Security

Posing as the world's most popular ad-blocking software, a fraudulent extension made it onto the Chrome Web Store and tricked tens of thousands of victims into installing what turned out to be a very annoying piece of adware.

OnePlus has dropped the ball yet again, with a user discovering a data siphon that sends his private phone information and logs to a remote OnePlus server.

Serial leaker Evan Blass has introduced the new BlackBerry Motion to the world. The new device will be the third touchscreen-only Android-based model from the the once dominant Canadian smartphone maker.

If you held a Yahoo account in 2013, then you were almost certainly involved in the data breach. At 3 billion user accounts affected, this announcement sets the record for the largest known data breach.

The quantum communication process involves data that is embedded into entangled photons. Any unauthorized tempering with the quantum data stream is immediately exposed and the quantum signature is automatically changed to prevent further data tempering.

The Finney smartphones and PC terminals will be the first open-soruce devices to connect to an independent blockchain network. These will run a proprietary Android-based Shield OS that comes with an array of security features like behavioral based intrusion prevention system, secured communications through VoIP, text or email, and biometric authentication. The smartphones are expected to cost around US$1,000 and the PC terminal could be priced at US$799, but the prices might be modified after the crowdfunding campaign scheduled for this October.

The Wi-Fi exploit works with any mobile device that integrates Broadcom Wi-Fi chips. Google and Apple claim they have released emergency patches for Android 8.0 Oreo and iOS 11, but it may take some time to patch all devices.

CoinHive's cryptomining JavaScript has been found embedded in the site code of two of Showtime's websites, causing increases CPU usage. The script has now been removed, but silence from Showtime leaves the question open on whether they had placed the code there, or if their websites were hacked.

Intel's self-learning Loihi processor is built using the 14 nm manufacturing process and integrates 130,000 artificial neurons that can develop up to 130 million synapses. The chip can perform training and inference tasks, so it adapts in real time to environmental variables. Loihi could power self-driving cars in a few years, but it could also help improve education, facial recognition, manufacturing, emergency services and smart cities.

It's been a good week for privacy intrusions, with GO Keyboard being reported to siphon user data. This time out, it's the Wechat app on all the headlines, as the app's new privacy policy sheds light on how public, private user data actually is.

A study by researchers from the University of Maryland and the US Naval Academy has been published showing that a six-spot pattern unlock is six times easier for snoopers to repeat after seeing once than a six-digit PIN.

In another major misstep for Equifax, an employee of the credit services company responded to customer tweets with a link to a fake phishing website. The site, which was styled to look like the official Equifax site dedicated to the hack, was a fake used to demonstrate how easily malicious parties could further exploit Equifax's customers.

Piriform, makers of the popular PC cleaning software CCleaner, said that a few versions of the program's 32-bit binary were hijacked by hackers who could insert a two-stage backdoor capable of remote code execution. Investigation is on to understand what exactly caused the hijack that resulted in about 2.27 million users getting affected.

Google has launched a new payment service, Tez, which enables fast payments without the need to share information such as bank account numbers, fund transfer codes, or even pair up mobiles by NFC. The new service is compatible with any Indian bank that supports the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

One week after announcing a major data breach affecting over 143 million consumers, Equifax is pointing blame at a security vulnerability in the Apache Struts web framework. However, the vulnerability was publicly announced in March and a patch was available months before the attack.

QNAP offered a glimpse into some of the advancements coming to the QTS 4.3.4 operating system that includes new features such as snapshot support for ARM-based QNAP NAS. It also offered a closer look into the TS-x77 NAS powered by AMD Ryzen CPUs.

Microsoft is bringing app permissions for improved privacy and security with UWP (Windows Store) applications. Admins of the Enterprise Edition have an option to reduce the diagnostic data collected to be reduced to the minimum needed for administration by company IT departments.

Armis Labs discovered a Bluetooth vulnerability codenamed BlueBorne that could affect billions of devices including smartphones like Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy, tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab, smartwatches like LG Watch Sport, or audio systems like the Pumpkin Car Audio System. BlueBorne can also attack unpatched Windows and Linux PCs, and a variety of smart appliances like TVs and security cameras. In order to avoid the proliferation of the BlueBorne vulnerability, users are cautioned to permanently disable their Bluetooth connections until proper patches are issued.

Data from Kaspersky Labs shows that the number of cryptocurrency mining trojan infections in 2017 has passed 1.65 million to date. Criminals use infected PCs to crunch transactions and route the success fee to their own digital wallets.

Google Chrome 63 will come with a feature designed to protect users from third parties who are attempting to intercept their encrypted SSL transmissions.

There were problems with batches of 84Wh batteries in the XPS 15 9550 that led to the battery bulging and pushing against the trackpad. Once the swelling was bad enough, it not only hindered the trackpad function but also posed a safety hazard. Users are now reporting that Dell is now finally accepting out-of-warranty battery replacements for the XPS 15 9550.

The X10 comes with the usual dual band Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet connections, but also offers remote control capabilities for smart home appliances through the integrated ZigBee radio controller and IR blaster.

