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The developers behind the privacy-minded Zcash cryptocurrency have recently discovered and patched a highly dangerous vulnerability in the most secretive way that could have allowed an attacker to coin an infinite number of Zcash (ZEC).
Yes, infinite… like a never-ending source of money.
Launched in October 2016, Zcash is a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that claims to be more anonymous than Bitcoin, as the sender, recipient, and value of transactions remain hidden.
In a blog post published today, the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company—the startup behind Zcash—revealed that one of its employees, Ariel Gabizon, discovered the vulnerability in its code on 1st March 2018, the night prior to his talk at the Financial Cryptography conference almost a year ago.
Gabizon contacted Sean Bowe, a Zcash Company's cryptographer, immediately after discovering the counterfeiting vulnerability, as dubbed by the team, and the team decided to keep the flaw secret in order to avoid the risk of attackers exploiting it.
According to the company, only four Zcash employees were aware of the issue before a fix was covertly included in the Zcash network on 28th October 2018.
Besides this, since "discovering this vulnerability would have required a high level of technical and cryptographic sophistication that very few people possess," the company believes that no one else was aware of this flaw and that no counterfeiting occurred in Zcash.
Now, the Zcash team detailed all about the vulnerability on its official site to inform the broader public, which if exploited, would have allowed an attacker to print an infinite amount of Zcash tokens.
Details of the Catastrophic Zcash Vulnerability
According to the team, the counterfeiting vulnerability resided in the variant of zk-SNARKs—an implementation of zero-knowledge cryptography Zcash uses to encrypt and shield the transactions—which has independently been implemented by other projects.
Both Komodo blockchains and Horizen (previously known as ZenCash) suffered from the same issue and reportedly fixed it on their platforms after being notified by the Zcash team back in mid-November 2018 via an encrypted email.
The vulnerability was the result of a "parameter setup algorithm" that allowed "a cheating prover to circumvent a consistency check" and thereby transformed "the proof of one statement into a valid-looking proof of a different statement."
Anyone with access to the multi-party computation (MPC) ceremony transcript, which is used to set up the privacy features for Zcash, would have been able to create false proofs, granting them the ability to create an unlimited amount of shielded coins.
Though the developers found no evidence of counterfeiting occurred in Zcash, they confirmed that the vulnerability had existed for years.
"The vulnerability had existed for years but was undiscovered by numerous expert cryptographers, scientists, third-party auditors, and third-party engineering teams who initiated new projects based upon the Zcash code," the company writes.
Since Zcash is private, even if someone could have counterfeited Zcash in the past, there's no way to find out. However, the Zcash Company argued that it "studied the blockchain for evidence of exploitation: An attack might leave a specific kind of footprint. We found no such footprint."
Fixes for this vulnerability were implemented in the Zcash Sapling network upgrade in October 2018, and some, including former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, have applauded the team's handling of the flaw.
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Skype Vulnerability Exposing User IP Addresses
Skype is warning users following the launch of a site devoted to harvesting user IP addresses.The Skype IP-Finder site allowed third-parties to see a user's last known IP address by simply typing in a user name.
A script has been uploaded to Github that offers these options. According to the page, it can be used to lookup IP addresses of online Skype accounts, and return both the remote and the local IP of that account on a website.
The script is for instance available on this site. Just enter the user name of a Skype user, fill out the captcha, and click the search button to initiate the lookup. You will receive the user's remote IP and port, as well as the local IP and port.
Adrian Asher, director of product Security, Skype "We are investigating reports of a new tool that captures a Skype user's last known IP address. This is an ongoing, industry-wide issue faced by all peer-to-peer software companies. We are committed to the safety and security of our customers and we are takings measures to help protect them."
The proof of concept is fairly simple. All an attacker needs to do is download a special Skype variant and alter a few registry keys to enable debug-log file creation.When adding a Skype contact, before sending the actual request, the victim's information card can be viewed. At this point, the log file records the user's IP address.
The software, posted on Pastebin, works on a patched version of Skype 5.5 and involves adding a few registry keys that allow the attacker to check the IP address of users currently online. Services like Whois will then give some other details on the city, country, internet provider and/or the internal IP-address of the target.
This particular flaw was discussed in a paper presented by an international team of researchers in November at the Internet Measurement Conference 2011 in Berlin.
There is currently no way of protecting yourself against the lookup of the IP address, other than not logging in to Skype when the software is not needed. The only other option would be the use of a virtual private network or proxy to hide the IP address from users who look it up.
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Story highlightsRoger Federer moves into the quarterfinals of the World Tennis TournamentFederer defeats Thiemo de Bakker 6-3 6-4 to set up a clash with Julien BenneteauJuan Martin Del Potro, Jarkko Nieminen and Marcos Baghdatis all through to the last eightRoger Federer is on course for a second successive World Tennis Tournament title after he defeated Dutch wild card Thiemo de Bakker 6-3 6-4 in just over an hour in Rotterdam.The Swiss 17-time grand slam winner has lost just five times in his eight appearances at the tournament and never looked in any trouble against his 24-year-old opponent.Federer will now play Julien Benneteau in the quarterfinals on Friday as he goes in search of his 77th career title."I'm happy. Things are obviously pretty quick indoors," Federer said in a court side interview. "Thiemo can serve well and he is very talented, so it is a good victory for me."The man Federer beat in last year's final, Juan Martin Del Potro, from Argentina, is on course to meet his nemesis again after disposing of Latvian Ernests Gulbis 7-6 6-3.JUST WATCHEDMartina Navratilova takes on Pat CashReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHMartina Navratilova takes on Pat Cash 06:03JUST WATCHEDWomen's tennis top stars talk personalReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHWomen's tennis top stars talk personal 01:14The Argentinean fired 12 aces past his opponent as he goes in search of his 14th Tour title. He will now play Jarkko Nieminen in the last eight after the Finn beat German qualifier Matthias Bachinger 6-3 5-7 6-3.Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis eased past Frenchman Richard Gasquet, the fourth seed, with a 6-4 6-4 win.Elsewhere, the International Tennis Federation announced Thursday that Barbora Strycova has been handed a backdated six-month ban after testing positive for a banned stimulant.The 26-year-old gave a positive test for sibutramine on October 16 at the Luxembourg Open as a result of taking weight-loss supplement ACAI Berry Thin but denied she had any intention to enhance her performance.The ITF said it "did not dispute" Strycova's account and backdated her ban, meaning the Czech player will be able to compete again from April 16 onwards.
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(CNN)The families of five children and four adults killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have reached a $73 million settlement with the now-bankrupt gun manufacturer Remington and its four insurers, the plaintiffs' attorneys said Tuesday.The settlement comes more than seven years after the families filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Remington, the manufacturer of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead in Newtown, Connecticut.Sandy Hook School Shootings Fast FactsThe families have also "obtained and can make public thousands of pages of internal company documents that prove Remington's wrongdoing and carry important lessons for helping to prevent future mass shootings," the plaintiffs' attorneys said in a news release."We established what was clearly true ... the immunity protecting the gun industry is not bulletproof," plaintiffs' attorney Josh Koskoff said in a news conference in Trumbull, Connecticut. "We hope they realize they have skin in the game, instead of blaming literally everybody else."CNN has reached out to attorneys for Remington but has not heard back. Read MoreThe families sued Remington in 2014, alleging it should be held partially responsible for the shooting because of its marketing strategy. A 2005 federal law protects many gun manufacturers from wrongful death lawsuits brought by family members -- but the marketing argument was a new approach. Lawyers for the plaintiffs contended that the company marketed rifles by extolling the militaristic qualities of the rifle and reinforcing the image of a combat weapon -- in violation of a Connecticut law that prevents deceptive marketing practices.26 playgrounds honor the students and the teachers killed at Sandy HookThe US Supreme Court in 2019 decided not to take up an appeal by Remington, effectively allowing the suit to move forward.The settlement also should be a warning to insurance companies covering gun manufacturers, Koskoff said."Insurance companies, it's time for you to start treating the gun industry like you treat me every time I get a speeding ticket. ... You raise my rates," he said. "Have you ever heard of an insurance company standing behind an insured that has no care whatsoever for the risk they're creating? ... Where is the oversight? This can be done."The public should "stay tuned" for more information about the thousands of internal Remington documents the plaintiffs obtained, Koskoff said.More work needs to be done to make the documents digestible to the public, he said. Julia Ofman, a spokesperson working with the Koskoff law firm, told CNN the settlement has been filed today in bankruptcy court. It hasn't technically been approved yet, but she said, "there's no expectation that approval won't happen" and said, "this is over."'Landmark, historic victory'Relatives of the victims spoke at the news conference to remember their loved ones and celebrate the settlement."This landmark, historic victory sends a forceful and compelling message to manufacturers and to the insurance and banking industries that support them: This is a high-risk market, it is not profitable, and you will be held accountable," said Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son Dylan was killed in the shooting.Hockley said she had promised, after her son's death, to create change that would prevent mass shootings. "Nothing will bring Dylan back. The closest I get to him now is by kissing his urn every night, telling him I love him and I miss him," Hockley said. "But I made him a promise, and I'll keep working to deliver that promise for the rest of my life.US School Violence Fast Facts"My hope for this lawsuit is that by facing and finally being penalized for the impact of their work, gun companies along with the insurance and banking industries that enable them will be forced to make their practices safer than they've ever been, which will save lives and stop more shootings."Hockley said the thousands of internal Remington documents that the plaintiffs obtained "paint a picture of a company that lost its way," and that the families can't wait to share those documents with the public.The $73 million settlement is all of the available coverage that Remington's insurance carriers could pay, the plaintiffs' attorneys said. Last summer, Remington approached the families with a nearly $33 million settlement offer. At the time, lawyers for the families said they would consider their next steps.The families did not accept the earlier proposal "because they wanted to ensure they had obtained enough documents and taken enough depositions to prove Remington's misconduct" and to "to ensure the case's message to the insurance industry was clear," Tuesday's news release reads.When asked whether the settlement with Remington included an admission of wrongdoing, Koskoff said he didn't know whether he could get into the details, due to some confidentiality agreements. 9 years after Sandy Hook, the victims' memories still endure"What I would say is, the proof is in the pudding. You have four insurance companies, they're all represented by different people. They all paid their very last dollar. They were looking at the same circumstances that we were. Remington's bankrupt, so they're out," Koskoff said. In 2020, Remington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in just over two years.Lenny Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah was killed in the shooting, said in the news release that their loss is "irreversible, and in that sense, this outcome is neither redemptive nor restorative." "One moment we had this dazzling, energetic 6-year-old little boy, and the next all we had left were echoes of the past, photographs of a lost boy who will never grow older, calendars marking a horrifying new anniversary, a lonely grave, and pieces of Noah's life stored in a backpack and boxes." "What is lost remains lost. However, the resolution does provide a measure of accountability in an industry that has thus far operated with impunity. For this, we are grateful," Pozner and De La Rosa said.CNN's Laura Ly and Amir Vera contributed to this report.
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Story highlightsMaradona and Veron clash in charity game"United for Peace" game organized by Pope Match raised funds for Italy earthquake victims (CNN)You don't become one of the greatest footballers of all time without having a burning desire to win.And even in a charity match dubbed "United for Peace" -- organized by Pope Francis -- soccer legend Diego Maradona, now aged 55, shows no sign of losing that competitive streak.Follow @cnnsport
The Argentine, famed for his heavenly skill, was one of several high-profile current and former players to take to the pitch at Roma's Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday.READ MORE: The 8.1 second goal. The fastest ever?Rome's own son Francesco Totti, Brazilian Ronaldinho and Juan Sebastian Veron were just some of the star names to make an appearance at the charity event.Read MoreLa pelea completa entre Verón y Maradona en pleno partido por La Paz. https://t.co/lXP6HA3VcH pic.twitter.com/zLWk88IMeE— CrackDeportivo (@crackdeportivo) October 12, 2016
It was fellow Argentine Veron that sent Maradona into a bit of a strop as the two teams were walking off at the end of the first half.Maradona, who inspired Argentina to the 1986 World Cup, took exception to a tackle from Veron midway through the opening 45 minutes.While the pair initially laughed the incident off, something triggered a heated discussion as they made their way towards the changing rooms.Maradona coached Veron between 2008-10 while in charge of the Argentina national team, and it was reported the compatriots reconciled their differences during the interval.Proceeds from the charity match will go to the Vatican's international projects, including rebuilding facilities in Italy's earthquake-hit town of Amatrice.The Pope, a fellow countryman of Maradona and Veron, is a huge football fan and supports Argentine club San Lorenzo.READ MORE: FIFA fighting 'forces that don't want change'Pope Francis welcomes players of San Lorenzo to the vatican following their Copa Libertadores win.In 2014, following San Lorenzo winning the Copa Libertadores title -- South America's Champions League equivalent -- the Pope invited the team to visit him at the Vatican.Health problemsMaradona also credits Pope Francis for renewing his faith, saying he had previously distanced himself from religion."I am with Pope Francis, for him I am always available," Maradona told a press conference before the match."He is doing a great job also inside the Vatican, which pleases all Catholics. I had distanced myself from the church for many reasons. ... Pope Francis made me come back."JUST WATCHEDLionel Messi is ...ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHLionel Messi is ... 01:03READ MORE: Guardiola on his legacy mission for mentor CruyffMaradona is one of the greatest players in soccer history, having helped Napoli win two Italian league titles after a difficult two-year stay at Barcelona -- both clubs signed him for world-record fees.But his career was marred by controversy over drug use -- he was thrown out of the 1994 World Cup after testing positive for ephedrine -- and he suffered from subsequent health problems.Veron had the last laugh in Wednesday's game -- the "White Team" he played for won 4-3.
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(CNN)No.1 seed Simona Halep won her 17th straight tennis match to advance to the fourth round of the French Open. The Romanian beat No. 25 seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-1 in the third round at Roland Garros to extend her undefeated run, which stretches back to January's Australian Open semifinals and includes three WTA titles in Dubai, Prague and Rome. It took 2018 champion Halep just 54 minutes to breeze past the 19-year-old in Paris, reenacting some sort of revenge on Anisimova for ruining her title defense in last year's quarterfinals. "I took the game in my hands," Halep said afterwards. "Last year, I was very far from the court, and I played fairly short so [Anisimova] could play her game. "When she has time and she has the ball in the right position, she is very, very dangerous and she plays great. So today I think I did a great job changing a little bit the tactic."Read MoreREAD: 'Wouldn't give to a dog to chew': Tennis players complain about new balls at French OpenHalep returns the ball to Anisimova during their third round match at the French Open.After saving five break points in the second game of the encounter match, Halep didn't face another one all game and hit just seven unforced errors in the dominant victory.But after the victory, Halep was full of praise for her opponent, saying she has a bright future ahead of her. "She's very young, so she has so many years ahead," she said. "She's a great player, and she will be in the top very soon."With reigning champion Ashleigh Barty and US Open winner Naomi Osaka not traveling to France due to coronavirus fears and injuries respectively, Halep is seen as the favorite to lift her second French Open title. She will face Poland's Iga Swiatek in the round of 16. The pair faced off in the same stage last year, with Halep winning comfortably 6-1, 6-0. READ: French Open begins as top players grumble over cold weatherHalep celebrates after winning a point against Anisimova.The favorite advancesRafael Nadal's march towards tying the record for grand slam singles titles with Roger Federer continues. Federer won 20 such titles, and Nadal is on pace to equal him. Nadal's dominance of clay court tennis also persists.The 12-time French Open winner beat the Italian Stefano Travaglia 6-1, 6-4, 6-0 in just an hour and 35 minutes to advance to the last 16 of the tournament. Nadal improves to 44-0 in the opening three rounds at Roland Garros with his 96th win in 98 contests."We are in a very strange situation after a lot of months without playing much tennis, especially for me [given that] I didn't playing in America," said Nadal. "So I don't know if it is a positive thing or a negative thing [to win quickly]. I take it [as] a positive thing because I am playing quite well to win against a player like Stefano today."Visit CNN.com/sport for more news, features, and videosNadal celebrates after winning a point during his match against Travaglia.The Spaniard hit 28 winners and just 13 errors as he cruised to victory and into the next round in France. The No.2 seed will face 20-year-old American Sebastian Korda next after he beat Pedro Martinez on Friday.
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Amnesty International, one of the most prominent non-profit human rights organizations in the world, claims one of its staff members has been targeted by a sophisticated surveillance tool made by Israel's NSO Group.
The NSO Group is an Israeli firm that's mostly known for selling high-tech spyware and surveillance malware capable of remotely cracking into Apple's iPhones and Google's Android devices to intelligence apparatuses, militaries, and law enforcement around the world.
The company's most powerful spyware called Pegasus for iPhone, Android, and other mobile devices has previously been used to target human rights activists and journalists, from Mexico to the United Arab Emirates.
Pegasus has been designed to hack mobile phones remotely, allowing an attacker to access an incredible amount of data on a target victim, including text messages, emails, WhatsApp messages, user's location, microphone, and camera—all without the victim's knowledge.
Spyware Targets Amnesty International and Saudi Dissident
Now, the nasty spyware was used against one of the Amnesty International staffers in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, alongside another Saudi human rights defender based abroad, according to a new report published today.
Amnesty says that one of its researchers focused on Saudi Arabia received a suspicious WhatsApp message in early June this year, details about a protest outside the Saudi embassy in Washington that supported "brothers" detained during Ramadan.
The message also included a link purporting to be from an Arabic news website about the protest, but the London-based human rights organization traced the link to a site that it believes are linked to infrastructure used by NSO Group.
A Saudi human rights defender also received a suspicious SMS message, which also carried malicious links to domains identified as part of that same network infrastructure used by NSO Group.
Since Amnesty was unable to figure out exactly what the links were designed to deliver, the organization shared the text messages with the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which has been tracking NSO spyware for over two years.
After analyzing the messages, Citizen Lab said other similar malicious words have widely been shared across people in the Gulf region in WhatsApp groups and on Twitter at the beginning of June 2018.
According to the research group, clicking on these links potentially infects the targets' phones with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware.
