Latest Hacking News And Events - dA1337: Security news

Google Brings Safe Browsing to Chrome for Android

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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";"><strong>Google this week announced the availability of Google Safe Browsing technology in its Chrome browser for Android, a feature meant to keep users safe from malware, unwanted software, and social engineering sites.</strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The Internet giant has integrated Safe Browsing in Google Play Services version 8.1, and Chrome for Android version 46 and up is the first application to take advantage of the security enhancement. Users can head to Settings > Privacy menu in Chrome on their Android devices to check whether Safe Browsing is enabled, the company explained in a <a href="https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.ro/2015/12/protecting-hundreds-of-millions-more.html" style="color: #0076b4; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">blog post</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The feature has been available on Chrome for desktop for a long time, informing users when they were about to access a dangerous site. With Safe Browsing available on Android, users can now be warned on the risk of accessing a flagged website, such as social engineering, phishing, and other malicious web pages.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva"; font-size: small;">According to Google, the main challenge of providing such protection on a mobile device is related to data size, as mobile data costs more and is delivered at lower speeds. With network bandwidth and battery being the most valuable resources on a mobile device, the company decided to break threats by geo location and to send information to protect devices only to the regions targeted by the attacks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Moreover, the company decided to deliver information on the riskiest sites first, to ensure the data is more relevant, and also tried to compress it as much as possible, to ensure data transfer savings. The software running on devices uses fewer resources and minimizes network traffic, in an attempt to ensure longer battery life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">“Some social engineering attacks only happen in certain parts of the world, so we only send information that protects devices in the geographic regions they’re in. We also make sure that we send information about the riskiest sites first: if we can only get a very short update through, as is often the case on lower-speed networks in emerging economies, the update really has to count,” the company said.</span></span></div>
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Google this week announced the availability of Google Safe Browsing technology in its Chrome browser for Android, a feature meant to ...

Make It Harder for People to Find You on Facebook

10:09 PM Unknown 0

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">  </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">With close to one-and-a-half billion people currently on Facebook,
 keeping a low profile can be tricky. It's in the site's best interest 
to make it easy for you to make connections with family, friends, and 
acquaintances. However, if you want to make it more difficult for people
 to track you down, there are ways to do it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">From the desktop website, dive into the <strong>Settings</strong> entry from the toolbar menu, then click through on the <strong>Privacy</strong> heading on the left. Under the <strong>Who can look me up?</strong> section you'll find three options that are of use to us here. By clicking on the <strong>Edit</strong> links to the right, it's possible to stop people who aren't already your friends looking you up via your email or phone number.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There's
 also the option to hide yourself from public search engines. Turn this 
off, and your Facebook profile won't appear the next time someone 
Googles or Bings your name on the open web-unfortunately you can't hide 
yourself from the search tools inside Facebook, unless you use an 
alternative or abbreviated name or something like that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGNwpOpEDcwLDues8GbwNBVfW5KyYWDqxibwvzdg7cQoO0TJHbVQPSdxeNZoh83u1qwePmEDIv7wcffnxtz8568LHN5d4tpaDNPyiNXbASwa4fuWFd7dE6SEuQT0z9_Z7x9CI-66RkJY/s1600/facebook-search.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGNwpOpEDcwLDues8GbwNBVfW5KyYWDqxibwvzdg7cQoO0TJHbVQPSdxeNZoh83u1qwePmEDIv7wcffnxtz8568LHN5d4tpaDNPyiNXbASwa4fuWFd7dE6SEuQT0z9_Z7x9CI-66RkJY/s640/facebook-search.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What you can do is limit the information Facebook has on you. Click the <strong>Update Info</strong>
 button on your profile, and remove references to workplaces, 
educational establishments, and places you've lived. This will make it 
harder for someone to locate you on Facebook, particularly if you've got
 a common name and are likely to get lost in a long list of search 
results.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Finally you can go back to the Privacy page and turn off 
the option that allows anyone with a Facebook account to contact you. 
Limit this to <strong>Friends of friends, </strong>and you won't have to
 pretend to ignore that old classmate of yours who's bombarding you with
 messages. He or she won't be able to reach you in the first place.</span><br />
</div>

Facebook Internet Latest News Security news Make It Harder for People to Find You on Facebook

With close to one-and-a-half billion people currently on Facebook, keeping a low profile can be tricky. It's in the site's be...