Equifax announced today that the personal information of over 143 million American consumers was compromised in late July. Items such as birth dates, social security numbers, and even drivers licenses were stolen by hackers, in addition to over 200,000 credit card numbers.

Chinese researchers have been able to launch malicious voice command attacks on every major voice assistant including Siri and Alexa. Using ultrasonics, the researchers were able to hack devices with any victim completely unaware that their device had been compromised.

The saga about some Lenovo laptops coming pre-installed with adware in 2015 has now come to an end with the results of their court case being announced a few hours ago. Lenovo must pay a fine of US$3.5 million and has had some restrictions placed on how they handle pre-installed software in the United States.

At its IFA 2017 keynote in Berlin, Microsoft announced that the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update will start officially rolling out starting October 17. Microsoft's partners will also start shipping affordable Windows Mixed Reality headsets alongside the new OS update.

Microsoft is inviting Insiders to test out Office 365 programs from Windows Store. These are the original Win32-based programs converted using the Project Centennial desktop bridge that can now call UWP-specific APIs and services.

After a massive privacy foul-up, Essential's Andy Rubin has issued a formal apology to customers that had their personal information emailed to other customers. Essential will provide affected individuals with a one-year subscription to LifeLock and, possibly, a free Essential Phone.

Acer has showcased two LTE enabled 360-degree cameras, the Holo360 and Vision360, at its IFA press conference. The Holo360 is a one-stop device for all things concerned with video recording, editing and sharing while the Vision360 is an in-car camera designed to augment driving safety.

Researchers have found a way to disable a much hated component of Intel CPUs — the Intel Management Engine, thanks in part to the NSA's High Assurance Platform (HPA) program.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has started a pilot program to verify business numbers. This allows customers to directly chat with businesses for quicker updates and problem resolution.

Contrary to popular notion, Verizon has started to seed the Android Oreo update to Google Pixel phones on its network much before any other major US carrier has initiated the process.

Google has announced its new Certified Android devices program. Designed to give customers the guarantee of a malware-free device out of the box, it is the company's latest effort to clamp down on Android security.

In the continuing habitual setback for Microsoft in its mobile endeavors, the NYPD will soon be scrapping its 36,000 odd smartphones running Windows Phone 8.1 for iPhones. The department is taking the decision in the wake of Microsoft halting updates for the ill-fated mobile OS.

The Librem 5, currently up for preorder through a crowdfunding campaign, is Purism's attempt to create a privacy-focused smartphone. The phone will run a mobile variant of PureOS, which is Purism's own custom GNU/Linux-based operating system.

22 years after its release, Microsoft Windows 95 is still running on machines around the world, including critical systems inside the Pentagon. The US Department of Defense is collaborating with Microsoft to migrate all Pentagon systems to Windows 10.

Igexin, the developer of an advertising software kit, has been caught collecting user data and sending it back to servers in China. Their kit was used in 500 legitimate applications and used the permissions granted to those apps to collect data such as call logs. Google has disabled the compromised applications while the developers replace the advertising APIs.

In what could be another potential PR headache for Dell, the latest 1.0.7 BIOS update for the XPS 13 may be accidentally rolling back systems. It's recommended that XPS 13 owners do not install this latest update until Dell either reuploads a replacement or directly addresses users' complaints.

A research team has successfully compromised a smartphone by injecting malicious code into the drivers for the touchscreen. The code allows full access to the device, including the ability to alter files, use the phone's camera, download malicious apps, and grant root access without unlocking the bootloader.

Variants of ransomware Locky and Mamba have resurfaced and are more lethal than ever. Those unfortunate to be infected, risk encryption of the entire HDD and need to cough up a huge sum of money for decryption and recovery of their data.

Thanks to the addition of the cloud computing orchestration market leader Cycle Computing to its long list of assets, Microsoft hopes to ease the process of using High-Performance Computing and other Big Computing capabilities in the cloud.

The latest budget-tier smartphone from BLU is now available for $80, although buyers will have to eschew some modern comforts like LTE connectivity at that price. For an extra $30, the R2 LTE offers a slight spec bump and 4G LTE speeds.

Microsoft has announced their 'Coco Framework' which will officially be released as an open-source project on GitHub in 2018. The Coco Framework is intended to help make blockchain technology a viable and secure option for industries to use to share and verify records and transactions.

eScan, a software security company, has reported on a number of vulnerabilities in Xiaomi's MIUI. The two principal ones allow the uninstallation of security apps and the transferring of phone data without prompting for the user password. Xiaomi disputes the findings of the report, claiming that using a PIN, password, pattern, or fingerprint will avoid these problems.

A team of researchers have been experimenting with various sodium-based solutions to replace lithium-ion batteries with significant success. Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) would be advantageous as they would not require as many safeguards due to the more benign nature of sodium versus lithium.

A new SuperSU package by developer Chainfire allows users to hide root status from specific apps, which can enable the use of certain apps on rooted devices that would otherwise be blocked via Google's SafetyNet API.

Scientists came up with a plan to infect computers using altered human DNA. The malicious code is activated when the altered human genetic code is analyzed by a DNA sequencer that is hooked to a computer network.