Once infected, as I said above, Pegasus can do almost anything on an iPhone or Android device, including silently stealing messages, spying on phone calls, looking through the webcam and listening using the device microphone.
"NSO Group is known to only sell its spyware to governments. We, therefore, believe that this was a deliberate attempt to infiltrate Amnesty International by a government hostile to our human rights work," said Joshua Franco, Amnesty International's Head of Technology and Human Rights.
"The potent state hacking tools manufactured by NSO Group allow for an extraordinarily invasive form of surveillance. A smartphone infected with Pegasus is essentially controlled by the attacker – it can relay phone calls, photos, messages and more directly to the operator. This chilling attack on Amnesty International highlights the grave risk posed to activists around the world with this kind of surveillance technology."
Fortunately, the Amnesty staffer and the Saudi activist, whose names have not been revealed to protect their safety, avoided the infection by not responding to those messages.
Total 175 People Across the World Targeted by NSO Spyware
Citizen Lab said it had so far counted as many as 174 publicly-reported cases of individuals worldwide "abusively targeted" with NSO spyware, including 150 targets in Panama identified as part of a massive domestic espionage scandal across its former president.
"At the time of writing, various reports indicate that up to 175 individuals may have been inappropriately targeted with NSO Group's spyware in violation of their internationally-recognized human rights," the researchers say.
"It seems clear that NSO Group is unable or unwilling to prevent its customers from misusing its powerful spyware tools."
Amnesty's cybersecurity research team and Citizen Lab were also able to develop a "fingerprint" of NSO's attacks by rerouting targets from malicious links in messages to websites where attacks would launch, and found over 600 domains connected to NSO Group.
Those 600 websites Amnesty identified are used to bait and spy on activists in different countries including Zambia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Hungary, in addition to the Gulf.
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Cybersecurity researchers have discovered yet another piece of wormable Android malware—but this time downloadable directly from the official Google Play Store—that's capable of propagating via WhatsApp messages.
Disguised as a rogue Netflix app under the name of "FlixOnline," the malware comes with features that allow it to automatically reply to a victim's incoming WhatsApp messages with a payload received from a command-and-control (C&C) server.
"The application is actually designed to monitor the user's WhatsApp notifications, and to send automatic replies to the user's incoming messages using content that it receives from a remote C&C server," Check Point researchers said in an analysis published today.
Besides masquerading as a Netflix app, the malicious "FlixOnline" app also requests intrusive permissions that allow it to create fake Login screens for other apps, with the goal of stealing credentials and gain access to all notifications received on the device, using it to hide WhatsApp notifications from the user and automatically reply with a specially-crafted payload received from the C&C server.
"The malware's technique is fairly new and innovative," said Aviran Hazum, manager of mobile intelligence at Check Point. "The technique here is to hijack the connection to WhatsApp by capturing notifications, along with the ability to take predefined actions, like 'dismiss' or 'reply' via the Notification Manager."
A successful infection could allow the malware to spread further via malicious links, steal data from users' WhatsApp accounts, propagate malicious messages to users' WhatsApp contacts and groups, and even extort users by threatening to leak sensitive WhatsApp data or conversations.
The app has since been purged from the Play Store, but not before attracting a total of 500 downloads over the course of two months.
FlixOnline also marks the second time a malicious app has been caught using WhatsApp to spread the malware. In January 2021, ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko disclosed a fake Huawei Mobile app that employed the same modus operandi to perform the wormable attack.
What's more, the message displayed to users upon opening the apps is the same — "We need your permission to access the application. It will help app (sic) to provide better functionality" — suggesting the two apps could either be the work of the same attacker or that the authors of FlixOnline drew inspiration from the Huawei Mobile app.
"The fact that the malware was able to be disguised so easily and ultimately bypass Play Store's protections raises some serious red flags," Hazum said. "Although we stopped one campaign of the malware, the malware family is likely here to stay. The malware may return hidden in a different app."
"Users should be wary of download links or attachments that they receive via WhatsApp or other messaging apps, even when they appear to come from trusted contacts or messaging groups," Hazum added.
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(CNN)Hungary's right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has proposed a referendum on the country's controversial new LGBTQ law. The move is in response to the European Union which lambasted the new measure by the member state. In a Facebook video on Wednesday, the hardline leader outlined a five-question vote that will ask the public if they support the "promotion" of content related to sexual orientation to children. Orbán is urging the public to vote "no." "In the past weeks, Brussels has clearly attacked Hungary over its child protection law. Hungarian laws do not permit sexual propaganda in kindergartens, schools, on television and in advertisements," Orban said in a Facebook video.In his announcement, he referred to a referendum five year ago in which Hungary rejected the EU's refugee resettlement plan but failed to reach a voter turnout threshold, making the referendum not legally binding. "Then, a referendum and the common will of the people stopped Brussels," he said. "We have already succeeded once and together we will succeed again." Read MoreParticipants gather near parliament in Budapest on June 14, 2021, during a demonstration against the Hungarian government's draft bill seeking to ban the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools.Members of the European Parliament and other European leaders have criticized the new policy, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte saying that Hungary has "no place in the EU." CNN learned that during the last closed-door meeting of EU leaders, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, starkly warned Orban: "My grandfather was Jewish, I'm gay and can live freely. And then I read this law. I know what happens when you turn people into a minority." Seventeen other member states pointedly signed a letter to the presidents of the EU institutions, reiterating their support for human rights as outlined in Article 2 of the treaties of the European Union. The European Commission last week announced infringement proceedings against Orban's government in relation to the law.What the ballot paper will ask1. Do you support the holding of presentations in public education institutions to introduce minors to topics on sexual orientation without the authorization of their parents?2. Do you support the promotion of gender reassignment treatments for minors?3. Do you support gender reassignment treatments being made available to minors?4. Do you support minors being shown, without any restriction, media content of a sexual nature that is capable of influencing their development?5. Do you support minors being shown media content that demonstrates gender reassignment?The law bans all educational materials and programs for children that are considered to promote homosexuality and gender reassignment.It has been condemned by many EU leaders as being homophobic and has prompted intense criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties. On the day it passed, crowds gathered in Budapest outside parliament to protest the bill."In the past weeks, Brussels has clearly attacked Hungary over its child protection law. Hungarian laws do not permit sexual propaganda in kindergartens, schools, on television and in advertisements," Orban said in the video.Orban has maintained that the law -- approved in parliament last month -- is not about violating LGBTQ rights as critics argue, but about preserving parents' rights to choose how to educate their children.The Hungarian government also announced on Wednesday that proposals to hold referendums are allowed again after being suspended due to Covid-19. A spokesperson for the European Commission said it would not comment on Orban's statement -- as is standard practice when any member state announces a referendum -- but referred CNN to the infringement procedure it launched last week.
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Bad week for Android. Just days after a critical Stagefright vulnerability was revealed in the widely popular mobile platform, another new vulnerability threatens to make most Android devices unresponsive and practically unusable to essential tasks.
Security researchers at Trend Micro have developed an attack technique that could ultimately crash more than 55 percent of Android phones, almost making them completely unresponsive and useless to perform very basic functions, including to make or receive calls.
The dangerous security flaw affects any device running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and later, including the latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, potentially putting hundreds of millions of Android users vulnerable to hackers.
The flaw surfaced two days after Zimperium researchers warned that nearly 950 Million Android phones can be hijacked by sending a simple text message. Dubbed Stagefright, the vulnerability is more serious because it required no end-user interaction at all to be exploited.
How to Exploit the Flaw?
A hacker can exploit the vulnerability in two ways:
Through a Malicious Android App
Through a Specially-Crafted Web Site
Most easy way to exploit the flaw is to lure a vulnerable Android phone to a booby-trapped website. Presumably, in this case, the phone can be revived by just restarting it.
However, the vulnerability if exploited by a malicious app can cause a long-term impact on the phone, according to a blog post published Wednesday by a researcher from security firm Trend Micro.
The malicious app can be designed in such a way that every time the phone is turned on, the app automatically start, causing the operating system to crash shortly after each restart.
This makes the device unresponsive, mute and useless, meaning no ringtone, message tone, or notification sounds will be heard. Neither the user can even receive or make calls.
Root Cause of the Vulnerability
The vulnerability actually resides in the mediaserver service used by Android to index media files located on the Android phone.
"[mediaserver] service cannot correctly process a malformed video file using the Matroska container (usually with the .mkv extension)," Trend Micro researcher Wish Wu wrote. "When the process opens a malformed MKV file, the service may crash (and with it, the rest of the operating system)."
Researchers have also developed a proof-of-concept (PoC) malicious app that exploits the flaw. You can watch the given video that shows the exploit in work.
Security researchers reported the vulnerability to Google's security team in late May, but the team failed to patch the issue after classifying it as a low-level vulnerability.
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If you are using Magento to run your e-commerce website, it's time for you to update the CMS (content management system) now.
Millions of online merchants are at risk of hijacking attacks due to a number of critical cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the Magento, the most popular e-commerce platform owned by eBay.
Why the Bugs are So Serious?
Virtually all versions of Magento Community Edition 1.9.2.2 and earlier as well as Enterprise Edition 1.14.2.2 and earlier, are vulnerable to the Stored Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) flaws.
The stored XSS flaws are awful as they allow attackers to:
Effectively take over a Magento-based online store
Escalate user privileges
Siphon customers' data
Steal credit card information
Control the website via administrator accounts
However, the good news is that the vulnerabilities are patched, and an update has been made available to the public after security firm Sucuri discovered and privately reported the vulnerability to the company.
How Easy it is to Exploit the Flaw
The XSS bugs are quite easy to exploit. All an attacker need to do is embed malicious JavaScript code inside customer registration forms in place of email address.
Magento then runs and executes this email containing JavaScript code in the context of the administrator account, making it possible for an attacker to steal administrator session and completely take over the server running Magento.
Cybersecurity firm Sucuri describes the bug as the worst hole, saying:
"The buggy snippet is located inside Magento core libraries, more specifically within the administrator's backend. Unless you are behind a WAF or you have a very heavily modified administration panel, you are at risk."
"As this is a Stored XSS vulnerability, this issue could be used by attackers to take over your site, create new administrator accounts, steal client information, anything a legitimate administrator account is allowed to do."
Patch your Software Now!
To prevent websites from exploitation, webmasters are recommended to apply the latest patch bundle SUPEE-7405 as soon as possible.
Since the latest patch resolves the issue for Magento version 1.14.1 and 1.9.1 and earlier, problems impacting Magento versions 1.14.2.3 and 1.9.2.3 have already been resolved.
With Alexa top one million e-commerce websites and over all ten Million websites using the internet's fourth most popular CMS, Magento has become a valuable target for attackers nowadays.
So, patch your websites now to stay safe!
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Security expert Dan Melamed discovered a critical vulnerability in Facebook platform that allow an attacker to take complete control over any account.
The vulnerability is considered critical because it would allow a hacker to hack potentially any Facebook account. Dan Melamed presented the discovery on his blog. Dan demonstrated that how a hacker can reset the victim's account password just by tricking him to visit a malicious exploit code.
The flaw affects the Facebook "claim email address" component. When an user tries to add an email address already registered to Facebook platform, he has the option to "claim it". The loophole exists here, when user claim an email address, Facebook did not check from whom the request came from. This allows an email to be claimed on any Facebook account.
The exploit is possible provided that:
An existing account having the email address that the attacker wants to claim.
Another existing account to initiate the claim process.
Dan provided a video of proof of concept:
When user makes a claim request for an @hotmail.com email he is taken to a link that appears like this:
https://www.facebook.com/support/openid/proxy_hotmail.php?appdata[fbid]=AQ3Tcly2XEfbzuCqyhZXfb8_hYHTnHPPd-CDsvdrLzDnWLpsKTMcaXtIzV0qywEwbPs
The researcher discovered that the parameter appdata[fbid] was the encrypted email address. Dan used the encrypted email funnyluv196@hotmail.com for the POC. The link will redirect user to the sign in page for Hotmail.
"You must sign in with the email address that matches the encrypted parameter. Once signed in, you are taken to a final link that looks like this:
https://www.facebook.com/support/openid/accept_hotmail.php?appdata=%7B%22fbid%22%3A%22AQ3Tcly2XEfbzuCqyhZXfb8_hYHTnHPPd-CDsvdrLzDnWLpsKTMcaXtIzV0qywEwbPs%22%7D&code=a6893043-cf19-942b-c686-1aadb8b21026 "
The source code confirms that the claim email process has succeeded:
Dan Melamed sustains that the exploit is very simple to conduct and it is advantaged by 2 important aspects:
The link expires in around 3 hours, giving plenty of time for a hacker to use it.
It can be visited on any Facebook account because there is no check to see who made this request.
To trick the victim, hacker has just to insert the (https://evilsite.com/evilpage.html) exploit link on a webpage as either an image or an iframe.
"Once clicked, the email (in this case: funnyluv196@hotmail.com) is instantly added to their Facebook account. The victim does not receive any notification whatsoever that this email has been added. The hacker can then reset the victim's password using the newly added email address. Thus allowing the attacker to take complete control over the Facebook account."
This vulnerability has been confirmed to be patched by the Facebook Security Team, fortunately the group is very responsive as demonstrated for the fix of other recent flaws. It must be considered that the popular social networking platform is very attractive for cybercrime and many other categories of attackers, cyber security is a critical aspect for its business success.
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New Flashback malware variant found in the wild
A new Flashback Trojan has been discovered that infects Macs without prompting the user for a password. If you haven't updated Java on your Mac, or disabled it entirely, you could be a victim. The new variant dubbed Flashback.S is actively being distributed in the wild, taking advantage of a Java vulnerability that Apple has already patched.
Flashback.S drops two files in the user's home folder, then deletes cached Java files to avoid detection. However, the researchers did not indicate what this new variant was specifically designed to do or how many computers might be infected.
At its height, the original Flashback, which was designed to grab passwords and other information from users through their web browser and other applications, was estimated to be infecting more than 600,000 Macs.
After analyzing 100,000 Macs running the firm's free anti-virus software program, Sophos discovered several Apple computers carrying Windows malware.
This is not the first time that Mac users have been hit by a Windows-style computer virus. Last year, security researchers discovered that a piece of malware, called Mac Defender, was aimed at Macs until Apple released a patch at the end of May 2011.
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If you are using the Internet, there are the possibilities that you are open to attack.
The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) implementation in all Linux systems deployed since 2012 (version 3.6 and above of the Linux kernel) poses a serious threat to Internet users, whether or not they use Linux directly.
This issue is troubling because Linux is used widely across the Internet, from web servers to Android smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs.
Researchers have uncovered a serious Internet flaw, which if exploited, could allow attackers to terminate or inject malware into unencrypted communication between any two vulnerable machines on the Internet.
The vulnerability could also be used to forcefully terminate HTTPS encrypted connections and downgrade the privacy of secure connections, as well as also threatens anonymity of Tor users by routing them to certain malicious relays.
The flaw actually resides in the design and implementation of the Request for Comments: 5961 (RFC 5961) – a relatively new Internet standard that's designed to make commonly used TCP more robust against hacking attacks.
TCP protocol is the heart of all Internet communications, as all application level protocols, including HTTP, FTP, SSH, Telnet, DNS, and SMTP, stand on TCP.
Web servers and other applications make use of TCP protocol to establish connections between hosts to transfer data between them.
A team of six security researchers from the University of California, Riverside and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory has demonstrated a proof-of-concept exploit at the USENIX Security Symposium that can be used to detect if two hosts are communicating over TCP and ultimately attack that traffic.
No Need of Man-in-the-Attack Position
Typically, TCP protocol assembles messages into a series of data packets that are identified by unique sequence numbers and transmitted to the receiver. When received, the data packets are then reassembled by the receiver into the original message.
Researchers found that 'Side channels' attack allows hackers to guess the TCP packet sequence numbers accurately within first 10 seconds of the attack by using no more information than just the IP addresses of both parties.
This means, an attacker with spoofed IP address does not need a man-in-the-middle (MITM) position, apparently intercepting and injecting malicious TCP packets between any two arbitrary machines on the Internet.
The researchers detailed their findings in the paper titled, 'Off-Path TCP Exploits: Global Rate Limit Considered Dangerous' [PDF], which they presented at the conference, showing the audience how they injected a phishing form inside the USA Today website.
You can watch the video demonstration above that shows the attack in work.
Targeting the Tor Network
The researchers also show how the flaw (CVE-2016-5696) can be exploited to break Secure Shell (SSH) connections and tamper with encrypted communications traveling over Tor anonymity network.
"In general, we believe that a DoS [Denial of Service] attack against Tor connections can have a devastating impact on both the availability of the service as a whole and the privacy guarantees that it can provide," the paper reads.
"The default policy in Tor is that if a connection is down between two relay nodes, say a middle relay and an exit relay, the middle relay will pick a different exit relay to establish the next connection. If an attacker can dictate which connections are down (via reset attacks), then the attacker can potentially force the use of certain exit relays."
The team also provided recommendations on how to mitigate the attack.
Here's How to Mitigate TCP Attack
While patches to fix the vulnerability are developed and distributed for the current Linux kernel, as a workaround you can raise the ACK rate limit on your Linux machine or gadget to large values so that it cannot be reached.
For this, you are required to append the following to /etc/sysctl.conf:
net.ipv4.tcp_challenge_ack_limit = 999999999
Once done, use sysctl -p to activate the new rule. You need to perform root to do this.
The researchers also note that while Linux version 3.6 and above are vulnerable to this attack, Windows, OS X and FreeBSD are not believed to be vulnerable because they have not yet fully implemented RFC 5961.