Pro PoS — This Stealthy Point-of-Sale Malware Could Steal Your Christmas

10:40 PM Unknown 0

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The 
point of Sale systems are the most tempting target for cyber crooks to 
steal your credit card information and with this Christmas, you need to 
be more careful while using your credit cards at retailers and grocery 
stores.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Here's why… </b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Cyber criminals are now selling a new powerful strain of Point of Sale (PoS) malware through underground forums.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Like several POS malware families discovered last year, including vSkimmer and BlackPOS, the new malware is also designed to steal payment card data from the infected POS systems and <b>support TOR </b>to hide its C&C (Command and Control) servers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info"></span></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">
Pro PoS – Light Weight, Yet Powerful Malware</span></span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">
</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">
</span></span>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">However, the new malware, dubbed "<b>Pro PoS</b>," packs more than just a PoS malware.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">
</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pro PoS weighs only 76KB, implements rootkit functionalities, as well as
 mechanisms to avoid antivirus detection, according to threat 
intelligence firm InfoArmor.</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What's even more interesting about this malware is…</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Pro PoS integrates a <b>polymorphic engine </b>that lets the threat generate a different signature for each malware sample – a measure designed to foil security defences.</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
InfoArmor warned that cyber crooks were actively using the current version of <b>Pro PoS Solution</b> in an effort to target PoS systems used by large retailers and SMBs in the United States and Canada specifically.</div>
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</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Pro PoS Malware found in the Wild</h3>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The developers of the Pro PoS malware are believed to be hackers from Eastern Europe, according to the security firm.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On November 27 (<b>Black Friday</b>), researchers at InfoArmor noticed a significant increase in the price of the Pro PoS Solution, which was offered at <b>$2,600 </b>for a six-month licence.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The developers of Pro PoS have designed their malware in such a way that
 it infects the principal operating systems, including newer operating 
systems, used by the companies in the retail environment.</div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
</div>

Hacker Hacking news Latest News Security news Pro PoS — This Stealthy Point-of-Sale Malware Could Steal Your Christmas

The point of Sale systems are the most tempting target for cyber crooks to steal your credit card information and with this Christma...

Azure Container Service Preview Launched By Microsoft

9:32 PM Unknown 0

Latest News Microsoft Security news Azure Container Service Preview Launched By Microsoft

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the availability of a preview of Azure Container Service (ACS), providing customers with the abi...

WhatsApp Blocks Links to Telegram Messenger (Its biggest Competitor)

10:18 PM Unknown 0

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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It seems like Facebook-owned popular messaging service WhatsApp is blocking links to rival messaging applications – at least <b>Telegram app </b>for now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Telegram users are noticing that WhatsApp is blocking any links to the privacy-oriented messaging service Telegram.me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Although users are free to send or receive Telegram links on WhatsApp, 
the links appear as non-clickable that you cannot copy or forward.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
This strange behavior was first <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/3utvyq/whatsapp_playing_low_really_low_cant_clickcopy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">noticed</a> this morning by Telegram users over on Reddit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The URLs – which are generally automatically made clickable – still 
appeared as plain text messages, but they didn't register as hyperlinks,
 blocking users from copying or forwarding them to other users or other 
apps.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="main-article-info"><div style="text-align: justify;">
In general, this odd behavior is done with malicious URLs such as malware or spam.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
The Culprit</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, this strange behavior was not exhibited on every device. Only 
WhatsApp for Android is currently showing this behavior while Telegram 
URLs still work fine on the iOS version of WhatsApp.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This issue only began appearing in <b>WhatsApp Version 2.12.327</b>, a silent update pushed earlier this morning.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Telegram has <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/30/9819460/whatsapp-telegram-link-block-copy-paste" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">confirmed</a>
 the situation to The Verge that the Facebook, who owned WhatsApp, is 
indeed responsible for the issue, as the social network has used this 
link-blocking trick in the newsfeed and Messenger app before to prevent 
its users from visiting Torrent websites.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>"Typically after a media backlash, FB steps back and blames their intelligent filtering for the problem," </i>said a Telegram spokesperson.<i> "We expect the same to happen this time as well."</i></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, Facebook and WhatsApp are yet to comment on the issue. The 
popular messaging app has not even acknowledged that a new update was 
pushed this morning</div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
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Android Latest News Security news Technology Whatsapp WhatsApp Blocks Links to Telegram Messenger (Its biggest Competitor)

It seems like Facebook-owned popular messaging service WhatsApp is blocking links to rival messaging applications – at least Telegra...

