Showing posts with label Cyber Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cyber Security. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Monday, November 21, 2016

Three Million Android Smartphones Infected with Dangerous Rootkit

After the recent report about the Adups malware which is to be found on hundreds of millions of devices, literally, including stuff from the Internet of Things (like your refrigerator), today we just got word that three million Android smartphones worldwide are shipped with a Rootkit/Backdoor pre-installed.
Yes, these are more bad news for Android users, indeed, but it’s better to stay informed, don’t you think? According to today’s report from BitSight, an internet security company, a number of cheap Android running devices, three millions of them give or take, are vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle type of attack due to a vulnerability in the implementation of the OTA mechanism, which is common in low-cost droids.

The vulnerability is associated with a Chinese company, Ragentek Group, which allows hackers to execute code with admin/root privileges by remote, thus getting full access to the respective droid. The OTA flow runs under the designated CVE-2016-6564 moniker and here’s a list of affected Android smartphones so far:
  • BLU Studio G
  • BLU Studio G Plus
  • BLU Studio 6.0 HD
  • BLU Studio X
  • BLU Studio X Plus
  • BLU Studio C HD
  • Infinix Hot X507
  • Infinix Hot 2 X510
  • Infinix Zero X506
  • Infinix Zero 2 X509
  • DOOGEE Voyager 2 DG310
  • LEAGOO Lead 5
  • LEAGOO Lead 6
  • LEAGOO Lead 3i
  • LEAGOO Lead 2S
  • LEAGOO Alfa 6
  • IKU Colorful K45i
  • Beeline Pro 2
  • XOLO Cube 5.0
As I am writing this piece, only BLU released a software update that addresses the respective vulnerability. The three million affected droids are mainly in the United States, as they are available through BestBuy boasting affordable price tags.
According to the report from BitSight, 55 Android devices (as in smartphone-models) attended to “leak” stolen user data via 2 internet sink holes, of which 26% were manufactured by BLU, 11% by Infinix and 8% by Doogee.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

POISON TAP "$5 DEVICE THAT CAN TAKE OVER A COMPUTER EVEN WHEN LOCKED"

Samy Kamar just released his latest hacking creation, and it is terrifying. Dubbed “Poison Tap,” Kamar’s new home brew device allows someone to plant a backdoor on a computer in just one minute, even when the device is locked.

Kamar’s method for installing the backdoor is unconventional and totally ingenious. Poison Tap targets the victim’s browser cache and injects the malicious code there. Traditionally, attacks would attempt to install malware onto the computer, but by instead going after the browser cache, Poison Tap can bypass some security measures and anti-virus software.
Poison Tap’s software runs off of a a microSD card inserted into a $5 Raspberry Pi. Once it is plugged in, Poison Tap acts as if it was Ethernet to USB device and its setting make it so that the computer begins to send network traffic to Poision Tap, hijacking all network traffic. From there, it “siphons and stores” cookies and session from the web browser of just about every website. Then Poison Tap gains access to the computer’s internal router, and it’s game over. An attacker can now remotely send code to the victim’s computer via the web. Once Poison Tap is unplugged, the backdoor stays on the computer, allowing an attacker essentially unmitigated access to the victim’s computer.

Kamar has publicly released the source code to Poision Tap, so that any would-be hacker can try it out for themselves. The best way to protect yourself, Kamar says, is to encrypt your computer and it put it into sleep mode whenever you walk away from it. You could do that, but Kamar also suggests filling your USB ports with cement.