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London (CNN)Prince Harry and Meghan have kissed for the first time as a married couple after a joyous and modern wedding full of firsts for Britain's royal family.Now known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the newlyweds emerged from their ceremony in St. George's Chapel and shared a short kiss on the grounds of Windsor Castle, before descending hand-in-hand down the chapel stairs to be whisked off in a horse-drawn carriage.Harry and Meghan kiss on the steps of St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.The couple had married in front of of hundreds of guests, including British celebrities and many from across the Atlantic, such as Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, and George and Amal Clooney. Couples do not typically kiss in Church of England wedding ceremonies, but it has been tradition for royal couples to kiss publicly soon after for the world to see.Royal wedding: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are marriedThe couple was first seen publicly kissing in May last year, when Meghan went to watch Harry play a charity polo match in Berkshire. They were photographed in the car park embracing and kissing before the match.Read MoreThe couple's marriage is the culmination of a romance that began in 2016, when the two went on a blind date in London set up by a mutual friend.Meghan visited Harry during his trip to Botswana later that same year, and it was in October 2016 that rumors emerged that the pair were dating.The couple announced their engagement in November last year, the world got a glimpse of the engagement ring, made from a large Botswana diamond and two smaller diamonds that belonged to Harry's late mother, Princess Diana.
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Story highlightsFernando Alonso out to erase the painful memory of the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand PrixAlonso needed a top four finish to win last year's drivers' championship but came seventhInstead Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel took the title and has already secured 2011 versionAlonso heads into this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix third in the standingsFernando Alonso is determined to banish his demons in Abu Dhabi as he returns to the track where his 2010 Formula One world championship chances disintegrated.The Ferrari driver was in pole position to grab his third career title last year, needing to finish in the top four to claim the crown.But the Italian team took the decision to bring Alonso into the pits at an early stage and he spent the rest of the race stuck behind Renault's Vitaly Petrov, finishing seventh, and handing Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel his first ever world championship.A dominant Vettel hasn't looked back, retaining his title with four races of the 2011 season to go and Alonso admits returning to the Yas Marina circuit will be a painful experience for him."It would not be honest if I told you I won't be a bit uncomfortable thinking about it when I see the paddock for the first time," Alonso wrote in his blog on Ferrari's official website."But then the feeling will vanish and it will leave room for the present, which is about aiming to do well this weekend and in the future: to learn as much as possible with next season in mind. "It's right that it should be like that because in sport, as in the rest of life, you must always look ahead. "Abu Dhabi 2010 was an important stage in my career and I have no doubt that even through that bad day, my relationship with Ferrari has become even stronger."Alonso, from Spain, is currently third in the drivers' world championship standings, 13 points behind McLaren's British driver Jenson Button in second.But the gulf between Vettel and the rest of the field is underlined by his 134-point lead over Button. Alonso acknowledges that winning will be "difficult" in Abu Dhabi but says he is keen to fight for a podium place to counter last year's bitter disappointment."I completely appreciate that winning will be very difficult," he said. "In this closing part of the season the relative positions are very clear but we have also seen there are some conditions in which we can fight for victory: as happened in Suzuka, for example. "We know if we all get everything right we can fight for the top three but our natural qualifying position is on the third row. Then in the race things can go differently but that is the realistic situation. "So our target is the podium. Apart from anything else that result would allow me to fill a gap in my trophy cabinet as Abu Dhabi is the only race on the calendar from which I have yet to bring home silverware."
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With the growing number of cyber attacks and data breaches, a significant number of companies and organizations have started Bug Bounty Programs to encourage hackers and security researchers to find and responsibly report bugs in their services and get a reward.
Now, even pornography sites are starting to embrace bug bounty practices in order to safeguard its user's security.
The world's most popular pornography site PornHub has launched a bug bounty program for security researchers and bug hunters who can find and report security vulnerabilities in its website.
Partnered with HackerOne, PornHub is offering to pay independent security researchers and bug hunters between $50 and $25,000, depending upon the impact of vulnerabilities they find.
Also Read: 10-year-old Boy becomes the youngest Bug Bounty Hacker.
HackeOne is a bug bounty startup that operates bug bounty programs for companies including Yahoo, Twitter, Slack, Dropbox, Uber, General Motors – and even the United States Department of Defense for Hack the Pentagon initiative.
"Like other major tech players have been doing as of late, we're tapping some of the most talented security researchers as a proactive and precautionary measure – in addition to our dedicated developer and security teams – to ensure not only the security of our site but that of our users, which is paramount to us," said PornHub Vice President Corey Price.
"The brand new program provides some of our developer-savvy fans a chance to earn some extra cash – upwards to $25K – and the opportunity to be included in helping to protect and enhance the site for our 60 Million daily visitors."
How to Earn $25,000 Reward
To qualify for a bounty reward, security researchers and bug hunters must meet the following requirements:
Be the first to report a security bug directly related to the company infrastructure.
Send a description of your bug report, explaining the type of vulnerability and how it works.
Include screenshots and proof of concept code to substantiate your claim.
Disclose your finding directly and exclusively with Pornhub.
The company is currently considering serious flaws that could compromise its server and entire website.
Vulnerabilities such as cross-site request forgery (CSRF), information disclosure, cross domain leakage, XSS attacks via Post requests, HTTPS related (such as HSTS), HttpOnly and Secure cookie flags, missing SPF records and session timeout will not be considered for the bounty program.
The bounty program has currently been in a beta phase, with the company extending it via invite only. You can read complete eligibility for the bounty program on HackerOne website.
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Yet another Apple vulnerability has been exposed by security researchers, that can be exploited to track your finger's every action on iOS Devices i.e. iPhone, iPad etc.
The exploit reportedly targets a flaw in iOS multitasking capabilities to capture user inputs, according to Security researchers at FireEye.
They found a way to bypass the Apple's app review process effectively and created a proof-of-concept Monitoring app for non-jailbroken iOS 7.0.x devices.
The "monitoring" app, that runs in the background of the iPhone is a Keylogger Trojan which could allow hackers to monitor user's activities on the mobile device, including - touches on the screen, home button press, volume button press and TouchID press, and send all collected events to any remote server.
According to researchers, their proof-of-concept app works on versions 7.0.4, 7.0.5, 7.0.6, and 6.1.x.
"Based on the findings, potential attackers can either use phishing to mislead the victim to install a malicious/vulnerable app or exploit another remote vulnerability of some app, and then conduct background monitoring." FireEye researchers said.
In iOS devices, the application running in the background keeps on refreshing itself; but the researchers also noted that disabling iOS 7's "Background App Refresh" setting would not restrict a malicious app from keylogging.
"For example, an app can play music in the background without turning on its "background app refresh" switch. Thus a malicious app can disguise itself as a music app to conduct background monitoring." FireEye explained, So the only present solution to the problem is to manually remove apps from the task switcher.
Earlier this week, Apple has issued an urgent update iOS 7.0.6 in response to a SSL vulnerability that might allow hackers to bypass SSL/TLS verifications on shared and public networks and steal users information from affected devices, including log-in usernames and passwords, as well as other sensitive information.
The Security firm is actively working with Apple on the issue, but until the release of next iOS update, the only thing iOS users can do - Check and monitor the unnecessary applications running on the device via Task Manager and KILL THEM.
Last month, Trustwave's Neal Hindocha also demonstrated that even Smartphone screen swipe gestures can be analyzed by hackers and as a proof-of-concept he developed a prototype 'Screenlogging' malware for the iOS and Android Smartphones that works the same as a keylogger software for desktop.
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(CNN)The Salvation Army is getting an early start on its holiday fundraising campaign due to the unprecedented demands of the coronavirus pandemic. "It would be no exaggeration to say that since the pandemic began in mid-March, the Salvation Army has seen a tsunami of human need," said Kenneth Hodder, Salvation Army's National Commander.Since March, Salvation Army USA has provided more than 100 million meals, 1.5 million nights of safe shelter, plus emotional and spiritual support to over 800,000 people across the US. They expect those numbers to grow, bracing for a 155% increase in the need for their services heading into the holiday season. Those services include putting food on the table, paying bills, providing shelter, and even helping place gifts under the tree."We will go from our average of about 2.6 million people every year to more than 6.6 million people."'Rescue Christmas'Read MoreThe new campaign is called "Rescue Christmas," and it kicked off on September 14 -- 100 days before Christmas.A Salvation Army bell ringer in action outside a Chcago store in 2003. "Our traditional red kettle campaign, a symbol of Christmas and Americans caring for one another, is going to be increasingly difficult this year," Hodder told CNN."We believe that Christmas for millions of Americans is at risk," the commander said. "The need that we see at Christmas will last far beyond the holidays." Last year, the Salvation Army raised $126 million with its Red Kettle campaign; they expect to only bring in half that much this year."That would be disastrous for our ability to meet the needs of people," Hodder said. "So, for us, the Christmas Kettle Campaign not only is a symbol, but it is a means of acquiring the vital resources that we need."Red Kettle goes virtualAlthough this year's campaign got an early start, you won't be seeing as many kettles this season as you have in Christmas past. A man in a Santa suit publicizes a free Christmas dinner organized by the Salvation Army in New York, circa 1910. "Most people are carrying less cash than they have in the past. We have less foot traffic at some stores, and as unemployment has risen, so many people who have given to the army in the past are in fact, coming to us for help."In response, the organization shifted focus to online donations and launched the "Rescue Christmas" donation page. "People can go to that website today, and they can provide a one-time donation, find volunteer opportunities and also enlist in the army and make a $25 monthly sustaining gift," added Hodden.Local donations will continue to stay in the communities from which those funds are given. The Salvation Army assures that .82 cents of each dollar donated goes directly to helping those in need."We want to make sure everyone who comes to the Salvation Army will get what they need, not only for Christmas but to know that there's hope and that there's a bright future ahead."You can donate online here.
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Story highlightsHobbyists are using small drones to shoot aerial photographyWith a few hundred dollars and practice, you can make breathtaking aerial videosKeep drones and other model aircraft less than 400 feet above the groundLearn to fly a cheap, toy drone, before adding a cameraA bird's eye camera sweeps over the green fields of Ireland, flies over the towering Cliffs of Moher and pans the ocean hundreds of feet below. It's just like a scene in a movie. But this is not Hollywood magic. The spectacular footage was shot, not by a film crew in a helicopter, but with an inexpensive toy drone -- an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, as hobbyists call them -- operated by Andreas Ostermann. And with a few hundred dollars and some practice, you can make breathtaking aerial videos, too. "It is the closest thing to flying like a bird," said Ostermann, an aerial-photography hobbyist who lives in Germany. "My inspiration is to show how beautiful these shots can be and that this hobby is not at all dangerous if you know what you do." The world of remote-control aircraft has been around for decades, but the growth and technological wizardry of UAVs have created a new wave of hobbyists trying their hand at aerial photography. From views of stunning vistas, waterfronts and landmarks to overhead shots of a house about to fall off an eroding cliff or a cheery scene of a fox trotting on ice, there are a lot of creative, fun ways people are using recreational drones for aerial videos. "Originally it was just a bunch of guys tinkering and building things. Now people want to focus on the applications rather than the technology," said Timothy Reuter, founder of the Washington, D.C. Area Drone User Group, the largest UAV club in the country. A drone-eye view of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.Instead of building drones from kits, Reuter and others like him are turning to off-the-shelf models that are ready to fly. "Recently some of the sophisticated capabilities have gotten cheap and easy to use," he said. "The difference between the professional and hobbyist tools isn't that big anymore -- that's part of the revolution." Since the FAA's 2007 warning not to use drones for commercial purposes, there's been some debate and confusion in the hobbyist community about what you can and can't do with aerial photography. So before you go out and strap a GoPro to a ready-made drone, here's what you need to know:Learn the rulesKeep drones and other model aircraft less than 400 feet above the ground and make sure you're not within 3 miles of an airport or air traffic, per FAA guidelines. Also check your state law, as some states are more strict with trespassing laws. Flying over someone's land could be considered trespassing. While it's tempting to turn aerial drone photography into a business, beware that the FAA regulates commercial flights on a case-by-case basis. Only two commercial operations have been approved, and those are for exploratory flights in the Arctic.P.S. Before you take your drone to shoot footage on vacation, do your research first. UAV laws vary in each country.A DJI Phantom drone captured in action.Join a club or find an instructorIt's better to work with experienced flyers than to test the skies alone. "Find a community to learn with if you're going to be serious, like a drone group or through the Academy of Model Aeronautics," said Reuter. "They'll teach you how to be safe and prevent any accidents." Study different models and what they can doToy drones, like the Blade Nano QX, are great introductory models for people learning how to fly, said Reuter. This model runs about $80 online. Moving up to mid-range models, consider UAVs that come fully assembled, such as 3D Robotics' Iris model, which runs $750. The company's CEO, Chris Anderson, pioneered one of the first online drone forums, DIY Drones.One of the more popular mid-range UAVs is DJI's Phantom series. This quadcopter, priced from $500 without a camera and $1,000 and up for a model with an attached GoPro, is geared toward folks interested in aerial photography.If you're looking for something smaller than the Phantom, check out Reuter's recent creation, the Pocket Drone. The multi-copter is lightweight and portable enough to fit in a backpack, he said.Start smallLearn to fly a cheap toy drone before adding a camera. Once you know how to operate that, you can fly a larger model, advises Patrick McKay, a Colorado hobbyist who's been flying UAVs since 2011."Don't invest too much initially, since you will inevitably crash a lot while learning." Keep practicing until you're comfortableA video-piloted remote control flying wing made from a kit.Canadian photographer Brent Foster encourages newcomers to learn how to fly in manual mode first. That way if your GPS goes out, "it'll save you from a crash," said the former LA Times photojournalist who got hooked on flying UAVs two years ago. Knowing your gear and its limitations will be valuable for when you fly in new, sometimes unpredictable situations, several UAV hobbyists said.Video: How to get started flying UAVsPut safety first"Always think about what you might hit if your craft crashed on a given flight," said McKay, a Colorado hobbyist. "Don't fly over large crowds of people doing event photography unless you have a lot of experience and confidence in your equipment, and stay away from areas/altitudes where you could pose a collision risk to manned aircraft."Use online resourcesOnline forums and Facebook groups are great place to learn more about the hobby. DIY Drones is a pioneer forum that continues to be active. Other online resources include Multi-Rotor Forums, the DJI Phantom Users Group on Facebook and tons of local radio-controlled flyer group sites.Have funOnce you have the rules, safety precautions and practice time under your belt, it's time to have fun."I love flying in the mountains and zooming down mountainsides," said McKay. "It allows me to experience all the thrills of flight in spectacular locations with my body never leaving the ground."
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Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN. (CNN)By the time the closing ceremony marked the end of Russia's 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, pro-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula were already out in the streets. Within days, the unidentified "little green men," masked soldiers with hidden insignia, began what became Russian President Vladimir Putin's most brazen violation of international law: the capture and annexation of another country's territory.Frida GhitisPutin waited until the Sochi games were over to launch the attack on Crimea, probably so as not to detract from what he hoped would be a showcase for Russian achievement. There were other theories about the timing -- including an effort to distract from the growing allegations of massive corruption around the expense of hosting The Games -- but the need to keep a spotlight on Sochi was likely a motivating factor. Eight years later, as Putin prepares to attend the opening ceremony of Beijing's Winter Olympics next week, Russian troops have amassed along Ukraine's borders, awaiting the Russian President's decision on whether or not to invade.This time, Putin will likely think twice before overshadowing the Olympics (or at least the earlier part of it) and marring Chinese leader Xi Jinping's time to shine on the global stage. That's because Putin and Xi have become the world's autocracy bros. The two leaders have undertaken eerily similar tactics to achieve the results to which they both aspire. They have both orchestrated a change of rules so they can stay in power for decades beyond their term limits. To maintain their grip on power, they are also increasingly crushing dissent at home, imprisoning critics -- and worse, intimidating their neighbors and seeking to expand their country's sphere of influence. Read MoreThey have shown themselves willing to do whatever it takes to silence calls for democracy and human rights at home. They have cracked down and accused their own citizens of acting as puppets of foreign powers, as if it were impossible to live in China or Russia -- in, say, St. Petersburg or Hong Kong -- and genuinely desire democracy.Putin's big miscalculationChina makes it a point to tell its citizens and the world that Western-style democracy is an inferior, chaotic and ineffective system. Russia, too, portrays the US as a declining superpower, but a threatening one nonetheless. They argue that democracy and human rights, rather than a universal yearning, are a fabrication of the West. And, for good measure, they silence anyone who seems to be accumulating too much power, including business tycoons, unless they seem sufficiently subservient. Rather than a significant ideological motivation, the main purpose of these repressive tactics is to protect their rule.Putin talks about NATO and the threat it poses to Russia's borders. But it's Ukraine's turn toward a freer, democratic West that troubles him most. The yearning for freedom is contagious and he knows it. So does Xi.Putin knows that a democratic Ukraine on Russia's border can inspire those at home who want change, just as West Germany's freedoms during the Cold War prompted the Soviet Bloc to build a wall around East Berlin. In the 1980s, Putin was stationed in Dresden as a foreign KGB agent when East Germans tore down the wall -- an event that set the stage for the Soviet Union's collapse.In Ukraine, one question looms: What will we do if Russia attacks? To cement their hold on power, autocrats love to stage mega-events, none better than the Olympics. They represent an opportunity to proclaim their success to their people and to the world; to make the unspoken argument that, whatever price they have extracted in repression, the ends have justified the means. For maximum impact, however, they need the world's rapt attention.This week, Chinese officials denied that Xi asked Putin to postpone an invasion of Ukraine until after the Beijing Games, but they made no secret of their disdain for those who claim Ukraine has a right to choose its own path. After Xi and Putin spoke last month, state television quoted the Chinese leader as saying, "At present, certain international forces are arbitrarily interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia under the guise of democracy and human rights." Xi and Putin, brothers in arms!And arms they have. Military force is a key tool in their strategy to expand the spheres of influence beyond their borders. The Chinese military is building artificial islands and military bases in disputed waters; routinely flying military aircraft around Taiwanese airspace and otherwise intimidating its neighbors. Russia has deployed its military in Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. And next month its forces are scheduled to hold maneuvers in Belarus, adding another threat to Ukraine from the north.China and Russia have a history of rivalry and there are still areas of friction. (Whose sphere of influence, for example, should Central Asia -- including Kazakhstan -- fall under? They both want it.) But for now, Xi and Putin are linking arms against their main foe, the United States, and its allies in Europe. Both China and Russia face Western sanctions. The two men see in each other a kindred, autocratic spirit.For Putin, Kazakhstan is a domino too big to fall One week before the Olympic torch is due to arrive in Beijing, with China facing a "diplomatic boycott" of The Games by several democratic countries, and Russia in the midst of tense negotiations over Ukraine, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, nearly waxed lyrical when he declared, "There is no ceiling to China-Russia mutual trust, no forbidden zone in our strategic cooperation and no limit on how far our long-standing friendship can go."After such a passionate declaration, it's hard to imagine Putin would knowingly overshadow China's Olympic moment. Of course, the last time China hosted The Games in 2008, Putin sent his troops into Georgia. That, however, was long before Xi rose to the top job.This time around, China had the United Nations adopt an "Olympic Truce" resolution, a moving commitment to refrain from hostilities from one week before the start of The Games to one week after the end of the Paralympic Games. If Putin decides he wants to invade Ukraine, that time frame -- until March 20 -- is much too long. By then, Ukraine's frozen ground will have melted into barely-passable mud for Russian tanks.Meanwhile, the US and Ukraine don't appear to be on the same page over the level of threat of a Russian attack. A senior Ukrainian official told CNN on Thursday that a call between Biden and his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky "didn't go well" -- an account the White House disputed. Get our free weekly newsletterSign up for CNN Opinion's newsletter.Join us on Twitter and FacebookAs for Russia's next move, only one president really knows the answer. When Putin sits in the stands at the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing on February 4, watching the opening ceremonies, he will likely keep his troops waiting a few days, even if he has decided to launch what would be a calamitous invasion. He will do it for Xi's sake. After all, that's the least a brother can do. Unless, of course, he chooses to go in before The Games begin. In which case, the clock is ticking.