Adobe to Kill 'FLASH', but by Just Renaming it as 'Adobe Animate CC'

9:57 PM Unknown 0

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="main-article-info"></span></span><br />
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</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Adobe is Finally Killing FLASH, but not actually.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Adobe Flash made the Internet a better place with slick graphics, 
animation, games and applications, but it never stood a chance of 
surviving in the same world as HTML5.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of course, Flash has plagued with various stability and security issues, which is why developers had hated the technology for years.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, now it's time to say GoodBye to Adobe Flash Professional CC, and Welcome<b> Adobe Animate CC</b>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="main-article-info"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="main-article-info">Meet the new Flash, <b>Adobe Animate CC</b>, same as the old Flash, and still insecure mess.</span></div>
<span class="main-article-info">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
Adobe Animate CC Embraces HTML5</h3>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Adobe has officially <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/flashpro/welcome-adobe-animate-cc-a-new-era-for-flash-professional/?PID=4003003" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">announced</a> that<i> "over a third of all content created in Flash Professional today uses HTML5,"</i> so the company is acknowledging the shift with the new name.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Adobe Animate CC — Adobe's Premier Web animation tool for developing <b>HTML5 content</b>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yes, that's what the company has the focus on.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The application – mostly looks like an update to the Flash Professional 
software – will still support Adobe Flash (SWF) and AIR formats 'as 
first-class citizens,' along with other animation and video formats, 
including HTML5 canvas, 4K and WebGL output.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
</span><br />
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<span class="main-article-info"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WhgQ4ZDKYfs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WhgQ4ZDKYfs?feature=player_embedded" width="500"></iframe></span></div>
<span class="main-article-info">
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                                              </div>
</span></div>
<span class="main-article-info"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3>
Adobe Animate CC is the Same Old Flash</h3>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Adobe Animate CC launches in January 2016, it will bring features 
like easy access to high-quality stock art, new vector art brushes, as 
well as the ability to rotate the canvas 360° from any pivot point. 
Sounds exciting!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>What it won't bring is:</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li>Fix for the number of security issues that have plagued Adobe Flash for years</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The platform has a new name, but the development tool lives on.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, Flash isn't actually dead; it's just renamed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Adobe's strategy is to make money regardless of what happens in the market," </i>says <b>Jeffrey Hammonds</b>, principal analyst at Forrester Research. <i>"They understand that there is a slow transition to HTML5 going on."</i><br />
<i>"At some point you have to embrace the change," Hammond adds. "The 
rebranding is the visible sign of that, but the internal focus on 
supporting the technologies like HTML5 has been going on a while."</i></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, hiding Flash behind a different name doesn't solve the stability and
 security issues. In fact, a recently uncovered flaw in the software was
 so nasty that the only way to get rid of it was to completely uninstall Flash Player.</div>
</div>
</div>

Latest News Security news Adobe to Kill 'FLASH', but by Just Renaming it as 'Adobe Animate CC'

Adobe is Finally Killing FLASH, but not actually. Adobe Flash made the Internet a better place with slick graphics, animation, g...

