly install cryptocurrency miners on computers connected to them. In all, the malware campaigns have compromised more than 210,000 routers from Latvian network hardware provider Mikrotik across the world, with the number still increasing as of writing. The hackers have been exploiting a known vulnerability in the Winbox component of MikroTik routers that was discovered in April this year and patched within a day of its discovery, which once again shows people's carelessness in applying security patches on time. The security flaw can potentially allow an attacker to gain unauthenticated, remote administrative access to any vulnerable MikroTik router. The first campaign, noticed by Trustwave researchers, began with targeting networking devices in Brazil, where a hacker or a group of hackers compromised more than 183,700 Mikro

Like many others, do you also believe that the popular system-cleaning tool CCleaner was performing well before Avast acquired the software from Piriform last year? If yes, then pop-up advertisements in the previous CCleaner software version was not the last thing you have to deal with. Avast has released a new version of CCleaner 5.45 that not only always runs in the background, but also collects information about your system without giving you a way to turn the feature off. CCleaner is a popular application, available in both free and premium versions, with over 2 billion downloads that allow users to clean up their Windows, Mac, and mobile devices to optimize and enhance performance. Last year, CCleaner made headlines when it suffered a massive supply-chain malware attack of all times, wherein hackers compromised its servers for over a month and replaced the original version of the software with the malicious one, infecting over 2.3 million users worldwide. CCleaner