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(CNN)While the legacy of his kneeling protest against police brutality and racial injustice continues to underscore sporting events around the world, Colin Kaepernick has not been involved in an NFL game in over five years -- and he hasn't given up on playing again.In a rare interview ahead of the release of his upcoming Netflix biopic series, "Colin in Black and White," Kaepernick detailed the intensive training regime he still undergoes."I am still up at 5 a.m. training five, six days a week making sure I'm prepared to take a team to a Super Bowl again," Kaepernick, who became a free agent in 2017, told Ebony magazine."That's not something I will ever let go of, regardless of the actions of 32 teams and their partners to deny me employment. The same way I was persistent in high school is the same way I'm gonna be persistent here."The 31-year-old's commitment to returning to the NFL marks a continuation of his message from November last year, wherein Kaepernick tweeted a video of himself training alongside former San Francisco 49ers teammate Eric Reid, with the caption: "1,363 days of being denied employment. Still putting in work with @E_Reid35 Still going hard 5 days a week. #StillReady #StopRunning."Read MoreKaepernick and Reid settled their collusion grievance cases against the NFL in February 2019, having alleged that teams were keeping them from playing. Reid has since returned to the league but was released by the Carolina Panthers in March 2020.San Francisco 49ers Eli Harold, left, Colin Kaepernick, center, and Eric Reid kneel during the national anthem before the team's game against the Dallas Cowboys."Have confidence in your identity'The new Netflix series, which will primarily focus on Kaepernick's teenage years, is set to premiere on October 29.Having been adopted and raised by white parents, Kaepernick, who has an acting role in the series, hopes to use his own teenage experience to explore issues of race and identity in society."There are different audiences that the show will speak to differently," Kaepernick said in the Ebony interview."When you look at Black and Brown folks, especially Black and Brown youth, the message is staying true to yourself, believing in yourself, having confidence in your identity, and not letting anybody take that from you."I also think that as we look at broader society, part of what the show speaks to is how whiteness shows up ... and how we engage with it ... but also the pressures, the microaggressions, the racism, and what that shows up as. "I hope it's an opportunity for White people to be able to look at their actions...how they show up in society and how they are engaging with Black and Brown folks ... and look at their own privilege and perspective and be able to take away from this what actions they can take to improve the dynamics and the oppressive nature of systems and positions of power and privilege that they have."Kaepernick scrambles during the game against the San Diego Chargers in 2011.Besides training and the Netflix biopic, Kaepernick has been involved in a variety of other off-field projects -- a youth camp as well as publishing and media companies.Alongside partner Nessa, Kaepernick founded Know Your Rights Camp (KYRC), a free campaign for youth designed to "advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders."His production and publishing companies -- Ra Vision Media and Kaepernick Publishing -- are designed to promote diversity across media platforms. Ra Vision Media promotes a platform "to showcase the work of Black and Brown directors, producers, creators, and storytellers", whilst Kaepernick Publishing, formed in 2019, allows "black and brown writers to control their narratives and retain ownershi."Kaepernick Publishing's first title -- "Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons" -- is edited by the former 49ers quarterback and is set for release later this month. Kaepernick greets fans after a game."You're gonna have to continue to deny me and do so in a public way," added Kaepernick in his interview with Ebony magazine. "And you're gonna expose yourself by that, but it won't be because I'm not ready or not prepared. "But in that process, I'm also not gonna let you bury my future. I'm gonna continue to do work on the acting and producing side, continue to do the work with Know Your Rights, and make sure we are having an impact. I think that's the beauty of us collectively -- we are not one-dimensional."
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(CNN)France will speed up the declassification of secret defense archives, including those related to its war with Algeria, as it continues to grapple with its colonial history. France colonized Algeria from 1830 until its independence in 1962 following a seven-year war.The Elysee Palace said French President Emmanuel Macron took the decision to introduce a new procedure which will accelerate the declassification process for defense documents up to the year 1970. The Elysee said Macron was "determined to promote respect for historical truth." The new rule comes in from March 11. "This decision will significantly shorten the waiting times, for the declassification procedure including [for] documents related to the Algerian war," the Elysee statement said.France sends skulls of 24 independence fighters back to Algeria France under Macron has sought to reckon with its past. The President previously called colonialism a "grave mistake and a fault of the republic" in a speech in the Ivory Coast in late 2019.Read MoreIn July, the country returned the skulls of 24 Algerian resistance fighters who died while opposing French occupation in the 19th century.Debate around the issue in France reignited recently following historian Benjamin Stora's government commissioned report on the "reconciliation of memories" between the two countries."On the basis of this effort, President Macron will establish several concrete initiatives aimed at moving forward on the path to acknowledging all memories and easing tensions," an Elysee spokesperson said in January, after the report was released.The statement added: "It is the President's wish that these initiatives allow our country to take a clear-headed look at the injuries of the past, to bring about a reconciliation of memories over the long term, and to focus on the young people of France and Algeria with a view to education and the transmission of memories."
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(CNN)Add "Y: The Last Man" to the long list of comics-turned-series since "The Walking Dead" became a smash hit that have yearned to emulate its post-apocalyptic appeal. Like most of the others, this beyond-grim drama falls short, at least initially, despite a strong cast headed by Diane Lane as the US' new leader.Unlike "Walking Dead," which essentially skipped over the outset of the zombie outbreak, "Y" rather ghoulishly wades into it, counting down to that moment when the entire male population (everything with a Y chromosome) abruptly and inexplicably dies, leaving behind a world consisting of women, with notable exceptions.There's a touch of "The Leftovers" in the arbitrary nature of events, followed by the crumbling of the social order and frantic attempts to maintain it. Much of that falls to survivors lead by congresswoman Jennifer Brown (Lane), who stands tall amid the global chaos and isn't spared from partisan politics even during these extraordinary circumstances.Brown's resources include a nameless government agent (Ashley Romans) who is both deadly and ruthless, but even when the government begins to coalesce, she's hardly out of the woods in terms of cascading crises.In a sense, you almost have to get past the first few episodes for "Y" to settle into its dramatic arc, following multiple plots that include the lone cisgender male survivor, Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer), who must hide his identity. Yorick also has a pet monkey that's male, and both have "future lab rat" written all over them.Read MoreSuch science-fiction series generally begin somewhere after everything has gone to hell, so at first the show appears to deserve credit for trying something different by building up to the equivalent of the nuclear blast or lethal plague that suddenly changes everything. The wholesale deaths, however, and associated grief of those left behind cast a pall over the series, which with a few exceptions struggles to develop the kind of characters that made "Walking Dead" pop originally.Don't expect any immediate answers, either, about the "why" of the "last man," as the concept -- based on Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's DC comic -- lurches forward in a way that feels relentlessly bleak and depressing. While no one would expect the dystopian concept to yield feel-good TV, watching society break down this way, at this moment, has a glutton-for-punishment quality without outlandish wrinkles like zombie gore to introduce a sense of escapism.In addition to the overwhelmingly female cast, all the directors and most of the key crew members are women, working under showrunner Eliza Clark, a playwright whose TV credits include TNT's "Animal Kingdom."Ultimately, though, the series feels handcuffed by the device that sets the narrative in motion. Despite his potential importance to understanding what happened and humanity's future, when discovered by someone Yorick says, "I'm just a guy. I'm not special."While not for lack of trying, nor is "Y: The Last Man.""Y: The Last Man" premieres Sept. 13 on FX on Hulu.
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Story highlightsThe British coast guard calls off a search for five missing sailorsTwo rescued sailors are "in reasonable condition;" a third is in unknown conditionThe ship capsized in gale-force windsPrince William was co-pilot of a rescue helicopterTwo sailors from a ship that capsized in the Irish Sea in gale-forced winds were rescued "in reasonable condition" Sunday while five remained missing, the British coast guard said.The body of an eighth sailor was recovered, the coast guard said.After a daylong search in rough seas, the British coast guard ended the effort to find the five missing men as darkness fell, according to a coast guard press officer."Today at roughly 16:45 GMT (11:45 a.m. ET), a decision was made by the coast guard to call off the search and rescue mission for the five remaining missing sailors in the Irish Sea," press officer Jo Groenenberg told CNN.A Ministry of Defence spokesman earlier confirmed to CNN that Prince William was the co-pilot of the helicopter that plucked the two rescued sailors from a life raft. The crew of the Swanland sent out a mayday call about 2 a.m. local time, saying the ship was caught in strong winds and had a cracked hull, the coast guard's press office said.A few ships responded, but the Swanland had capsized by the time they got there, the office said. The coast guard dispatched two helicopters, including one from RAF Valley base, where Prince William is a search-and-rescue pilot. The helicopter pulled two men from the water.A coast guard spokesman later said the two -- who included the ship's second officer -- were in "reasonable condition" after the helicopter had carried them to the military base.
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Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the widespread popularity of the mobile messaging app 'WhatsApp'. A malware expert at the Kaspersky Lab revealed a large-scale spamming campaign, advertising a fake PC version of the WhatsApp, to spread a banking trojan.
According to the report, unaware users have received an email written in Portuguese language, it also tries to deceive the recipient with a social engineering tactic in which cyber criminals composed the malicious email informing that victims already have 11 pending friend invitations.
If users click on the "Baixar Agora" (Download Now) link in the spam email, they will be redirected to a Hightail.com URL to download the Trojan. Hightail is a cloud storage service, the malicious component deployed on it then downloads the malware via a server in Brazil.
The file stored on Hightail server looks like a 64-bit installation file bundled with 2.5 megabyte MP3 file. According to Virus Total engine, only 3 out of 49 anti-malware softwares are able to detect it.
"This Downloader has some anti-debugging features like: UnhandledExceptionFilter() and RaiseException() and once running, it downloads a new Trojan that is banker itself. This time the malware comes from a server in Brazil and has a low VT detection 3 of 49. The recently downloaded banker has the icon of an mp3 file. Most users would click on it, especially after seeing it is about 2.5MB in its weight."
During execution of the malicious code, it communicates with the command & control servers to provide infection statistics and system console through the local port 1157. The Malware sends back the stolen information in the Oracle DB format. The malicious code is also able to download another payload on the infected system.
There are some interesting consideration to do:
The technique used by the attacker could result very effective in areas where the application is mostly used i.e. Latin America and Europe. The WhatsApp has more than 430 million users and 30 million added in just the last month.
Researchers identified a "classic style of a Brazilian-created malware" pattern, the malicious agent targeted Brazilian population much inclined to the use of WhatsApp. The language used and the fact that the Trojan is downloaded from a Brazilian server confirm the hypothesis.
This isn't the first spam email campaign that abused the WhatsApp brand, cyber criminals leveraged the service in the past November to push malware via email by tricking users into thinking they had a new voicemail message.
This week Symantec antivirus firm also identified a Windows Malware that can hack your Android Mobile. Please Pay attention to the url you click! Stay Secure.
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Story highlightsVonn wins giant slalom in Are Fourth straight WC win for VonnMikaela Shiffrin flies home with injuryMarcel Hirscher leads men's standings (CNN)There's simply no stopping Lindsey Vonn as she wrapped up a fourth straight World Cup victory Saturday on a bittersweet day for the United States ski team.Vonn, who scored a hat-trick of wins at Lake Louise last weekend in the speed disciplines, took the giant slalom honors at Are in Sweden to continue her domination of the 2015-16 season.But teammate Mikaela Shiffrin, one of her main rivals for overall World Cup honors, saw her hopes dashed by a knee ligament injury after a crash during the pre-race warmup. Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can' Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Champion again – Lindsey Vonn's face tells the story as she wraps up three World Cup wins in a row at Lake Louise -- for the third time in her skiing career.Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Back on top – On Saturday, Vonn had beaten the field by a full second to record victory number two of the week.Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Breathing space – No competitor came within half a second of Vonn in the week's three races.Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Looking ahead – Vonn told reporters: "Just because I'm older, doesn't mean I've lost any desire to continue to win."Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Into the lead – The three victories hand Vonn a narrow four-point lead over Mikaela Shiffrin in the overall World Cup season standings.Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: Vonn 'pushing as hard as I can'Lake Louise love affair – Vonn has now won 18 of her 41 World Cup starts at Lake Louise.Hide Caption 6 of 6Shiffrin, who was hot favorite to win Sunday's slalom event in Are after taking the opening two slalom events of the season, instead was flying home to the United States for further tests on a worrying knee ligament injury, she posted on her Facebook page."I have at least (an) MCL injury and bone bruising, hopefully no additional injury," she said, but her participation in remaining events in 2015 is in serious question.Read MoreThere was also a setback for American Ted Ligety in the men's giant slalom in Val d'Isere. Ligety, nicknamed Mr GS for his domination of the discipline, skied out on the first leg after a mistake.Troubled by a back injury, Ligety also posted a "did not finish" at Beaver Creek last week and has only one podium finish in six starts.It left the way clear for Austria's Marcel Hirscher to claim victory, adding to his two in Colorado.Felix Neureuther of Germany took second, with France's Victor Muffat-Jeandet completing the podium, both men over a second adrift over the two legs.I'm pumped!! 1st GS win since before I was injured!! #LV71 hoping @MikaelaShiffrin and @SarahHector are ok!! 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/QvH1VHDKpy— lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) December 12, 2015
Victory saw Hirscher leapfrog Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal in the standings as he bids for a fifth overall World Cup title and he further boosted his chances with an excellent second place in Sunday's first slalom of the season behind winner Henrik Kristofferesen of Norway of Norway.Hirscher made up ground with a superb second run, but was 1.09 second the 21-year-old winner. Neureuther finished third.What a thrilling race ! @H_Kristoffersen claims the win over @MarcelHirscher +1.09 and @FelixNeureuther +1.46 pic.twitter.com/OHh7vR8Xjl— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine) December 13, 2015 Vonn is also eying a fifth overall crown and gave her cause another boost with a narrow victory -- just 00.70secs faster than Eva-Maria Brem of Austria and 00.35secs ahead of third-placed Federica Brignone of Italy.She has a 104-point lead over Shiffrin in the overall standings after her 71st World Cup win from 347 starts.Read: Vonn-two-three at Lake LouiseShe had won a GS at Are in 2012 and used it to good effect."I watched playback of that win yesterday evening and I had plenty of confidence coming out of Lake Louise," she said.I have a new-found respect for people who take showers without putting weight on one leg. A one leg shower. #balance— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) December 12, 2015
Vonn did not compete in Sunday's slalom, her weakest discipline and with Shiffrin, winner of seven of the last eight World Cup slaloms also missing, the way was clear Petra Vlhova of Slovakia to claim her maiden victory on the circuit.Home hope Frida Hansdotter of Sweden finished second, but takes over from Shiffrin at the top of the slalom standings. Nina Loeseth of Norway finished third."It's an amazing day for me,"the 20-year-old Vlhova told the official FIS website.