The Horrifying Vtech Hack Let Someone Download Thousands of Photos of Children

10:02 PM Unknown 0

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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The latest details about a recent security breach at a kids' toy 
company are in, and they are disturbing. A couple weeks ago, hackers <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-of-the-largest-hacks-yet-exposes-data-on-hundreds-of-thousands-of-kids" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">successfully broke into the servers of connected toy maker Vtech</a>
 and stole the personal information of nearly 5 million parents and over
 200,000 kids. What we didn't know until now: The hackers stole pictures
 of kids, too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">  </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is very bad. The hacker's identity is still 
unknown, but he's been updating Motherboard with details about the hack.
 When the story broke a couple days ago, the site reported that the 
hacker broke into Vtech's servers and stole the names, emails, 
passwords, download histories, and home addresses of 4,833,678 parents 
who bought the company's devices. The massive batch of data also 
contained the first names, genders, and birthdays of over 200,000 
children. Motherboard's Lorenzo Francheschi-Bicchierai <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/one-of-the-largest-hacks-yet-exposes-data-on-hundreds-of-thousands-of-kids" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">identified the hack</a> as "the fourth largest consumer data breach to date."</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But
 then, this afternoon, the story took a turn for the terrifying when it 
became clhe hacker gained such broad access to Vtech's servers that he <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-obtained-childrens-headshots-and-chatlogs-from-toymaker-vtech" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">also downloaded about 190-gigabytes of photos</a>
 from the company's Kid Connect service. This is a simple little app 
that lets parents chat with their kid using a Vtech tablet and a 
smartphone. The images themselves appear to be headshots that Vtech <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rrZwiNaR4o" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">encourages its users</a> to upload when using the app.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In a sense, the hack is comparable to someone breaking into Facebook 
and making off with all of your private information and photos. The 
major difference, of course, is that we're talking about a company that 
makes devices for small children. The <a href="http://www.vtechkids.com/tutorials/innotab3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wifi-connected Vtech tablets</a> are recommended for children between the ages of three and nine. Vtech also makes a digital camera and a camera-mounted smartwatch for the same age range. It's certainly not the kids' fault that a random hacker can see what they're doing with their toys.</span>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is, however, Vtech's fault. The news is dire enough that the company <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/30/vtech-toys-hack-private-data-parents-children" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">suspended trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange</a>
 earlier today. This. after security researcher Troy Hunt revealed that 
Vtech failed to take even the most basic steps to secure its customers 
data-and their children's. He writes:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For example, 
there is no SSL anywhere. All communications are over unencrypted 
connections including when passwords, parent's details and sensitive 
information about kids is transmitted. These days, we're well beyond the
 point of arguing this is ok - it's not. Those passwords <em>will</em> match many of the parent's other accounts and they deserve to be properly protected in transit.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
 You'd think if you were a children's toy company hosting photos and 
addresses of small children on your server you'd at least encrypt the 
connections. The Vtech hacker says he used an old school SQL injection 
to break in and get root access to the company's servers. "It was pretty
 easy to dump, so someone with darker motives could easily get it," he 
told Motherboard. For what it's worth, the hacker says he doesn't plan 
on publishing the data publicly.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's hard to decide if you want 
to be horrified or downright angry about this situation. On one had, the
 Sony hack and Target breaches have shown that anyone can be an unwitting victim to a company's weak security.
 However, the especially terrible security at Vtech makes you wonder if 
you should even be letting kids play with internet-connected toys. After
 all, it was just a few months ago that we learned how the new "Smart Barbie" could spy on kids. What else can go wrong?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I don't have kids, so my opinion on this matter is somewhat uninformed. I do remember that my first favorite toy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTech_Socrates#/media/File:Vtech_socrates.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">was Socrates</a>,
 an educational robot made by-guess who-Vtech. Who knows what I typed 
