Hacker duo hijacks thousands of Chromecasts and Google smart TVs to play PewDiePie ad, reveals bug in Google’s Chromecast devices!
On Wednesday, a hacker duo hijacked thousands of Google’s Chromecast streaming adapters, Google Home smart speakers and smart TVs with built-in Chromecast technology to play a video urging users to subscribe to Swedish Youtuber ‘PewDiePie’s’ Youtube channel. The hacked smart TV’s also displayed a message on the similar lines. The ... Read More
200+ Bitcoins stolen from Electrum wallet in an ongoing phishing attack
Popular Bitcoin wallet Electrum and Bitcoin Cash wallet Electron Cash are subject to an ongoing phishing attack. The hacker, or hackers, have already got away with over 200 Bitcoin (around $718,000 as of press) and with the attack still ongoing, it is quite possible that they get away with much ... Read More
Internal memo reveals NASA suffered a data breach compromising employees social security numbers
On 18th December, an internal HR memo was sent out to all NASA employees by Bob Gibbs, assistant administrator for the office of human capital management, alerting them of a possible compromise to their servers in late October. The memo was shared by SpaceRef and it states that servers stored ... Read More
ACLU files lawsuit against 11 federal criminal and immigration enforcement agencies for disclosure of information on government hacking
On Friday, The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Privacy International, and the University at Buffalo Law School’s Civil Liberties & Transparency Clinic filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against 11 federal criminal and immigration enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. This ... Read More
Microsoft urgently releases Out-of-Band patch for an active Internet Explorer remote code execution zero-day vulnerability
Yesterday, Microsoft released an out-of-band patch for a vulnerability discovered in the Internet Explorer that attackers are actively exploiting on the Internet. The IE zero-day can allow an attacker to execute malicious code on a user’s computer. The vulnerability has been assigned ID CVE-2018-8653 and the security update is released ... Read More
NYT says Facebook has been disclosing personal data to Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and other tech giants; Facebook denies claims with obfuscating press release
“No one should trust Facebook until they change their business model.” –Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook. The New York Times confronted Facebook once again. The media giant obtained hundreds of Facebook internal documents that prove the tech giant has been providing some of the world’s largest technology companies ... Read More
Microsoft announces Windows DNS Server Heap Overflow Vulnerability, users dissatisfied with patch details
11th December was Microsoft’s December 2018 Patch Tuesday, which means users had to update their computers to be protected from the latest threats to Windows and Microsoft products. Microsoft has fixed 39 vulnerabilities, with 10 of them being labeled as Critical. Keeping up with its December 2018 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft ... Read More
Quora Hacked: Almost a 100 Million users’ data compromised!
Yesterday, Quora announced that one of their systems was hacked and approximately 100 million user’s data has been exposed to an unauthorized third-party. The breach was discovered on 30th November, after which the team immediately notified law enforcement and hired a digital forensics and security consulting company to uncover details ... Read More
Why skepticism is important in computer security: Watch James Mickens at USENIX 2018 argue for thinking over blindly shipping code
“Technology, in general, and computer science in particular, have been hyped up to such an extreme level that we’ve ignored the importance of not only security but broader notions of ethical computing.”-James Mickens We like to think that things are going to get better. That, after all, is why we ... Read More
NYT Facebook exposé fallout: Board defends Zuckerberg and Sandberg; Media call and transparency report Highlights
On Wednesday, New York Times published a report on Facebook that raised questions on the company’s way of dealing with the controversies surrounding it, disinformation, the way it treats competitors and critics. The report scathingly pointed out how Facebook denied and deflected the blame it faced, time and again- listing ... Read More