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Alton, Texas (CNN)As shoppers browsed the market stalls at the Pulga Los Portales in the Rio Grande Valley, Armando Acosta and Albino Zuniga caught up over breakfast before opening their lotería stand, where customers often stop to play the traditional Mexican bingo-style game. Over the past two years, these two friends have bonded through the twists and turns of the Covid-19 pandemic. But they diverge sharply over politics in this heavily Latino region of Texas, which had been viewed as a Democratic stronghold -- until 2020. Former President Donald Trump dramatically improved his performance in many of the counties bordering Mexico compared to four years earlier -- gains that led the GOP this year to redouble efforts to recruit and invest in South Texas candidates, including many of Hispanic descent, up and down the ballot. The question now is whether the inroads the GOP made in 2020 will hold as Democrats try to cling to their House majority in November. Albino Zuniga believes overly generous Covid-19 benefits have slowed the economic recovery. "If you're going to be something in life, you have to do it by yourself," he said during an interview at the Pulga Los Portales flea market in Alton, Texas.Tuesday's primaries in the Lone Star State -- the first congressional primaries of 2022 -- are an early test for the two parties as they try to turn out voters like Acosta, 40, and Zuniga, 56, with control of Congress eventually hinging on narrowly divided districts like this one. CNN spoke to several dozen Latino voters across the region, including here in the newly redrawn 15th District, an open seat that runs from the populous border areas near McAllen north to towns east of San Antonio. They raised an array of reasons why Trump resonated here more in 2020 than in 2016 -- namely his relentless focus on getting the economy reopened after Covid shutdowns -- as well as factors Democrats may need to address to win some of them back in 2022. Read MoreThough many of his family members are Democrats, Zuniga backed Trump in the last presidential election, saying the then-President's message on immigration resonated for him as a legal immigrant from Mexico and the father of a Border Patrol agent. Trump's message about getting people back to work mid-pandemic also connected with the ethos of hard work and self-reliance Zuniga says is inherent in Hispanic culture along the border. He was repelled, Zuniga said, by what he sees as the liberal drift of the Democratic Party. Those feelings only deepened as he watched President Joe Biden and the Democrat-controlled Congress hand out more Covid-related benefits to certain individuals that he believes have been too generous. People play lotería for a chance to win prizes at the Pulga Los Portales.Though earlier Covid relief packages were passed under Trump with Republican support, that was a frequent criticism of Biden that CNN heard here from both Democratic and GOP voters voicing concerns about the economy and inflation.But Acosta hopes Latino voters will reward Democrats in November for economic relief passed by Congress under Biden, arguing that Republicans often look after the wealthy instead of those in need. He is supporting the congressional candidacy of progressive Democrat Michelle Vallejo, who co-owns Pulga Los Portales with her family and has championed a $15 minimum wage and Medicare for All."The Rio Grande Valley is divided because there's a need for so many things like better salaries and infrastructure," Acosta said. "Democrats are mostly focused on helping the people and if they help people, we should support them." Michelle Vallejo, Democratic candidate for Texas' 15th Congressional District, says Democrats must "show up" and do a better job explaining to South Texans how their party's policies will improve their lives. She co-owns the Pulga Los Portales flea market with her family. Democrats seek to re-engage South Texas Latinos Stemming further losses among South Texas Latinos in 2022 and beyond first requires Democrats to diagnose what went wrong nearly two years ago -- an exercise that more than a dozen political strategists, organizers and party officials who work in this region answer with different theories. The root cause, many Democrats say, was the party's suspension of most in-person campaigning and door-knocking during the pandemic, which they say allowed Republicans to lead one-sided conversations with voters. "Democrats literally tried to phone it in, and you can't do that," said Beto O'Rourke, the former Democratic congressman who's running for governor, as he made a recent swing through Brownsville to knock on doors. Trump, he added, offered "a false choice between health and jobs," while "we left the field to them, literally, completely." Beto O'Rourke, Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and his wife Amy O'Rourke canvass a neighborhood in Brownsville, Texas, on Saturday, February 19. But Sylvia Bruni, the chair of the Webb County Democrats, has urged her party to also take a harder look at aspects of the national Democratic message in 2020 and how it played in South Texas. There's a disconnect, for example, between strong support for abortion rights among Democrats nationally and voters in an area where Catholic views are deeply held. The disconnect sometimes extends to immigration and climate, too, amid concerns about border security in the Latino community here and anxiety about some Democrats' embrace of the Green New Deal in a region where jobs emanate from oil and gas. Bruni believes that Democrats did not effectively counter Republican messaging in 2020, especially on abortion, guns and oil and gas. "There was no message. ... It was really, 'Hi, I'm Sylvia. I'm a Democrat. I hear you're a Democrat. Are you going to vote for Joe Biden?' That was the message...and the others were eating our lunch." She worries her party has not yet settled on strong, unifying themes for 2022 that will appeal to Latino voters and reverse GOP gains in the region. Webb County Democratic Party Chair Sylvia Bruni, seen here at the party's headquarters in Laredo in November 2020, says Democrats must re-examine how their national message on abortion, guns and oil and gas can alienate some voters. "If you do an inventory of everything this man, Biden, has been able to accomplish, it's really pretty impressive. But he's in a field of alligators, fielding off attacks and then working with a Congress that is absolutely hellbent on obstructing everything he does," she said. "I know we have the substance from which to create the messages that fit the values of our community," she said. So far, "I don't think we're getting it." Latinos were still a key part of both Biden's national coalition and his success in the Texas suburbs. Overall, Trump defeated Biden in the Lone Star State by less than 6 points in 2020 after defeating 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by 9 points four years earlier. But Biden's winning margins in many of the counties along the border were much narrower than Clinton's in 2016. The operating assumption among Democrats was that Trump's rhetoric about immigration -- dating back to his 2015 remarks that Mexico was sending criminals and rapists across the border -- would continue to alienate Latino voters. Instead, he notched symbolic wins in places like Zapata County, flipping it from blue to red four years after Clinton had won it by 33 points. Monica De La Cruz, Republican candidate for Texas' 15th District, argues that the GOP message on immigration resonates with Hispanic voters in South Texas. The margins in several Democratically held congressional districts in the Rio Grande Valley, including the current version of the 15th District, also tightened significantly in 2020. Republican Monica De La Cruz, who came within 3 points of toppling Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, is vying for the redrawn seat this year -- this time with more vocal support from Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. After changes to the district lines, Gonzalez is running in the neighboring 34th District, where the turf looks more favorable to Democrats. Current Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who held his seat with 55% of the vote last cycle, is retiring.Both De La Cruz and Mayra Flores, a high-profile Latina running for the GOP nomination in the 34th District, are bullish about the November general election in their districts, in part because they believe Democrats have fundamentally miscalculated the concerns that many Latino voters have about management of the southern border, the treatment of Border Patrol agents and the influx of undocumented immigrants -- a central focus of their campaigns. "The Hispanic values of faith, family, and freedom have always been the same," De La Cruz said during a recent interview at the Republican National Committee Hispanic Community Center in McAllen. Leaning into GOP talking points about the Democratic Party moving toward socialism, she alleged Democrats embrace critical race theory and disrespect law enforcement. "None of those values are reflective of what Hispanics feel and what they stand for," she said. JUST WATCHEDLatinas are pushing for a Republican revolution in South TexasReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHLatinas are pushing for a Republican revolution in South Texas 04:17Flores, who immigrated to the US as a child from Mexico and describes herself as a "walk-away" from the Democratic Party after voting for Barack Obama in 2008, said concerns about border security particularly resonate with many South Texans. "We have families in Mexico that we are not visiting anymore because we're afraid," said Flores, who is married to a Border Patrol agent, as she went door to door talking to voters in Brownsville recently. "We don't want what we're afraid of to come here." She thinks Democrats took their votes for granted. "That's what happened in 2020. The Hispanic community in South Texas said, 'Hey, you do not own our vote. We are not loyal to you. And if you don't get to work, we're going to vote you out.'" Mayra Flores argues South Texas Democrats have taken Hispanic voters for granted. Gonzalez, the incumbent who narrowly defeated De La Cruz in 2020 and now could face Flores in November if they both win their primaries, called that fiction. "Trump didn't do well because he was a Republican. It was his personality -- this bravado, lucha libre, if you will, that was attractive to many Latinos," he told CNN. Like O'Rourke, he argued that restrictive campaign protocols during the pandemic led to the erosion in the Democratic Party's Latino support in South Texas. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who represents the 15th District and is a candidate for the redrawn 34th District, speaks alongside gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke during a blockwalk kickoff event at Garfield Park in Brownsville, Texas.From the stage at a recent Tejano Democrats event, Gonzalez said some South Texans need to be reminded that Democrats brought them programs like Social Security and Medicare."These people that think they're Republicans, many have just forgotten where they come from, and how we arrived and how we got here," he said.Democrat Ruben Ramirez, whose candidacy for the 15th District has been endorsed by Gonzalez, said Democrats must also connect with the economic anxiety that voters are feeling, which he tries to do by sharing his childhood experiences of living out of a car with his mom at one point and collecting extra cereal at school to bring home for his siblings. He often speaks to voters about how he thinks Democratic programs would "help lift all boats."Democrat Ruben Ramirez, who's running for the 15th District and is seen here outside the Lark Community Center early voting polling location in McAllen, says Democrats must do a better job explaining how their agenda would "break the bonds of poverty" for South Texas families. Examining the 2020 shifts toward the GOP and where the Democratic message fell short, Equis Research, a Democratic-leaning polling and research consortium, found that Trump's approval rating in the final year before the 2020 election improved notably among both Latina voters and conservative Latino voters who displayed greater motivation to vote than in 2016. Equis Research co-founder Stephanie Valencia said one reason was that Latino voters in South Texas were more focused on their concerns about unemployment and the economy in 2020 than on Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric, which had dominated the conversation in 2016. The anxiety over Covid-19 shutdowns and the economy, Equis Research concluded, "created a permission structure for formerly hesitant Latinos to embrace Trump's candidacy." Valencia noted that Latinos have experienced the pandemic in a very direct way as essential workers, caretakers and small business owners. Trump spoke to their concerns about "keeping the lights on," she said, and now "there's a huge opportunity for the Biden administration to go out and sell its economic agenda, its job creation agenda to Latinos." A mariachi band performs amid supporters of local Democratic candidates, including Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, outside the Brownsville Public Library polling location during early voting for the 2022 primary.Steep challenges for Democrats in a difficult economic climate But the hurdles facing Democrats are evident in conversations with many Latino voters here in South Texas. Joel Martinez, a 42-year-old corrections officer who said he voted for Trump because of his business background, echoed concerns about government stimulus money. "The whole stimulus thing, it's just supporting more -- I'm sorry to say it -- laziness," he said as he emerged from a polling place in Edinburg. "You see it everywhere we go -- 'Help wanted' -- and nobody wants to fill in the gaps." There are different reasons behind the labor shortage and a fierce debate about whether extended unemployment benefits, stimulus checks and the child tax credit championed by the Biden administration have kept Americans from returning to work sooner. Inflation is also weighing heavily on Americans -- leading some voters here to blame Biden and Democrats, while others say that accusation is unfair. Republicans and Democrats stand side by side as they campaign for local candidates outside a polling location in Edinburg, Texas, during early voting.Nancy Morales, a 43-year-old Edinburg voter who used to be a Democrat but supported Trump, blamed high prices on pandemic-era stimulus passed under Biden and Democrats. She shuddered thinking about her recent bill for dinner at Chili's and said she now reconsiders every trip out of the house because it costs so much to fill up her truck."Everything's going up," she said. "I bought a lemon for 48 cents! Each lemon! I was like 'This is crazy!'" She hopes Republicans will have better ideas for getting prices under control and she is cheering on the new crop of GOP Latina candidates like De La Cruz, who she had just voted for in the 15th District primary. "I said, 'Woo! We need a change here. Let's go ladies!'"Lusia Cortina, who sells pre-arranged funeral plans at the Pulga Los Portales, said President Joe Biden has "been doing okay" but that life doesn't feel normal yet. Lusia Cortina, a Democrat who sells pre-arranged funeral plans at her stall at the Pulga Los Portales, said much of the economic blame Biden is shouldering is unfair and credits him with helping things return closer to a pre-pandemic normal. But even she criticized Biden (and Trump) for presiding over "too much spending" that she thinks led to over-reliance on the government. "Now people don't want to even look for jobs," she said, arguing that Biden and his party need to convey it's up to Americans to "get up on their own, instead of just handing them over the money."Both O'Rourke and Vallejo, the Democratic candidate who co-owns the Pulga Los Portales, stressed that connecting with voters' more local concerns over last year's widespread power outages, for example, and the number of uninsured and under-insured people here will be critical in 2022. Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (center left), now running for governor, and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (right) speak with Robert Lopez (far left) and James Roussett while canvassing a neighborhood in Brownsville."People are burned out. People are exhausted. People are concerned about how they could even make their day-by-day functional," Vallejo said. "Every single day we're showing up. ... We're letting people know that there is someone here in the fight."
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Last Week someone just hacked the infamous Hacking Team, The Italy-based cyber weapons manufacturer and leaked a huge trove of 400GB internal data, including:
Emails
Hacking tools
Zero-day exploits
Surveillance tools
Source code for Spyware
A spreadsheet listing every government client with date of purchase and amount paid
Hacking Team is known for its advanced and sophisticated Remote Control System (RCS) spyware, also known as Galileo, which is loaded with lots of zero-day exploits and have ability to monitor the computers of its targets remotely.
Today, Trend Micro security researchers found that the Hacking Team "uses a UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) BIOS Rootkit to keep their Remote Control System (RCS) agent installed in their targets' systems."
That clearly means, even if the user reinstalls the Operating System, formats the hard disk, and even buys a new hard disk, the agents are implanted after Microsoft Windows is up and running.
According to researchers, Hacking Team's rootkit malware is only able to target UEFI BIOS systems developed by Insyde and AMI vendors, used by the majority of computer and laptop manufacturers.
However, at this time researchers are not sure whether the malware can complete the rootkit installation without physical access to the target machine, as the installation requires BIOS flashing process that can't be done without rebooting into the machine into UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) shell.
The BIOS rootkit analysis done by Trend Micro researchers was only made possible due to the Spyware source code leaked online in the Hacking Team data dumps.
So far, three Adobe Flash zero-day vulnerabilities and an Android zero-day exploit have been discovered from the Hacking Team leaked files, although this BIOS rootkit spreads more light on the team's activities.
The affected victims are yet unknown. However to keep yourself safe, we recommend you always to keep your BIOS up-to-date and protected by enabling password. Also, make sure to enable UEFI SecureFlash.
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A 'Serious' security vulnerability has been discovered and fixed in OpenSSH – one of the most widely used open-source implementations of the Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol.
The critical vulnerability could be exploited by hackers to force clients to leak their secret private cryptographic keys, potentially exposing users to Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.
What Causes the Flaw to occur?
The serious bug was actually the result of a code that enables an experimental "roaming" feature in the OpenSSH versions 5.4 to 7.1 in order to let users resume connections.
However, The roaming feature contains two different vulnerabilities:
An information sharing flaw (CVE-2016-0777)
A less harmless buffer overflow flaw (CVE-2016-0778)
The vulnerability does not have any catchy name like some previous OpenSSH flaws.
Impact of the Vulnerability
This new feature can be exploited by hackers, who could use a malicious OpenSSH server to trick an affected client to give up the SSH keys when they try to log in.
Cyber crooks with one compromised server can secretly grab SSH private keys required to log into other systems from a user's PC, allowing them to jump from server to server.
The vulnerability, which is said to be years old, was uncovered by researchers from Qualys' security team on 11 January and the issue was fixed within three days by the OpenSSH team with the release of a patch.
Here's what OpenSSH officials said in an advisory published Thursday:
"The matching server code has never been shipped, but the client code was enabled by default and could be tricked by a malicious server into leaking client memory to the server, including private client user keys."
"The authentication of the server host key prevents exploitation by a man-in-the-middle, so this information leak is restricted to connections to malicious or compromised servers."
Who is Affected by the Serious Flaw?
The flaw resides in the versions 5.4 to 7.1 of the OpenSSH client, which end users use to connect to servers and not resides in versions used by servers.
The issue affects users running OpenSSH client on most modern operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OSX, as well as it may also affect users running OpenSSH for Windows. However, users running PuTTY on Windows are safe.
So, users don't have to update OpenSSH on the server side (Droplet), but should update the OpenSSH client on their local computer.
How to Fix the Flaw?
The OpenSSH team patched the security flaw in version 7.1p2 on Thursday. So, users and organisations are strictly advised to patch their OpenSSH implementations immediately, as well as regenerate their SSH private keys as a precaution.
The latest builds of FreeBSD and OpenBSD have also been patched, as have Debian, Ubuntu, and RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
Since security patches and updates are being released for the affected distributions, the client-side roaming feature causing this security bug can be disabled manually in order to resolve the issue.
On OS X, Linux and BSD variants, disabling roaming feature can be done by adding a line of code to your SSH configuration.
On FreeBSD and Linux
Run the given command to add the new line to your configuration:
echo 'UseRoaming no' | sudo tee -a /etc/ssh/ssh_config
On Mac OSX
Run the given command to add the new line to your configuration:
echo "UseRoaming no" >> ~/.ssh/config
Once this is done, you need to close any open SSH session in order for the change to be effective.
Proof-of-Concept Exploit
OpenSSH said they are not aware of attacks in wild exploiting this flaw, but Qualys said this issue may have already been exploited in the wild by sophisticated attackers.
Later on Thursday, Qualys published a post, including a proof-of-concept exploit code, effectively lighting a fire under every affected OpenSSH client.
The vulnerability is thought to be one of the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in the open-source software in years, and it's difficult to say how big the impact will be.
Patch Now! Patch Fast! Be Safe!
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Cui, a fifth year grad student from the Columbia University Intrusion Detection Systems Lab and co-founder of Red Balloon Security, has demonstrated an attack on common Cisco-branded Voice over IP (VoIP) phones that could easily eavesdrop on private conversations remotely.
The vulnerability Cui demonstrated was based on work he did over the last year on what he called 'Project Gunman v2', where a laser printer firmware update could be compromised to include additional, and potentially malicious, code.
The latest vulnerability is based on a lack of input validation at the syscall interface. Cui said, "allows arbitrary modification of kernel memory from userland, as well as arbitrary code execution within the kernel. This, in turn, allows the attacker to become root, gain control over the DSP , buttons, and LEDs on the phone."
While he did not specify the precise vulnerability, Cui said it allowed him to patch the phone's software with arbitrary pieces of code, and that this allowed him to turn the Off-Hook Switch into what he called a funtenna.
According to Cui, once one phone is compromised, the entire network of phones is vulnerable. Cui later said he could also perform a similar exploit remotely, without the need to insert a circuit board at all.
He also said that routers, printers and phones are general-purpose computers without host-based intrusion systems or antivirus protection built in, so they make attractive targets. Further, they often lack encryption for data in motion or at rest.
Cui said affected models include Cisco Unified IP Phone 7975G, 7971G-GE, 7970G, 7965G, 7962G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7945G, 7942G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7931G, 7911G, and 7906. Models 7971G-GE, 7970G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7941G, 7941G-GE, and 7906 are also vulnerable.
In response to his findings, Cisco says that workarounds and a software patch are available to address the issue, and that successful exploitation requires physical access to the device serial port or a combination of remote authentication privileges and non default settings.
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Google Android has been a primary concern of the attackers. Counting from a simple text message that could hack an Android phone remotely to the Stagefright bug making Billion users vulnerable.
Now, the latest is the 'Kemoge Malware' that has made its debut as an Adware on the Android mobile phones, allowing third-party app stores to fetch your device's information and take full control of it.