into that little grey box of fun. If my parents ever had half of a 
suspicion that some pervert could gain access to my toy and watch me 
play, well, it probably would've been back to a Lego-only playtime for 
me. Now, in 2015, this is a very real possibility.</span>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Say what you 
will about connected toys and cheap electronics for kids, but this Vtech
 bonanza should serve as a wakeup call to any and every company cutting 
corners on security. It should also be a weighty reminder to parents who
 would buy these devices that companies do cut corners on security. This
 not only puts their personal data at risk. Neglect puts kids at risk, 
too.</span><br />
</div>

Latest News Security news The Horrifying Vtech Hack Let Someone Download Thousands of Photos of Children

The latest details about a recent security breach at a kids' toy company are in, and they are disturbing. A couple weeks ago, hacke...

Critical 'Port Fail' Vulnerability Reveals Real IP Addresses of VPN Users

9:20 PM Unknown 0

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysD8aD63_udawCkQwXO0jmzMJ32kKgA4V6Oz14-WSXQ0x0zAp4KCkavwbj1DHU5Zk-kVNaf5f2YfZk5yC3g4AuwFSPo_rcuyE2e6avv3d2_6zW4yyvJHVSo-oJ2149J6PgEsE7aa7DUg/s1600/vpn-hacking.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysD8aD63_udawCkQwXO0jmzMJ32kKgA4V6Oz14-WSXQ0x0zAp4KCkavwbj1DHU5Zk-kVNaf5f2YfZk5yC3g4AuwFSPo_rcuyE2e6avv3d2_6zW4yyvJHVSo-oJ2149J6PgEsE7aa7DUg/s640/vpn-hacking.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A 
newly discovered flaw affecting all VPN protocols and operating systems 
has the capability to reveal the real IP-addresses of users' computers, 
including BitTorrent users, with relative ease.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The vulnerability, dubbed <b>Port Fail </b>by VPN provider Perfect 
Privacy (PP) who discovered the issue, is a simple port forwarding trick
 and affects those services that:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Allow port forwarding</span></li>
<br />
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<br />
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Have no protection against this specific attack</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Port Forwarding trick means if an attacker uses the same VPN (<b>Virtual Private Network</b>) as the victim, then the real IP-address of the victim can be exposed by forwarding Internet traffic to a specific port.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"The crucial issue here is that a VPN user connecting to his own VPN 
server will use his default route with his real IP address, as this is 
required for the VPN connection to work," </i>Perfect Privacy wrote in a <a href="https://www.perfect-privacy.com/blog/2015/11/26/ip-leak-vulnerability-affecting-vpn-providers-with-port-forwarding/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">blog post</a> on Thursday.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="main-article-info"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Port Fail affects all VPN protocols including…</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li style="text-align: justify;">OpenVPN</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">IPSec</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
…as well as applies to all operating systems, posing a huge privacy risk. </div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
How Does 'Port Fail' Work?</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A successful IP address leak attack requires an attacker to be on the 
same VPN network as the victim and to know the victim's VPN exit IP 
address, which could be discovered by tricking a victim into visiting a 
website control controlled by the attacker.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For example, an attacker with port forwarding enabled can see the 
request from the victim's actual IP addresses by tricking the victim 
into opening an image file. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The same attack is possible for<b> BitTorrent users</b>, but, in this case, there is no need for the attacker to redirect the victim to their page. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In this case, the attacker only with the activated port forwarding for 
the default BitTorrent port, can expose the real IP-address of a VPN 
user on the same network.</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="main-article-info"></span></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Affected VPN Providers</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The flaw affected various large VPN providers. Perfect Privacy tested 
nine VPN providers out of which five were found to be vulnerable to this
 flaw and were alerted last week. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
VPN providers including Private Internet Access (PIA), Ovpn.to and nVPN have fixed the issue before publication.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, the company warned, <i>"other VPN providers may be vulnerable to this attack as we could not possibly test all."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
VPN aims to make you sure that your real identity remains anonymous on 
the Internet so that nobody could track the origin of your connection 
back to you, but this newly discovered flaw shows that it's quite easy 
to bypass this on some VPN providers.</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>

