#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform Followed by 4.50+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Get the Free Newsletter
SaaS Security

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

Does WhatsApp Have A Privacy Bug That Could Expose Your Messages?

Does WhatsApp Have A Privacy Bug That Could Expose Your Messages?

Jan 11, 2019
In-short conclusion—Whatsapp service or its 45-days deletion policy doesn't seem to have a bug. For detailed logical explanation, please read below. An Amazon employee earlier today tweeted details about an incident that many suggest could be a sign of a huge privacy bug in the most popular end-to-end encrypted Whatsapp messaging app that could expose some of your secret messages under certain circumstances. According to Abby Fuller, she found some mysterious messages on WhatsApp, notably not associated with her contacts, immediately after she created a new account with the messaging app on her brand new phone using a new number for the very first time. Fuller believes that the mysteriously appeared content on her new account was the message history associated with the WhatsApp account of the previous owner of the same SIM/mobile number, which WhatsApp pushed to her phone. Since for WhatsApp, your phone number is your username and password is the OTP it sends to that n
DDoSing Hospital Networks Landed This Hacktivist in Jail for Over 10 Years

DDoSing Hospital Networks Landed This Hacktivist in Jail for Over 10 Years

Jan 11, 2019
A simple DDoS attack could land you in jail for 10 years or even more. A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to over 10 years in prison for launching DDoS attacks against the computer network of two healthcare organizations in 2014 to protest the treatment of a teenager at the centers. Beyond serving 121 months in prison, Martin Gottesfeld , 34, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton to pay nearly $443,000 in restitution for damages he caused to the targeted facilities. Gottesfeld carried out the DDoS attacks on behalf of the Anonymous hacker collective against Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) and Wayside Youth & Family Support Network—a nonprofit home treatment facility that provides a range of mental health counselings to children, young adults, and families in Massachusetts. In April 2014, the hacker used a botnet of over 40,000 network routers that he infected with customized malicious software to carry out the DDoS attacks that not only knocke
How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

Mar 21, 2024SaaS Security / Endpoint Security
In today's digital-first business environment dominated by SaaS applications, organizations increasingly depend on third-party vendors for essential cloud services and software solutions. As more vendors and services are added to the mix, the complexity and potential vulnerabilities within the  SaaS supply chain  snowball quickly. That's why effective vendor risk management (VRM) is a critical strategy in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to protect organizational assets and data integrity. Meanwhile, common approaches to vendor risk assessments are too slow and static for the modern world of SaaS. Most organizations have simply adapted their legacy evaluation techniques for on-premise software to apply to SaaS providers. This not only creates massive bottlenecks, but also causes organizations to inadvertently accept far too much risk. To effectively adapt to the realities of modern work, two major aspects need to change: the timeline of initial assessment must shorte
PyLocky Ransomware Decryption Tool Released — Unlock Files For Free

PyLocky Ransomware Decryption Tool Released — Unlock Files For Free

Jan 11, 2019
If your computer has been infected with PyLocky Ransomware and you are searching for a free ransomware decryption tool to unlock or decrypt your files—your search might end here. Security researcher Mike Bautista at Cisco's Talos cyber intelligence unit have released a free decryption tool that makes it possible for victims infected with the PyLocky ransomware to unlock their encrypted files for free without paying any ransom. The decryption tool works for everyone, but it has a huge limitation—to successfully recover your files, you must have captured the initial network traffic (PCAP file) between the PyLocky ransomware and its command-and-control (C2) server, which generally nobody purposely does. This is because the outbound connection—when the ransomware communicates with its C2 server and submit decryption key related information—contains a string that includes both Initialization Vector (IV) and a password, which the ransomware generates randomly to encrypt the file
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Over 202 Million Chinese Job Seekers' Details Exposed On the Internet

Over 202 Million Chinese Job Seekers' Details Exposed On the Internet

Jan 10, 2019
Cybersecurity researcher has discovered online a massive database containing records of more than 202 million Chinese citizens that remained accessible to anyone on the Internet without authentication until last week. The unprotected 854.8 gigabytes of the database was stored in an instance of MongoDB, a NoSQL high performance and cross-platform document-oriented database, hosted by an American server hosting company. In total, the database contained 202,730,434 records about job candidates from China, including candidates' personal information such as their full name, date of birth, phone number, email address, marriage status, and driver's license information, along with their professional experience and job expectations. Bob Diachenko, director of cyber risk research at Hacken.io and bug bounty platform HackenProof, discovered the existence of database two weeks ago, which had been secured shortly after his notification on Twitter. However, it is worth noting that &
New Systemd Privilege Escalation Flaws Affect Most Linux Distributions

New Systemd Privilege Escalation Flaws Affect Most Linux Distributions

Jan 10, 2019
Security researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities in Systemd, a popular init system and service manager for most Linux operating systems, that could allow unprivileged local attackers or malicious programs to gain root access on the targeted systems. The vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2018-16864, CVE-2018-16865, and CVE-2018-16866, actually resides in the "systemd-journald" service that collects information from different sources and creates event logs by logging information in the journal. The vulnerabilities, which were discovered and reported by security researchers at Qualys, affect all systemd-based Linux distributions, including Redhat and Debian , according to the researchers. However, some Linux distros such as SUSE Linux Enterprise 15, openSUSE Leap 15.0, and Fedora 28 and 29 are not affected, as "their userspace [code] is compiled with GCC's -fstack-clash-protection ." The first two flaws are memory corruptions issues, while the
Hackers Using Zero-Width Spaces to Bypass MS Office 365 Protection

Hackers Using Zero-Width Spaces to Bypass MS Office 365 Protection

Jan 10, 2019
Security researchers have been warning about a simple technique that cybercriminals and email scammers are already being using in the wild to bypass security features of Microsoft Office 365, including Safe Links, which are originally designed to protect users from malware and phishing attacks. Safe Links has been included by Microsoft in Office 365 as part of its ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) solution that works by replacing all URLs in an incoming email with Microsoft-owned secure URLs. Therefore, every time users click on a link provided in an email, Safe Links first sends them to a Microsoft owned domain, where it immediately checks the original link for anything suspicious. If Microsoft's security scanners detect any malicious element, it then warns the users about it, and if not, it redirects them to the original link. However, researchers at the cloud security company Avanan have revealed how attackers have been bypassing both Office 365's URL reputation check a
Google DNS Service (8.8.8.8) Now Supports DNS-over-TLS Security

Google DNS Service (8.8.8.8) Now Supports DNS-over-TLS Security

Jan 10, 2019
Almost every activity on the Internet starts with a DNS query, a key function of the Internet that works as an Internet's directory where your device looks up for the server IP addresses after you enter a human-readable web address (e.g., thehackernews.com). Since DNS queries are sent in clear text over UDP or TCP without encryption, the information can reveal not only what websites an individual visits but is also vulnerable to spoofing attacks. To address these problems, Google announced Wednesday that its Public DNS (Domain Name System) service finally supports DNS-over-TLS security protocol, which means that the DNS queries and responses will be communicated over TLS-encrypted TCP connections. The DNS-over-TLS has been designed to make it harder for man-in-the-middle attackers to manipulate the DNS query or eavesdrop on your Internet connection. Launched over eight years ago, Google Public DNS, at IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, is world's largest public Domai
Cybersecurity Resources