Security researchers from FireEye Labs have discovered that Kemoge malicious adware family is spreading in 20 countries around the globe. Also, the origin of the Adware's attack is suspected from China.
What is Kemoge?
The name given to the malicious Adware family is because of its command and control (C2) domain: aps.kemoge.net.
Kemoge is an Adware in the disguise of popular Apps; it has circulated in such numbers because it takes the name of popular apps and repackages them with the malicious code and make them available to the user.
They even use the same developer name, as used by the verified and clean apps on the official Play Store.
Some of the popular apps getting affected are:(Image)
Talking Tom 3
Calculator
Shareit
Assistive Touch
WiFi Enhancer
How does Kemoge Work?
The attacker sets up a genuine looking interface and uploads the apps to third-party app stores and plays smart by promoting the download links via websites and in-app advertisements.
Some aggressive ad networks gaining root privilege can also automatically install the samples.
Once activated on the device, Kemoge collects device information and uploads it to the ad server, then it slyly serves ads from the background.
Victims get ad banners frequently regardless of the current activity as ads even pop-up when the user remains on the Android home screen.
"Initially Kemoge is just annoying, but it soon turns evil," said FireEye researchers.
Kemoge even Affects Rooted Devices
The malicious adware injects eight root exploits to root phones, targeting a wide range of device models.
Some of the exploits are compiled from open source projects whereas some come from the commercial tool "Root Dashi" (or "Root Master").
"After gaining root, it executes root.sh to obtain persistency," FireEye researchers said. "Afterwards, it implants the AndroidRTService.apk into /system partition as Launcher0928.apk -- the filename imitates the legit launcher system service. Moreover, the package name of this apk also looks like authentic services, e.g. com.facebook.qdservice.rp.provider and com.android.provider.setting."
Moreover, the malicious system service ( Launcher0928.apk) contacts aps.kemoge.net for commands.
How does Kemoge Evade Detection?
To evade detection, Kemoge communicates with the server at various time intervals. The malware runs malicious code briefly at the first launch or 24 hours after installation.
In each enquiry, Kemoge sends the data including phone's IMEI, IMSI, storage information, and installed app information to a remote third-party server.
After uploading the device's information, the malware asks commands from the server, which reverts with a command out of following three domains and the malicious system service executes it. The commands are:
Uninstall designated applications
Launch designated applications
Download and Install applications from URLs given by server
FireEye researchers conducted their research on Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 (JellyBean). While experimenting, the server commanded the device, such that it uninstalled the legitimate apps and made the device filled with malicious codes.
How to Protect Against Kemoge?
Kemoge is a dangerous threat and to stay safe you are advised to:
Never click on any suspicious links from emails, SMS, websites, or advertisements.
Never install apps outside of the official App Store.
Keep your Android devices up-to-date in order to avoid being rooted by public known vulnerabilities (Upgrading device to the latest version of OS provides some security but doesn't always guarantee protection).
Uninstall the app showing Ads.
To know more about Kemoge, follow FireEye's official blog. Also, if you faced any such issues with your Android device, then identify the app supplying malicious Adware to you and let us know in the comment below.
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Story highlightsObama, parents thank those who arranged for releasePlane carrying detainees leaves Navy base in CubaAmerican soldier captured by Taliban in June 2009Five detainees are being sent from Guantanamo to Qatar in exchangePresident Barack Obama, flanked by the parents of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl at the White House on Saturday, praised the diplomatic officials and troops who helped secure the release of the American soldier held captive for nearly five years by militants during the Afghanistan war. Bergdahl was released in exchange for five Guantanamo detainees, officials said.The government of Qatar, which helped broker the release, pledged to "put in place measures to protect our national security," Obama said at the White House Rose Garden."While Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten," the President said.Bergdahl's mother, Jani, said, "We will continue to stay strong for Bowe while he recovers."Bob Bergdahl said he was not sure whether his son still speaks English and spoke at one point in what appeared to be Pashtun."I'm your father, Bowe," the father said.Members of the White House national security team -- including Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco -- grew emotional when the parents thanked those who helped secure their son's release. Bergdahl, the only remaining U.S. soldier captured during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, was recovered by U.S. special operations forces without incident about 10:30 a.m. ET at a "pick-up" point in eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, a senior Department of Defense official told CNN. There were 18 armed Taliban members present. Once he was on an American helicopter, Bergdahl, 28, used a paper plate to communicate because of the noise. He wrote, "SF?" meaning, "special forces?" One of the operators sitting with Bergdahl responded loudly: "Yes, we've been looking for you for a long time," according to the official. Bergdahl broke down crying. 'Cannot wait to wrap our arms around our only son'Earlier, the White House said in a statement, "Today the American people are pleased that we will be able to welcome home Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl." Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that he had informed Congress of the decision to transfer five detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for Bergdahl, who was the only remaining American soldier captured from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.After Bergdahl was handed over, a series of secret procedures were set in motion so each side knew the other was living up to the bargain, according to U.S. Defense officials. Qatari officials were already at Guantanamo and took custody of the detainees. They assured the Taliban that the detainees would be flown to Qatar. The Afghan Taliban issued a statement on its website in Arabic and Pashto announcing with "great happiness and joy" the exchange of Bergdahl for five of its imprisoned senior leaders.It said, "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was and has been for a long time attempting to free all the imprisoned Afghan prisoners inside and outside the country." "Sgt. Bergdahl is now under the care of the U.S. military after being handed over by his captors in Afghanistan," Hagel said. "We will give him all the support he needs to help him recover from this ordeal, and we are grateful that he will soon be reunited with his family." Photos: Americans detained abroad Photos: Americans detained abroadKim Dong Chul, a South Korean-born American citizen detained in North Korea, is escorted to his trial April 29 in Pyongyang. A North Korean court sentenced Kim to 10 years in prison for what it called acts of subversion and espionage. North Korea watchers interpret the detainment of Americans and other foreign citizens as a collection of bargaining chips by the reclusive regime.Hide Caption 1 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadUniversity of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier was detained by North Korea after being accused of carrying out "a hostile act" against the government, state media reported. In March, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly removing a political banner from a Pyongyang hotel.Hide Caption 2 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadJason Rezaian, The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tehran, was released January 16 as part of a prisoner swap. Rezaian was convicted by an Iranian Revolutionary Court in October, according to Iran's state-run media. Rezaian was reportedly facing up to 20 years, but the sentence was not specified. The journalist was taken into custody in July 2014 and later charged with espionage; the Post has denied all allegations against him. His wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also was detained in July 2014 but later released.Hide Caption 3 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadSaeed Abedini, a U.S. citizen of Iranian birth, was freed as part of a prisoner swap that included Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian on January 16. Abedini was sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2013. He was accused of attempting to undermine the Iranian government and endangering national security by establishing home churches. He was detained in Iran on September 26, 2012, according to the American Center for Law and Justice.Hide Caption 4 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadAmir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine charged with spying, was freed as part of a prisoner swap that included Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian on January 16. An Iranian court threw out a 2011 death sentence for Hekmati, but he was secretly retried in Iran and convicted of "practical collaboration with the U.S. government," his sister told CNN on April 11. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, she said. Hekmati was detained in August 2011 during a visit to see his grandmother. His family and the Obama administration deny accusations he was spying for the CIA. Hide Caption 5 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadSiamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman with dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, was detained while visiting relatives in Tehran, the Wall Street Journal reported October 29, citing unnamed sources. The Washington Post also reported his detention, citing a family friend who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Post reported that it wasn't clear what Namazi is alleged to have done. His detention would bring to five the number of Americans detained or unaccounted for in the Islamic republic.Hide Caption 6 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadScott Darden was taken hostage by Houthi rebels in Yemen in March 2015. He was captured while working for New Orleans-based Transoceanic Development, according to a source close to his family.Hide Caption 7 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadRetired FBI agent Robert Levinson has been missing since 2007. His family says he was working as a private investigator in Iran when he disappeared, and multiple reports suggest Levinson may have been working for the CIA. His family told CNN that they have long known that Levinson worked for the CIA, and they said it's time for the government to lay out the facts about Levinson's case. U.S. officials have consistently denied publicly that Levinson was working for the government, but they have repeatedly insisted that finding him and bringing him home is a "top" priority. The FBI increased its reward for information on Levinson from $1 million to $5 million.Hide Caption 8 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadMothers Linda Boyle, left, and Lyn Coleman hold photo of their married children, Joshua Boyle and Caitlin Coleman, who were kidnapped by the Taliban in late 2012. Coleman was pregnant when she was kidnapped and is believed to have had a child in captivity.Hide Caption 9 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadJailed since 2013 and sentenced to life for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohamed Soltan was eventually released, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo said in May 2015. Soltan's family denies he belonged to the Brotherhood. Soltan had been a dual U.S. and Egyptian citizen, but he renounced his Egyptian citizenship as a condition of his release.Hide Caption 10 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadU.S. officials revealed in April 2015 that Warren Weinstein, a 73-year-old American aid worker that had been held hostage in Pakistan since August 2011, had been accidentally killed in a U.S. drone strike targeting al Qaeda.Hide Caption 11 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadOne of three Americans detained in North Korea, Jeffrey Edward Fowle was released and sent home, a State Department official told CNN in October 2014. Fowle was accused of leaving a Bible in a hotel where he was staying. North Korea announced Fowle's detention in June of that year, saying he had violated the law by acting "contrary to the purpose of tourism." Fowle told CNN: "I've admitted my guilt to the government and signed a statement to that effect and requested forgiveness from the people and the government of the DPRK."Hide Caption 12 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadIn May 2013, a North Korean court sentenced Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen, to 15 years of hard labor for committing "hostile acts" against the state. North Korea claimed Bae was part of a Christian plot to overthrow the regime. In a short interview with CNN in September 2014, Bae said he is working eight hours a day, six days a week at a labor camp. "Right now what I can say to my friends and family is, continue to pray for me," he said. After months in detention, he and fellow American detainee Matthew Todd Miller were released in November.Hide Caption 13 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadMiller, an American sentenced to six years of hard labor in North Korea, was one of three Americans who spoke to CNN's Will Ripley in September 2014 and implored the U.S. government for help. The 24-year-old was accused of tearing up his tourist visa and seeking asylum upon entry to North Korea.Hide Caption 14 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadAmerican journalist Peter Theo Curtis was handed over to U.N. peacekeepers in August 2014 after nearly two years in captivity. He is believed to have been captured in October 2012 and held by the al-Nusra Front, a Syrian rebel group with ties to al Qaeda.Hide Caption 15 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadAlan Gross, at right with Rabbi Arthur Schneier, was jailed while working as a subcontractor in Cuba in December 2009. Cuban authorities say Gross tried to set up illegal Internet connections on the island. Gross says he was just trying to help connect the Jewish community to the Internet. Former President Jimmy Carter and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson both traveled to Cuba on Gross' behalf. He was eventually released in December.Hide Caption 16 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadThis undated image provided by the U.S. Army shows Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by insurgents in Afghanistan since 2009. The White House announced Bergdahl's release on May 31, 2014. Bergdahl was released in exchange for five senior Taliban members held by the U.S. military. In March 2015, the U.S. military charged Bergdahl with one count each of "Desertion with Intent to Shirk Important or Hazardous Duty," and "Misbehavior Before The Enemy by Endangering the Safety of a Command, Unit or Place."Hide Caption 17 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadU.S. tourist and Korean War veteran Merrill Newman arrives at the Beijing airport on December 7, 2013, after being released by North Korea. Newman was detained in October 2013 by North Korean authorities just minutes before he was to depart the country after visiting through an organized tour. His son Jeff Newman said the Palo Alto, California, man had all the proper paperwork and set up his trip through a North Korean-approved travel agency. Hide Caption 18 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadY – Mexican authorities arrested Yanira Maldonado, a U.S. citizen, right, in May 2013, for alleged drug possession. She and her husband, Gary, were traveling from Mexico back to the United States when their bus was stopped and searched. She was released a few days later and is now back in the United States.Hide Caption 19 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadNorth Korea has arrested Americans before, only to release them after a visit by a prominent dignitary. Journalists Laura Ling, center, and Euna Lee, to her left, spent 140 days in captivity after being charged with illegal entry to conduct a smear campaign. They were freed in 2009 after a trip by former President Bill Clinton.Hide Caption 20 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadFormer President Jimmy Carter negotiated the release of Aijalon Gomes, who was detained in 2010 after crossing into North Korea illegally from China. Analysts say high-level visits give Pyongyang a propaganda boost and a way to save face when it releases a prisoner.Hide Caption 21 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadDetained in April 2011, Eddie Yong Su Jun was released by North Korea a month afterward. His alleged crime was not provided to the media. The American delegation that secured his freedom included Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues.Hide Caption 22 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadWithout any apparent U.S. intervention, Robert Park was released by North Korea in 2010. The Christian missionary crossed into North Korea from China, carrying a letter asking Kim Jong Il to free political prisoners and resign. North Korea's state-run news agency said Park was released after an "admission and sincere repentance of his wrongdoings." Here, Park holds a photo of Kim and a malnourished child during a protest in Seoul.Hide Caption 23 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadJosh Fattal, center; Sarah Shourd, left; and Shane Bauer were detained by Iran while hiking near the Iraq-Iran border in July 2009. Iran charged them with illegal entry and espionage. Shourd was released on bail for medical reasons in September 2010; she never returned to face her charges. Bauer and Fattal were convicted in August 2011, but the next month they were released on bail and had their sentences commuted.Hide Caption 24 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadHaleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American scholar, was detained at Iran's Evin Prison, spending months in solitary confinement before Iran released her on bail in August 2007. Esfandiari was visiting her ailing mother in Tehran when she was arrested and charged with harming Iran's national security. Hide Caption 25 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadSixteen Americans were among the dozens arrested in December 2011 when Egypt raided the offices of 10 nongovernmental organizations that it said received illegal foreign financing and were operating without a public license. Many of the employees posted bail and left the country after a travel ban was lifted a few months later. Robert Becker, right, chose to stay and stand trial. He spent two years in prison and has since returned to the United States.Hide Caption 26 of 27 Photos: Americans detained abroadFilmmaker Timothy Tracy was arrested in Venezuela in April 2013 on allegations of funding opponents of newly elected President Nicolas Maduro, successor to the late Hugo Chavez. Tracy went to Venezuela to make a documentary about the political division gripping the country. He was released in June 2013.Hide Caption 27 of 27JUST WATCHEDMcCain comments on release of BergdahlReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHMcCain comments on release of Bergdahl 01:28JUST WATCHEDNew hope for U.S. soldier held captiveReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHNew hope for U.S. soldier held captive 02:46JUST WATCHEDBergen: 'It's been a long time coming'ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHBergen: 'It's been a long time coming' 01:57Bergdahl's parents happened to still be in Washington, having visited for Memorial Day.They said in an earlier statement: "We were so joyful and relieved when President (Barack) Obama called us today to give us the news that Bowe is finally coming home! We cannot wait to wrap our arms around our only son. We want to thank Bowe's many supporters in Idaho, around the nation and around the world. We thank the Amir of Qatar for his efforts. And of course, we want to take this opportunity to thank all those in the many U.S. Government agencies who never gave up. Today, we are ecstatic!"Secretary of State John Kerry said the "cost of years of captivity to Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and his family is immeasurable."'Appropriate assurances' over five detaineesIn exchange for Bergdahl's release, five detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be released to Qatar, authorities said. The United States has "appropriate assurances" that Qatar will be able to secure the detainees there, where they are under a travel ban for a year.A U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the detainees left the U.S. Navy base in Cuba on Saturday afternoon, a senior Defense official told CNN.Bergdahl was first transferred to Bagram Airfield, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, for medical evaluation."His health is our number one priority at this time," a senior U.S. defense official said.Saturday night, Bergdahl was en route from Bagram to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, a senior defense official told reporters traveling with Hagel.His "reintegration process" will include "time for him to tell his story, decompress, and to reconnect with his family through telephone calls and video conferences. At this time we believe that he will physically reunite with his family in Texas," the official said. Hagel said the United States "coordinated closely with Qatar to ensure that security measures are in place and the national security of the United States will not be compromised."The United States believes Bergdahl had been held for the bulk of his captivity in Pakistan, the official said. It was unclear when he was moved to Afghanistan. The U.S. government acknowledged in May 2012 that it was engaged in talks with the Taliban to free Bergdahl.Saturday's transfer was brokered through the local Qatari government, the official said, after talks that began about a week ago. U.S. officials had said this year that one route to getting Bergdahl back was through Qatari officials, who had been talking to the Taliban. But Bergdahl was believed to be held by operatives from the Haqqani network, an insurgent force affiliated with the Taliban and al Qaeda, and it was not clear whether Haqqani operatives would abide by any agreement among the United States, Qatar and the Taliban.An Afghan Taliban commander, not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed to CNN that Bergdahl was captured by the Afghan Taliban with links to the Haqqani network in Pakistan. Over the years, the captive was transferred back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan.Bergdahl was deployed to Afghanistan in May 2009. He was 23 when he was captured by the Taliban after finishing a guard shift at a combat outpost on June 30, 2009, in Paktika province.Fast Facts: Bowe BergdahlIn July of that year, a U.S. military official said the soldier was being held by the clan of warlord Siraj Haqqani.Critics question the negotiationsThe United States has long declared that it won't negotiate with groups linked to terrorists, but analysts have said the United States has effectively maneuvered around the edges of that declaration over the years."As the administration has repeatedly affirmed, we will not transfer any detainee from Guantanamo unless the threat the detainee may pose to the United States can be sufficiently mitigated and only when consistent with our humane treatment policy," a senior administration official told CNN, adding that the detainees will be "subject to restrictions on their movement and activities."Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former POW, in a statement called the released detainees "hardened terrorists who have the blood of Americans and countless Afghans on their hands.""I am eager to learn what precise steps are being taken to ensure that these vicious and violent Taliban extremists never return to the fight against the United States and our partners or engage in any activities that can threaten the prospects for peace and security in Afghanistan," he said. "The American people, and our Afghan partners, deserve nothing less."A senior administration official told CNN, "With regard to whether or not we're negotiating with terrorists: Sergeant Bergdahl is a member of the military who was detained during the course of an armed conflict. The transfer of these individuals is not a concession -- it is fully in line with the President's goal of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay." The Taliban had long demanded the release of five detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But U.S. officials said that releasing them would be difficult because Congress would have to be notified in advance, and lawmakers have previously resisted releasing them.NATO leaders signed off last week on Obama's exit strategy from Afghanistan that calls for an end to combat operations next year and the withdrawal of the U.S.-led international military force by the end of 2014.Bergdahl, of Wood River Valley, Idaho, appeared in diminished health in a video that the U.S. military obtained in January. His family also received a letter from him last year via the Red Cross.