Hacker Hacking news Latest News Security news Vulnerabilities Critical 'Port Fail' Vulnerability Reveals Real IP Addresses of VPN Users

A newly discovered flaw affecting all VPN protocols and operating systems has the capability to reveal the real IP-addresses of us...

Millions of IoT Devices Using Same Hard-Coded CRYPTO Keys

9:01 PM Unknown 0

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9TDTs8upavk0DL-Vk6caK-rdSwDfMh0TGGwGjdcuOIMDax-eORTd_QPuK8xXdNUWuXpBcge0gIs3u2kh8yOvNaoXUvJRxY-g0SY5bTFK8zX2KRZVLAmNEyTq0fPO1FX4FJq4jk2oZppQ/s1600/CRYPTO-KEYS.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9TDTs8upavk0DL-Vk6caK-rdSwDfMh0TGGwGjdcuOIMDax-eORTd_QPuK8xXdNUWuXpBcge0gIs3u2kh8yOvNaoXUvJRxY-g0SY5bTFK8zX2KRZVLAmNEyTq0fPO1FX4FJq4jk2oZppQ/s640/CRYPTO-KEYS.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Millions of embedded devices, including home routers, modems, IP cameras, VoIP phones, are shareing the same hard-coded <b>SSH</b> (Secure Shell) cryptographic keys or <b>HTTPS</b> (HTTP Secure) server certificates that expose them to various types of malicious attacks.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</BR>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
A new analysis by IT security consultancy <i>SEC Consult </i>shows that 
the lazy manufacturers of the Internet of Things (IoTs) and Home Routers
 are reusing the same set of hard-coded cryptographic keys, leaving 
devices open to Hijacking.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
In simple words, this means that if you are able to access one device 
remotely, you can possibly log into hundreds of thousands of other 
devices – including the devices from different manufacturers.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Re-Using Same Encryption Keys</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
In its <a href="http://blog.sec-consult.com/2015/11/house-of-keys-industry-wide-https.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">survey of IoT devices</a>,
 the company studied 4,000 embedded devices from 70 different hardware 
vendors, ranging from simple home routers to Internet gateway servers, 
and discovered that…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</br>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
…over 580 unique private cryptographic keys for SSH and HTTPS are 
re-shared between multiple devices from the same vendor and even from 
the different vendors.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The most common use of these static keys are:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>SSH host keys</b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>X.509 HTTPS certificates</b></span></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
SSH host keys verify the identity of a device that runs an SSH server 
using a public-private key pair. If an attacker steals the device's SSH 
host private key, he/she can impersonate the device and trick the 
victim's computer to talk to his computer instead.</span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The same happens in the case of websites if an attacker gains access to 
the device's HTTPS private certificate, which is actually used to 
encrypt traffic between users and its Web-based management interface.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The attacker can then decrypt the traffic to extract usernames, 
passwords and other sensitive data with the help of device's HTTPS 
private key.</span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
MILLLLLIONS of Devices Open to Attacks</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
When scanned the Internet for those 580 keys, the researchers found that
 at least 230 crypto keys are actively being used by more than 4 Million
 IoT devices.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Moreover, the researchers recovered around 150 HTTPS server certificates
 that are used by 3.2 Million devices, along with 80 SSH host keys that 
are used by at least 900,000 devices.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The remaining crypto keys might be used by various other devices that 
are not connected to the Internet, but could still be vulnerable to <b>man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks </b>within their respective local area networks.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
As a result, potentially Millions of Internet-connected devices can be 
logged into by attackers, or their HTTPS web server connections can 
silently be decrypted by MitM attackers, using these crypto keys and 
certs once they're extracted from their firmware.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Where Does the actual Problem Reside?</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The issue lies in the way vendors build and deploy their products. 
Typically, the vendors built their device's firmware based on <b>software development kits </b>(SDKs) received from chipmakers…</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
…without even bothering to change the source code or even the keys or certificates that are already present in those SDKs.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
There are many reasons why this large number of devices are accessible from the Internet via HTTPS and SSH. These include:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Insecure default configurations by vendors</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Automatic port forwarding via UPnP</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Provisioning by ISPs that configure their subscribers' devices for remote management</span></li>
</ul>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"The source of the keys is an interesting aspect. Some keys are only 
found in one product or several products in the same product line. In 
other cases we found the same keys in products from various vendors,"</i> Sec Consult wrote in its <a href="http://blog.sec-consult.com/2015/11/house-of-keys-industry-wide-https.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">blog post</a>.</span></blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
List of Vendors that are Re-Using Encryption Keys</span></h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Although SEC Consult identified more than 900 vulnerable products from 
roughly 50 manufacturers, the actual number could be even higher 
considering that its study only targeted firmware the company had access
 to.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="main-article-info"><div style="text-align: justify;">
According to SEC Consult, these are the companies that were found reusing encryption keys:</div>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
ADB, AMX, Actiontec, Adtran, Alcatel-Lucent, Alpha Networks, Aruba 
Networks, Aztech, Bewan, Busch-Jaeger, CTC Union, Cisco, Clear, 
Comtrend, D-Link, Deutsche Telekom, DrayTek, Edimax, General Electric 
(GE), Green Packet, Huawei, Infomark, Innatech, Linksys, Motorola, Moxa,
 NETGEAR, NetComm Wireless, ONT, Observa Telecom, Opengear, Pace, 
Philips, Pirelli , Robustel, Sagemcom, Seagate, Seowon Intech, Sierra 
Wireless, Smart RG, TP-LINK, TRENDnet, Technicolor, Tenda, Totolink, 
unify, UPVEL, Ubee Interactive, Ubiquiti Networks, Vodafone, Western 
Digital, ZTE, Zhone and ZyXEL.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">
Most Affected Countries</h3>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here's the list of Top 10 countries that are affected by SSH/HTTPS encryption key reuse:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>United States</li>
<li>Mexico</li>
<li>Brazil</li>
<li>Spain</li>
<li>Colombia</li>
<li>Canada</li>
<li>China</li>
<li>Russian Federation</li>
<li>Taiwan</li>
<li>United Kingdom</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
SEC Consult has<i> "worked together with CERT/CC to address this issue since early August 2015."</i> and it recommends vendors to use securely random cryptographic keys for each IoT-capable device.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Moreover, ISPs are advised to make sure that there is no possibility to 
remotely access CPE (customer premises equipment) devices via WAN port. 
In case they need access for remote support purposes, <i>"setting up a dedicated management VLAN with strict ACLs is recommended."</i></div>
</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
</div>

Hacker Hacking news Latest News Security news Millions of IoT Devices Using Same Hard-Coded CRYPTO Keys

Millions of embedded devices, including home routers, modems, IP cameras, VoIP phones, are shareing the same hard-coded SSH (Secure...