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Paris (CNN)The US women's national soccer team will "fight until the end" in its battle for equality, says one of the team's co-captains Megan Rapinoe. With the Women's World Cup just months away, 28 players in the US squad last week filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation, stating "institutionalized gender discrimination," which the reigning world champions say has existed for years. Follow @cnnsport
The suit, filed in a federal court in Los Angeles on March 8 -- International Women's Day -- intensified the team's long-running dispute with the federation over pay equity and working conditions, stating that "female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts." Rapinoe, a World Cup winner in 2015, told CNN Sport she was confident the team would be successful, adding that the USWNT was happy to "clear the path as much as we can" for other countries in the fight for gender equality. Alex Morgan #13 and Megan Rapinoe #15 of USA celebrate after a goal against Mexico in October 2018.READ: France 2019 -- What you need to knowRead MoreREAD: From 'whirlwind year' to seeking World Cup glory "To even bring about a lawsuit to the forefront you better be sure as hell that your claims are solid," said the 33-year-old Rapinoe, who was speaking in Paris at the launch of the USWNT's World Cup kit."I've been on this team a long time and we're extremely organized and united and feel that this is the right time for it and that we have a very strong case. We feel good about it. "For us, it's just another step forward. It's obviously not something we're going to drop ever. We're going to fight to the very end and this was just the next step that we needed to take."World Cup favoritesThe dominant power in the women's game, the USWNT is the world's top-ranked team and favorites to win this summer's Women's World Cup in France, which would bring about a fourth title in eight tournaments. The country's men, by comparison, are currently 25th in the world rankings and failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. US Soccer has yet to comment on the legal action which also seeks compensation for any player who has appeared for the US since February 2015. Rapinoe was one of five high-profile players who filed a complained with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2016 alleging wage discrimination. The men's national team, the athletes said, unjustly earned far more than they did. Megan Rapinoe #15 kneels during the National Anthem prior to the match between the US and the Netherlands in September 2016.The players and their federation eventually agreed a settlement in 2017. Though the terms of the deal, which runs through to 2021, were not released, it reportedly included increases in base pay and match bonuses, better per diem allowances, enhanced travel benefits and increased financial support for players who are pregnant. However, the US women soccer players argue that they still receive less pay from their employers even though they are required to play more games than the men's team and win more matches. Frustrated by a lack of progress on their wage discrimination complaint, the EEOC granted the players a right-to-sue letter. "We tried to go through the EEOC process and tried to get the federation to come to the table, not really in negotiation but in mediation," said Rapinoe. "They were not really into doing that. "At this time, this is the best step we can take to put us in the strongest position to continue this fight."The first white professional athlete to kneel during the US national anthem in support of Colin Kaepernick, Rapinoe said the team did not make the decision lightly with the World Cup on the horizon."It's not something that we were willing to give up or just let float out into the ether," the Californian said."We felt as well that it's far enough out that we can manage the distraction now and be done with that and fully focus on the World Cup, and obviously with litigation it takes a million years to do anything in the court [so] it's not as if anything is happening very quickly. "No one understands better than us the power and the importance of winning and pushing the needle forward so this team has always had distractions of some kind. "We're used to this and we have a very experienced veteran group that can guide the younger players and by the time the World Cup comes around it's not something we're going to be talking about every day."Rapinoe added that the USWNT stars were also motivated by the feeling that they weren't just fighting for themselves. "We have a very visceral understanding of our place within the bigger fight. We feel any time we win, other teams win as well and other players can really piggyback off the success. We're happy to be the ones out charging in front and try to clear the path as much as we can for anyone else."JUST WATCHEDHope Solo does not back North America's 2026 bidReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHHope Solo does not back North America's 2026 bid 01:55Visit CNN.com/sport for more news, features and videosAlex Morgan, a World Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist, said achieving equal pay would be as great as anything she has achieved on the pitch. "I had a dream to play soccer and to make it at the highest level, but when I'm retired and older what I'll look back on is the legacy that I'll leave and feeling proud of the mark that I've made on the sport," Morgan, who along with Rapinoe filed the 2016 complaint against US Soccer, told CNN Sport. "At some point we need to take a stand and realize that we do deserve true equality."Once we all made the decision together it was a really easy one because it's the right thing to do, it's the next step forward."
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London (CNN)A man in a New York Giants jersey threw a pass and it was dropped by a guy in a Baltimore Ravens jersey. The crowd laughed as a man in a Denver Broncos jersey fumbled the ball and kicked it away in frustration. Then a boy no older than 10 grabbed the ball, sidestepped a zealous Green Bay Packers supporter and carried out an elaborate celebration he clearly spent a lot of time practicing. With an ever-growing crowd assembling around them, an impromptu game of pitch-and-catch took place on the road outside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium between fans on their way to the game Sunday between the Chicago Bears and the Oakland Raiders. The NFL International Series was here.Fans pose outside the game between Chicago Bears and Oakland Raiders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.While supporters' pre-match soccer rituals often include a few drinks at the pub before heading to the ground for kick-off, these fans turned up three hours before kickoff. And while rival soccer fans are often segregated and heavily policed, these NFL fans mingled, shared jokes and threw the ball to one another. Read MoreNot only was this the first of four NFL games in London this season, it also marked the first American football game at spanking new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which opened earlier this year. The stadium features a retractable grass pitch which was slid aside Sunday to allow the game to be played on synthetic turf underneath.NFL fandom is growing in the UKNFL is the sport in the USA, but when teams have crossed the pond to entertain London crowds they have sometimes felt like they're playing second fiddle to another sport, playing on turf pitches that had just been used for soccer matches. This was the first NFL game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.But following the construction of the £1 billion ($123 billion), state-of-the-art Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with its interchangeable soccer and NFL pitches, bespoke NFL locker rooms and dedicated home and away press conference rooms, the UK is clearly taking pro football more seriously.English Premier League schedule-makers even ensured that Tottenham played away in Brighton Saturday to accommodate the NFL. And this increased respect for a sport that's been marginalized in the UK is something that fans have noticed. Max Davies, adorned in a tattered Raiders jersey, has been a diehard fan of the Silver and Black since the 1980s. He said he hasn't seen NFL fandom in the UK be this serious since he began following the team. "I think there were questions about whether or not they could fill stadiums for more than one game a year," he said. DeAndre Washington of the Oakland Raiders scores his team's second touchdown against the Bears."We've obviously gone up to four (games) now and they are all completely sold out. It's more mainstream. It's a lot more in the public consciousness."Although this game is being played in London, its managed to maintain some Americanness. Fans tailgated hours before kickoff, there was a halftime show and when Josh Jacobs scored the game's first touchdown in the second quarter, the flashing light show and booming sound system bore similarities to an NFL stadium.An NFL franchise in London?As sports leagues look to expand their markets, games on foreign soil are happening with increasing regularity. There are five international NFL games this season, including the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers in Mexico City in November. The NBA will play games this season in Mexico City and Paris, and even soccer leagues have considered playing regular-season games outside of the country.So could we see a permanent NFL team in London? Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who also owns the London-based soccer team Fulham, is a key driver pushing forward the idea of a London team. His Jaguars team have become London's de facto team as they've played the most times in the English capital. Sunday's game was the first of four NFL games to be played in London this season.But, with the sizeable weekly commute that a London NFL team would face, plus questions about how strong support for the NFL actually is in the UK, the prospect of a London team has opinions spilt. Davies, the long-term Raiders fan, said he'd be willing to switch allegiances if a team relocated to the UK. "It's one of those questions that have been bandied around for a while," Max said. "For me, it would be a question of where my allegiances would lie - to the team that I've supported for the past 30 years or to the London team. "A London team would definitely be something that I would be a season ticket holder for."In the end Sunday the Raiders beat the Bears, 24-21. But the festive sellout crowd, the cacophony of jersey colors and the wide range of fans' ages all suggest that the NFL in the UK is the real winner.
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Germany has been hit with the biggest hack in its history.
A group of unknown hackers has leaked highly-sensitive personal data from more than 100 German politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brandenburg's prime minister Dietmar Woidke, along with some German artists, journalists, and YouTube celebrities.
The leaked data that was published on a Twitter account (@_0rbit) and dated back to before October 2018 includes phone numbers, email addresses, private chats, bills, credit card information and photos of victims' IDs.
Although it is yet unclear who perpetrated this mass hack and how they managed to perform it, the leaked data appears to be collected unauthorizedly by hacking into their smartphones.
The hack targeted all of Germany's political parties currently represented in the federal parliament, including the CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Left party (Die Linke) and Greens, except for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
While Justice Minister Katarina Barley called this mass hacking as a "serious attack," local media reports that none of the leaked data could be considered politically explosive.
Germany's federal office for information security (BSI), who is investigating the attack, said that government networks were not affected by the incident and that the identity of the hackers and their motive were not yet known.
"The BSI is currently intensively examining the case in close cooperation with other federal authorities. The National Cyber Defense Center has taken over the central coordination," a BSI spokesperson said on Twitter.
"According to the current state of knowledge there is no concern of the governmental networks. However, we will continue to investigate."
Among the victims include Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, as well as Robert Habeck, leader of the Green party, who was particularly badly affected by the attack with hackers leaking his digital communications with his family.
Besides German politicians, the intrusive hack attacks also affected well-known actor Til Schweiger, two renowned German comedians, Jan Boehmermann and Christian Ehring, as well as dozens of journalists from ZDF and ARD–public-funded German media outlets.
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Ever wonder how to hack Instagram or how to hack a facebook account? Well, someone just did it!
But, remember, even responsibly reporting a security vulnerability could end up in taking legal actions against you.
An independent security researcher claims he was threatened by Facebook after he responsibly revealed a series of security vulnerabilities and configuration flaws that allowed him to successfully gained access to sensitive data stored on Instagram servers, including:
Source Code of Instagram website
SSL Certificates and Private Keys for Instagram
Keys used to sign authentication cookies
Personal details of Instagram Users and Employees
Email server credentials
Keys for over a half-dozen critical other functions
However, instead of paying him a reward, Facebook has threatened to sue the researcher of intentionally withholding flaws and information from its team.
Wesley Weinberg, a senior security researcher at Synack, participated in Facebook's bug bounty program and started analyzing Instagram systems after one of his friends hinted him to a potentially vulnerable server located at sensu.instagram.com
The researcher found an RCE (Remote Code Execution) bug in the way it processed users' session cookies that are generally used to remember users' log-in details.
Remote code execution bug was possible due to two weaknesses:
The Sensu-Admin web app running on the server contained a hard-coded Ruby secret token
The host running a version of Ruby (3.x) that was susceptible to code execution via the Ruby session cookie
Exploiting the vulnerability, Weinberg was able to force the server to vomit up a database containing login details, including credentials, of Instagram and Facebook employees.
Although the passwords were encrypted with 'bcrypt', Weinberg was able to crack a dozen of passwords that had been very weak (like changeme, instagram, password) in just a few minutes.
Exposed EVERYTHING including Your Selfies
Weinberg did not stop here. He took a close look at other configuration files he found on the server and discovered that one of the files contained some keys for Amazon Web Services accounts, the cloud computing service used to host Instagram's Sensu setup.
These keys listed 82 Amazon S3 buckets (storage units), but these buckets were unique. He found nothing sensitive in the latest file in that bucket, but when he looked at the older version of the file, he found another key pair that let him read the contents of all 82 buckets.
Weinberg had inadvertently stumbled upon almost EVERYTHING including:
Instagram's source code
SSL certificates and private keys (including for instagram.com and *.instagram.com)
API keys that are used for interacting with other services
Images uploaded by Instagram users
Static content from the instagram.com website
Email server credentials
iOS/Android app signing keys
Other sensitive data
"To say that I had gained access to basically all of Instagram's secret key material would probably be a fair statement," Weinberg wrote in his blog. "With the keys I obtained, I could now easily impersonate Instagram, or any valid user or staff member. While out of scope, I would have easily been able to gain full access to any user's account, [personal] pictures and data."
Responsible Disclosure, but Facebook Threatens Lawsuit
Weinberg reported his findings to Facebook's security team, but the social media giant was concerned he had accessed private data of its users and employees while uncovering the issues.
Instead of receiving a reward from Facebook for his hard work, Weinberg was unqualified for the bug bounty program by Facebook.
In early December, Weinberg claims his boss Synack CEO, Jay Kaplan, received a scary call from Facebook security chief Alex Stamos regarding the weaknesses Weinberg discovered in Instagram that left Instagram and Facebook users wide open to a devastating attack.
Stamos "stated that he did not want to have to get Facebook's legal team involved, but that he was not sure if this was something he needed to go to law enforcement over," Weinberg wrote in his blog in a section entitled 'Threats and Intimidation.'
In response, Stamos issued a statement, saying he "did not threaten legal action against Synack or [Weinberg] nor did [he] ask for [Weinberg] to be fired."
Stamos said he only told Kaplan to "keep this out of the hands of the lawyers on both sides."
"Condoning researchers going well above and beyond what is necessary to find and fix critical issues would create a precedent that could be used by those aiming to violate the privacy of our users, and such behavior by legitimate security researchers puts the future of paid bug bounties at risk," Stamos added.
Facebook Responds
After the original publication by the researcher, Facebook issued its response, saying the claims are false and that Weinberg was never told not to publish his findings, rather only asked not to disclose the non-public information he accessed.
The social media giant confirmed the existence of the remote code execution bug in the sensu.instagram.com domain and promised a bug bounty of $2,500 as a reward to Weinberg and his friend who initially hinted that the server was openly accessible.
However, the other vulnerabilities that allowed Weinberg to gain access to sensitive data were not qualified, with Facebook saying he violated user privacy while accessing the data.
Here's the full statement by Facebook:
We are strong advocates of the security researcher community and have built positive relationships with thousands of people through our bug bounty program. These interactions must include trust, however, and that includes reporting the details of bugs that are found and not using them to access private information in an unauthorized manner. In this case, the researcher intentionally withheld bugs and information from our team and went far beyond the guidelines of our program to pull private, non-user data from internal systems.
We paid him for his initial bug report based on the quality, even though he was not the first to report it, but we didn't pay for the subsequent information that he had withheld. At no point did we say he could not publish his findings — we asked that he refrain from disclosing the non-public information he accessed in violation of our program guidelines. We remain firmly committed to paying for high quality research and helping the community learn from researchers' hard work.
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Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. (CNN)The first full moon of the year lit up the night sky on Monday, and photographers captured its splendor.Known as the wolf moon, it was named after wolves that were thought to howl more frequently this time of year, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. However, no link between wolves howling and the moon has been established. A cable car passes in front of the moon as it crosses the River Thames in London on Monday, January 17.Besides the wolf moon, January's full moon is known by a number of names, including the Old Moon and Ice Moon.The full moon sets behind Monte Prena in Gran Sasso d'Italia National Park on January 17.Hindus refer to it as Shakambhari Purnima, which marks the last day of Shakambari Navratri, an eight-day holiday honoring the goddess Shakambhari. People in India often bathe in holy waters during this time, NASA said. Assiniboine people who live in the Northern Great Plains in the United States call this the center moon because it is around the middle of winter, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. The full moon rises in the residential area of Eindhoven in the Netherlands on January 17.Read MoreAlgonquin people located northeast of the Great Lakes, also in the US, call it "squochee kesos," which means, "sun has not strength to thaw." The Cheyenne people of the Great Plains call it "moon of the strong cold." Palestinians ride horses in Gaza beach as the full wolf moon rises over Gaza City on January 17.There are 12 full moons in 2022, and two of them qualify as supermoons.Definitions of a supermoon can vary, but the term generally denotes a full moon that is brighter and closer to Earth than normal and thus appears larger in the night sky.The moon sets behind Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire, England, on January 17.Some astronomers say that the phenomenon occurs when the moon is within 90% of perigee -- which is its closest approach to Earth in orbit. By that definition, the full moon for June as well as the one in July will be considered supermoon events.Starlings fly in the sky as full moon rises over the city of Rome, Italy, on January 17.Here is the list of the remaining full moons for 2022, according to the Farmers' Almanac:• February 16: Snow moon• March 18: Worm moon• April 16: Pink moon• May 16: Flower moon• June 14: Strawberry moon• July 13: Buck moon• August 11: Sturgeon moon• September 10: Harvest moon• October 9: Hunter's moon• November 8: Beaver moon• December 7: Cold moonWhile these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moons, each one carries varied significance across Native American tribes.CNN's Ashley Strickland contributed to this story.
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Does Adobe Flash, the standard that animated the early Web, needs to Die?
Unfortunately, Yes.
Despite Adobe's best efforts, Flash is not safe anymore for Internet security, as a recent zero-day Flash exploit has been identified.
Just Yesterday Adobe released its monthly patch update that addressed a total of 69 critical vulnerabilities in Reader, Acrobat, including 13 critical patches for Flash Player.
Now today, Security researchers have disclosed a new zero-day vulnerability in fully patched versions of Adobe Flash, which is currently being exploited in the wild by a Russian state-sponsored hacking groups, named "Pawn Storm".
NO Patch For Latest Flash Exploit
That means, even users with an entirely up-to-date installation (versions 19.0.0.185 and 19.0.0.207) of the Flash software are also vulnerable to the latest zero-day exploit.
Luckily, for the time being, this exploit is only being used against Government agencies and several foreign affairs ministries from around the globe.
However, now, when the zero-day vulnerability is publicly known to everyone, hackers could exploit it to target innocent Flash Player users too.