Exploit Kit Infrastructure Activity Jumps 75 Percent: Report

9:54 PM Unknown 0

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vRJTwzVtHTujxYesLS-E-88GCHpkb3pyANuyyA-nTPRyhv8SBYRDAd0opfvC_UTrZG2rgzFVEV_25k6Qbls_n0pME6Yng9EqEOIEyQanelYaGxQ3HHRtYBwGeE0M9mWuip_R0WKuHSQ/s1600/Exploit-Kit-Activity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vRJTwzVtHTujxYesLS-E-88GCHpkb3pyANuyyA-nTPRyhv8SBYRDAd0opfvC_UTrZG2rgzFVEV_25k6Qbls_n0pME6Yng9EqEOIEyQanelYaGxQ3HHRtYBwGeE0M9mWuip_R0WKuHSQ/s640/Exploit-Kit-Activity.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";"><strong><br /></strong></span></span>
<strong style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', geneva; font-size: medium;">Cybercriminals ramped up the creation of Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure for exploit kits by 75 percent year-on-year during the third quarter of 2015, a recent report from Infoblox Inc. reveals.</strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";"><strong><br /></strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">According to the company’s Infoblox DNS Threat Index, powered by IID, Angler is the largest threat among exploit kits. However, the report also shows that exploit kit activity was driven by incidents of the Angler, Magnitude, Neutrino, and Nuclear crimeware families, and that a significant contributor to the command-and-control (C&C) category was domain generation algorithm (DGA) based malware Matsnu.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Infoblox notes that the increase in exploit kits is alarming because the category represents the automation of cybercrime and because attackers can use them to target individuals, businesses, schools, and government agencies. Exploit kits are created by a small number of cybercriminals, but they can be rented to low-skilled threat actors with little technical knowledge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The Angler, Magnitude, Neutrino, and Nuclear exploit kits accounted for 96 percent of the category’s activity in the third quarter of the year. Angler took the first position with 30 percent of total activity, followed closely by Magnitude with 29 percent, while Neutrino and Nuclear took the third and fourth positions, with 21 percent and 16 percent of exploit kit activity, respectively.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Exploit kit attacks are usually conducted via spam emails and compromised websites, but can also be embedded in online ads (malvertising), and deliver a malicious payload when the user clicks on emails or ads. By taking advantage of vulnerabilities in other applications, exploit kits can plant ransomware, capture login credentials, or sensitive data.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Hackers frequently update exploit kits to take advantage of the latest zero-day vulnerabilities in popular software such as Adobe Flash Player. In Q3, Forbes.com exposed visitors to malicious advertisements that hackers managed to inject in the website to redirect users to a landing page for the Neutrino and Angler exploit kits.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Recent variants of Magnitude were used to target vulnerabilities in Adobe’s Flash Player and to deliver Cryptowall 3.0 ransomware, while Neutrino targets vulnerabilities in older versions of Java to download ransomware. The Nuclear exploit kits targets flaws in Adobe Flash, Adobe PDF, and Microsoft Internet Explorer, is usually used in high-volume compromises, and receives constant updates and improvements.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The<a href="https://www.infoblox.com/sites/infobloxcom/files/resources/infoblox-white-paper-dns-threat-index-q3-2015-report.pdf" style="color: #0076b4; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> report (PDF)</a> also reveals that Matsnu malware, (also known as Androm), has become a significant contributor to the C&C malware category. The malware acts as a backdoor and can also download and install additional malicious software, while using DGA to communicate with C&C servers. With DGA, dynamically generated domains that are used as C&C domains for short periods of time allow bad actors to avoid being blocked.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Phishing is the main driver for malicious activities, despite the fact that it has been around for a long time, mainly because the technique works, the report reads. Courtesy of a rapidly created DNS infrastructure (representing a planting phase), cybercriminals build a base to launch attacks, steal data, and generally cause harm to their victims (during a so-called harvesting phase).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">“Cybercriminals don’t stand still, and exploit kits are constantly evolving to take advantage of newly discovered vulnerabilities and to avoid traditional security systems. Organizations need to protect themselves by plugging into reliable sources of threat intelligence, then use that intelligence to disrupt malware communications through protocols such as DNS,” said Rod Rasmussen, chief technology officer at <a href="http://internetidentity.com/" style="color: #0076b4; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">IID</a>, said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">In September, Kaspersky Lab revealed that the Angler exploit kit started leveraging the Diffie-Hellman cryptographic algorithm to make it more difficult to detect exploits and prevent analysis. In October, Cisco announced that it caused significant damage to the operations of a cybercriminal group that could have made millions of dollars using ransomware distributed with the aid of the notorious Angler exploit kit.</span></span></div>
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Latest News Security news Exploit Kit Infrastructure Activity Jumps 75 Percent: Report

Cybercriminals ramped up the creation of Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure for exploit kits by 75 percent year-on-year during th...

The Rise of "Onion-Layered" Attacks , IBM Says

9:47 PM Unknown 0

Cyber Crime Latest News Security news The Rise of "Onion-Layered" Attacks , IBM Says

"Onion-layered" security incidents have been on the rise throughout 2015, according to the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence ...

You Can Now Use Two-Step Authentication on Amazon-Here's How

9:30 PM Unknown 0

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<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Two-step authentication is one the easiest ways
 to make your online accounts more secure. Finally, Amazon has decided 
to provide the option of using the system-and here's how you can enable 
it.</span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While most of the Internet's big players-Apple, Google, 
Facebook and the like-have long offered the option of using two-step 
authentication, Amazon has steadfastly held out. But <a href="https://twitter.com/rjcc/status/666886457953488896" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Engadget's Richard Lawler has noticed</a> that it's now an option with the online retailer.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's
 late to the party, sure-but this is a party you want to be at. So 
here's how you can enable two-step authentication on your Amazon 
account.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">First, log in to Amazon and click on 'Your Account' in the top right.</span></div>

Internet Latest News Security news You Can Now Use Two-Step Authentication on Amazon-Here's How

Two-step authentication is one the easiest ways to make your online accounts more secure. Finally, Amazon has decided to provide the o...

Attacks Revive Debate on Encryption, Surveillance

10:15 PM Unknown 0

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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";"><strong>The deadly Paris attacks have reignited debate on encrypted communications by terror cells and whether law enforcement and intelligence services are "going dark" in the face of new technologies.</strong></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";"><strong><br /></strong></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The exact means of communication in Friday's strikes were not immediately clear, but media reports have said the Islamic State organization has increasingly turned to encrypted communications and applications to avoid detection.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">The latest carnage in France has revived concerns that law enforcement and intelligence lack the ability to tap into new communications technologies, even with appropriate legal authorization.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">CIA Director John Brennan, speaking at a Washington forum Monday, warned that some technologies -- without specifically mentioning encryption -- "make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence and security services to have the insight they need to uncover it."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Brennan echoed concerns voiced by leaders of the FBI and National Security Agency that terrorists are using encryption to hide their tracks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"I think what we're going to learn is that these guys are communicating via these encrypted apps, right, the commercial encryption, which is very difficult, if not impossible, for governments to break," former deputy CIA director Michael Morell told the CBS program "Face the Nation."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton echoed those concerns, saying his department is often frustrated by encryption -- which has increased with new smartphones powered by Apple and Google software that provides only the users with keys to unlock data.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"We're encountering that all the time," Bratton told broadcaster MSNBC Monday. "We have a huge operation in New York City working closely with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and we encounter that frequently. We are monitoring (suspects) and they go dark. They are going onto an encrypted app, they are going onto sites that we cannot access. The technology has been purposely designed by our manufacturers so that even they cannot get into their own devices."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">So far, the major US technology companies have spurned appeals from officials to enable access for key investigations and have stepped up encryption efforts following the 2013 leaks about vast surveillance capabilities of the US National Security Agency.</span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">'Game changing'</span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">But in light of the bloodletting in France, the debate may change, observers say.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"Evidence that terrorists were, in fact, using strong end-to-end encryption to kill people could be game-changing in a debate that has heretofore been defined by anxieties about NSA," <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-role-did-encryption-play-paris" style="color: #0076b4; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">said</a> Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution fellow who edits the blog Lawfare.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"The tech companies won the first round of the current encryption battles in large measure because the concerns the intelligence and law enforcement community have about 'going dark,' while acutely real to them, are pretty hypothetical on public evidence," he added.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"All that could change in an instant were it to emerge that the Paris attackers were using technology specifically chosen to secure their communications from those charged with stopping terrorist attacks."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Steve Vladeck, an American University law professor and editor of the Just Security blog, said there will be renewed debate on surveillance and encryption in the wake of the Paris attacks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"I don't think we know nearly enough yet to assess whether anything about the Paris attacks ought to tilt the scales in the ongoing debate over encryption," he said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"The most immediate focus of post-Paris discussions of national security law and policy reform is going to be surveillance, with a special focus on encryption and back doors."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">But many technology experts and civil liberties activists say allowing special access to law enforcement would weaken online security overall -- and could mean activists, journalists and people living under authoritarian regimes would lack the ability to freely communicate.</span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Good guys, bad guys</span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"We've never been able to create a 'back door' that can discriminate between good guys and bad guys," said Joseph Hall at the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Creating special access "would mean engineering vulnerabilities" into these systems, Hall told AFP.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Mark Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that "there is no evidence so far that encryption thwarted an investigation" into the Paris attackers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"It may well be that it was a failure of human intelligence."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Bruce Schneier, a cryptographer who is a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society and chief technology officer at the security firm Resilient Systems, said the Paris attacks may be used "to scare people" to weaken encryption.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">Schneier said leaked emails from September suggest that the US administration would seek to use a terror attack to get more public support for surveillance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"They are going to use this to convince people we need back doors," he told AFP.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "geneva";">"It might change the debate because people are scared."</span></span></div>
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Encryption Policy Latest News Security news Attacks Revive Debate on Encryption, Surveillance

The deadly Paris attacks have reignited debate on encrypted communications by terror cells and whether law enforcement and intelligen...

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