Adobe has been notified of latest discovery and researchers are also working with them to address this flaw.
Readers are advised to disable or completely uninstall Adobe Flash Player immediately.
"OYE Flash! Enough is Enough", said The Internet
Adobe Flash Player is dead and its time has passed. In January this year, YouTube moved away from Flash for delivering videos.
In between, Flash made an effort to beef up its security in an effort to justify its existence.
However, things got a bit heated when Firefox became aware of a critical security flaw and blocked the Flash plugin entirely.
Facebook's Security Chief publicly called for Adobe to announce a kill-date for Flash and Google Chrome has also begun blocking auto-playing Flash ads by default.
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(CNN)The music was loud, the dancing energetic, the atmosphere electric. And then the shooting started. As gunfire rang out revelers hit the floor, ran for the exits, hid in bathrooms and even sheltered beneath the bodies of their friends, desperate to escape the hail of bullets.This was the scene in Orlando's Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning, as gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 people, and left dozens more wounded before being shot dead by police. But to those who lived through the Paris attacks last November, eyewitness accounts of the scene that unfolded inside the popular gay club sounded shockingly familiar.Britain's Sun newspaper drew parallels between the attacks on the Pulse nightclub and Paris's Bataclan concert venue.Clubgoers under siegeRead MoreAs in the November 2015 massacre during the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan club, where 89 people died, many at Pulse at first mistook the noise of the attack for part of the evening's entertainment."At first it sounded like it was part of the show, because there was an event going on -- we were all just having a good time," Andy Moss told CNN. "But once people started screaming and shots just kept ringing out, you know that it's not a show any more, and you gotta do what you've gotta do ... My first instinct was to run and get out."Many are already calling the Orlando shooting "America's Bataclan." Britain's Sun newspaper splashed the label across its front page Monday, and California congressman Adam Schiff, of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said the attack was "painfully reminiscent of the terrible attack at the Bataclan."My full statement on the #Orlando shooting this morning: pic.twitter.com/viERHIljen— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) June 12, 2016
"In both cases you had a multi-hour hostage siege situation," said CNN analyst Paul Cruickshank. "Both were in confined spaces which it was hard to get out of, both were well-thought-out attacks, and in both cases you had gunmen doing what they could to get ISIS to take ownership -- turning it into an overtly political act."Soft targetsAs in Paris, the victims were young, mostly in their 20s and 30s. Groups of friends had gathered to enjoy an evening together -- drinks, dancing, some flirting and fun. They were soft, easy targets, and their deaths were aimed at creating fear -- terror -- across a wide spectrum of the public.Previous attacks have made people think twice about using public transport (the 2004 Madrid bombings, the 7/7 London bombings) or attending large, crowded public places (the Boston Marathon bombing, the Westgate mall attack in Nairobi). But the Paris and Orlando massacres appear to have been focused on scaring people out of their social lives.Inside the Bataclan: A night of terror, a tale of love"Terrorism is all about about creating fear to achieve certain ends," said Cruickshank. Seven months after the Paris attacks, many of those who survived are still struggling to come to terms with what they went through that night.Max Besnard, who was at the Bataclan on November 13, told CNN he was "horrified" by news of the Orlando shooting: "there's an obvious link with the Bataclan tragedy -- in both cases, it's a way of life that's been attacked. "But let's not forget Brussels, Beirut, Tunis, Baghdad ... there's a mass shooting or a bomb attack almost every day now, and I don't see the situation changing anytime soon. I wonder how we got here? [It] makes me feel so sad."Besnard said the survivors of the Pulse attack, like their counterparts at the Bataclan, face a long road ahead. He urged them to "try not to let fear and anger take over" -- however tough that is likely to be."Personally, the most difficult thing is to learn to live with fear -- to be strong, living in a world where I don't feel safe as I used to," he said. "It's hard to remain optimistic when you've been caught in a war scene right down your street."
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Google's Chrome web browser Extensions are under attack with a series of developers being hacked within last one month.
Almost two weeks ago, we reported how unknown attackers managed to compromise the Chrome Web Store account of a developer team and hijacked Copyfish extension, and then modified it to distribute spam correspondence to users.
Just two days after that incident, some unknown attackers then hijacked another popular extension 'Web Developer' and then updated it to directly inject advertisements into the web browser of over its 1 million users.
After Chris Pederick, the creator of 'Web Developer' Chrome extension that offers various web development tools to its users, reported to Proofpoint that his extension had been compromised, the security vendor analysed the issue and found further add-ons in the Chrome Store that had also been altered.
According to the latest report published by the researchers at Proofpoint on Monday, the expanded list of compromised Chrome Extensions are as below:
Chrometana (1.1.3)
Infinity New Tab (3.12.3)
CopyFish (2.8.5)
Web Paint (1.2.1)
Social Fixer (20.1.1)
Proofpoint researcher Kafeine also believes Chrome extensions TouchVPN and Betternet VPN were also compromised in the same way at the end of June.
In all the above cases, some unknown attackers first gained access to the developers' Google web accounts by sending out phishing emails with malicious links to steal account credentials.
Once the attackers gained access to the accounts, either they hijacked their respective extensions and then modified them to perform malicious tasks, or they add malicious Javascript code to them in an attempt to hijack traffic and expose users to fake ads and password theft in order to generate revenue.
In the case of the Copyfish extension, the attackers even moved the whole extension to one of its developers' accounts, preventing the software company from removing the infected extension from the Chrome store, even after being spotted compromised behaviour of the extension.
"Threat actors continue to look for new ways to drive traffic to affiliate programs and effectively surface malicious advertisements to users," researchers concluded. "In the cases described here, they are leveraging compromised Chrome extensions to hijack traffic and substitute advertisements on victims' browsers."
"Once they obtain developer credentials through emailed phishing campaigns, they can publish malicious versions of legitimate extensions."
At this time, it is unclear who is behind the hijackings of Chrome Web extensions.
The best way to protect yourself from such attacks is always to be suspicious of uninvited documents sent over a phishing email and never click on links inside those documents unless verifying the source.
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Story highlightsKristina Kaufmann: After 12 years, many military families know nothing but warKaufmann: Military families live in continuous anxiety when loved one is deployedShe says 22 veterans take their own lives each day, but how many family members do?Kaufmann: We need to help spouses, children, parents and siblings who are sufferingWhen I married a soldier in June 2001, I knew my life was going to change. I moved from Berkeley, California, to Fort Sill, Oklahoma -- talk about a culture shock. But I was in love, and enthusiastically dove head first into a military life I knew nothing about. And then 9/11 happened, and my husband went to war. And then he went again, and again ... and again.After more than 12 years of sustained war and multiple deployments borne by less than 1% of the population, we now have an entire generation of military families that know nothing but war. And war comes home. I've known three Army wives who've taken their own lives. Kristina KaufmannAlthough we're certainly not the first generation of military families to deal with the aftermath of war -- there's simply no precedent for how repeated deployments have affected the mental health of military spouses, children, parents and siblings. It's like living in a continuous state of emergency for more than a decade and never being able to fully exhale in relief. As soon as your soldier comes home, you're just counting down the days until he or she leaves and returns to the battlefield.What is wars' true toll on the spouses and children? Incredibly, in spite of this reality, the majority of families thrive as they transition out of military service and re-integrate into civilian life. But too many others are struggling to cope with depression, anxiety and what some veteran spouses are calling Secondary Post Traumatic Stress. Recent research conducted by the University of Southern California found that military connected adolescents have a higher rate of suicidal thoughts than their civilian counterparts, and other studies indicate that military spouses -- particularly those serving as caregivers to support their wounded veterans -- are more at risk to suffer mental health problems.JUST WATCHEDAirman returns, sees son for first timeReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHAirman returns, sees son for first time 01:58In addition, the stigma that prevents many service members and veterans from seeking help is just as prevalent in the military family community. This is particularly true for career noncommissioned and officer spouses. Ask a military wife how she's doing, and most will answer, "fine" -- because, what other choice does she have but to keep it together? For some families, the line between "fine" and hitting the wall going 100 miles per hour can be a very thin one.I know firsthand how important it is that we have these conversations out loud. Back in 2006, when my husband was deployed to Afghanistan, I drove into our quiet neighborhood one evening to find many police cars and emergency vehicles. A fellow Army wife who had gone out of her way many times to make me feel welcome at our new post had taken her own life -- and the lives of her two young children.I threw up when I found out.As the spouse of a battalion commander, I had the opportunity to use this tragedy as a way to start an open dialogue about mental health, depression and asking for help with the wives in our unit. But I didn't. I didn't say a word. I was scared. If this lovely woman, who was widely regarded as a model volunteer and quiet leader, was capable of such an act, what did that mean for the rest of us? Better to sweep it under the rug. I remember feeling ashamed for even thinking about addressing it openly. It is a decision that I regret to this day.We can't fix what we don't acknowledge. We do know that one active duty service member and 22 veterans take their own lives every day. Neither the Departments of Defense nor Veterans Affairs tracks the number of family members who die by suicide. But that could be changing. Last month, at the request of both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, the Defense Department Suicide Prevention Office published a report on the feasibility of tracking suicides among military family members. According to the report, it would cost less than $1.2 million dollars over a 24-month period to expand tracking capabilities to include active duty family members. Even in this era of sequestration and budget cuts, $1.2 million is a nominal price to pay to expand our knowledge and understanding about military family suicides.It's not a perfect solution, and it wouldn't capture the entire spectrum of National Guard, Reserve and veteran families, but it's a significant first step in the right direction. It's taken military family advocates years to just get this report issued. Now it's up to House and Senate Armed Service Committees to respond to the report and convene hearings to address the mental health of military families. This isn't just about ensuring military readiness, it's a moral imperative. Never has this country asked so much, of so few, for so long. Now, we need our country to stand for us.Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.
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Story highlightsPolice alleged to have detained hundreds of men while implementing strict security measures in CologneAuthorities facing claims of racial profiling after using term "Nafri" to describe those checked (CNN)Cologne's chief of police has rejected criticism over accusations that officers used racial profiling while conducting identification checks on New Year's Eve. Authorities in the city had stepped up security measures for revelers after last year's spate of sexual assaults which were blamed on refugees of North African descent.More than 1,500 officers were deployed to the inner city, with additional support of several hundred federal police present at railway stations. Officers screened around 650 "primarily Arab-looking" men as they traveled through Cologne's main train station, a spokesperson told CNN. Six were formally arrested, three of whom already faced warrants for their arrest. Authorities provided no details as to the nationalities of those in custody. A further 300 young people were stopped in Deutz, the station before Cologne's main terminus, due to overcrowding, police added. Read MoreJUST WATCHEDRefugees in Germany fear deportationReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHRefugees in Germany fear deportation 04:09Speaking to the press, Cologne's police chief, Jurgen Mathies, admitted officers had specifically targeted men who appeared to be North African to undergo checks, but defended their actions."I reject this negative criticism. We have decided to take these measures as we had insights. We have observed the situation. Together with the federal state police we have seen a highly aggressive group of men out of nowhere and this is why we have decided to implement our security concept as previously decided.Related: How populism could shake up Europe"Our experiences, from last New Year's Eve and previous raids that took place, showed we needed to check those people. They were not gray haired older men nor blonde young women," he added. Police have also faced a public backlash after using describing those detained as "hundreds of Nafris" in an update to their social media channels. #PolizeiNRW #Silvester2016 #SicherInKöln: Hundreds of Nafris screened at main railway station. Details follow. https://t.co/VYMQuT6B7u pic.twitter.com/LWrtAXAouq— Polizei NRW K (@polizei_nrw_k) December 31, 2016
"Nafri" is a colloquial term used in Germany for North Africans, police told CNN. When asked about it by German media, Mathies said, "The term was used in a very unfortunate way. It is used within the police internally and also in the media. But again, it is very unfortunate it was used in the midst of this situation, I regret this very much and I cannot take it back."Some say the expression is free of any racial connotations, while others, including politicians from the left leaning SPD and the Greens, say it is highly dehumanizing.JUST WATCHEDRefugees react to Cologne attacksReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHRefugees react to Cologne attacks 03:05The increased security operations also saw officers carrying out random ID checks throughout the night while two dozen police vehicles including armored personnel carriers, water cannons and concrete roadblocks were also in place to maintain peace throughout the festivities. "Thanks to the good collaboration of all security partners, the City of Cologne, the Cologne Police and the Federal Police, our New Year's Eve in Cologne was cheerful and safe," said Gergor Timmer, spokesman for Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker, who cited the enhanced security measures behind the city's safe holiday period. "This turned out to be a success. The citizens of Cologne and our guests from all over the world reclaimed the places and streets around the cathedral." Roughly half a million visitors attended the New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne to watch a firework display, with an estimated 50,000 revelers around the Cologne Cathedral and another 10,000 partygoers in the old part of the city.Analysis: Why does Angela Merkel suddenly want to ban the veil?Last year's attacks fueled a political firestorm over immigration in Germany after police described the perpetrators as gangs of Arab or North African men. Over the last 12 months anti-refugee sentiment has increased in the country. A recent poll suggested 82% of Germans were unhappy with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open door policy towards asylum seekers. This appeared to be confirmed by her party -- Christian Democratic Union -- suffering a slump in last year's Berlin election.Opinion: Merkel may be the biggest loser of 2017In an effort to court German voters ahead of the country's national election later in the year, Merkel has promised to stand by those seeking refuge in the country but has said she will ensure German security through the implementation of new tougher laws. CNN's Chris Burns contributed to this report from Berlin.
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Apple on Thursday released multiple security updates to patch three zero-day vulnerabilities that were revealed as being actively exploited in the wild.
Rolled out as part of its iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS updates, the flaws reside in the FontParser component and the kernel, allowing adversaries to remotely execute arbitrary code and run malicious programs with kernel-level privileges.
The zero-days were discovered and reported to Apple by Google's Project Zero security team.
"Apple is aware of reports that an exploit for this issue exists in the wild," the iPhone maker said of the three zero-days without giving any additional details so as to allow a vast majority of users to install the updates.
The list of impacted devices includes iPhone 5s and later, iPod touch 6th and 7th generation, iPad Air, iPad mini 2 and later, and Apple Watch Series 1 and later.
The fixes are available in versions iOS 12.4.9 and 14.2, iPadOS 14.2, watchOS 5.3.9, 6.2.9, and 7.1, and as a supplemental update for macOS Catalina 10.15.7.
According to Apple's security bulletin, the flaws are:
CVE-2020-27930: A memory corruption issue in the FontParser library that allows for remote code execution when processing a maliciously crafted font.
CVE-2020-27950: A memory initialization issue that allows a malicious application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.
CVE-2020-27932: A type-confusion issue that makes it possible for a malicious application to disclose kernel memory.
"Targeted exploitation in the wild similar to the other recently reported 0days," said Shane Huntley, Director of Google's Threat Analysis Group. "Not related to any election targeting."
The disclosure is the latest in the string of zero-days Project Zero has reported since October 20. First came the Chrome zero-day in Freetype font rendering library (CVE-2020-15999), then a Windows zero-day (CVE-2020-17087), followed by two more in Chrome and its Android variant (CVE-2020-16009 and CVE-2020-16010).
A patch for the Windows zero-day is expected to be released on November 10 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday.
While more details are awaited on whether the zero-days were abused by the same threat actor, it's recommended that users update their devices to the latest versions to mitigate the risk associated with the flaws.
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Washington (CNN)North Carolina's Rep. Robert Pittenger became the first House incumbent to lose his seat in a primary in the 2018 midterm election cycle, conceding the race Tuesday to conservative pastor Mark Harris. Pittenger, a 69-year-old Republican who was first elected in 2012, trailed Harris by 2 percentage points with just one precinct left to report. It was a rematch of their razor-tight 2016 primary, with government spending taking center stage. Harris hammered Pittenger's vote for the omnibus spending bill, while Pittenger shot back that Harris couldn't claim to be supportive of President Donald Trump while opposing the measure, which included Trump's increases in military funding. The 6th District seat, which stretches southeast of Charlotte, is a battleground in November, and in a sign of Democratic enthusiasm, the party's leading candidate, 34-year-old Marine veteran Dan McCready, got more than 4,000 more votes in his primary than Pittenger and Harris combined. Pittenger was the fourth House Republican to lose on Tuesday, though the other three were seeking Senate seats. Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer lost the Senate primary in Indiana, while Rep. Evan Jenkins finished second in the Senate primary in West Virginia.
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Security firm Trend Micro has identified a 20-year-old Brazilian college student responsible for developing and distributing over 100 Banking Trojans selling each for around US$300.
Known online as 'Lordfenix', 'Hacker's Son' and 'Filho de Hacker', the computer science student first began his career by posting in forums, asking for programming help for a Trojan he was developing, researchers said.
Developed More than 100 Trojans
However, Lordfenix has "grown quite confident in his skills" and began developing and distributing malware tailored to pilfer financial information since at least 2013.
"Based on our research, Lordfenix has created more than 100 different banking Trojans, not including his other malicious tools, since April 2013," Trend Micro says. "With each Trojan costing around R$1,000 (roughly $320), this young cybercriminal channeled his talent in programming into a lucrative, illegal venture."
Trend Micro has also provided an image of the hacker's Facebook wall post (given below) in which the hacker shows a considerable amount of local currency.
Hacker is Offering Free Versions of Banking Trojans
In order to expand his operation, Lordfenix has now begun offering free versions of fully-functional Banking Trojan source code other wanna-be cyber criminals on the underground forum.
The free versions of the Trojan can be used to steal login details from customers of four different Brazilian banking websites including HSBC Brazil, Bank of Brazil, and Caixa. For access to other financial institutions, 'clients' have to pay for a more powerful tool, TSPY_BANKER.NJH.
TSPY_BANKER.NJH is a Trojan capable to identify when a user enters any of a target bank's URLs into their browser. The malware then shuts down the browser window (if it is running on Google Chrome), displays an error message, and then opens a fake Chrome window.
Once the victim enters the login details into the fake window, the information is sent back to the attackers address via email.
As an extra precaution, Lordfenix's malware also includes a software program to terminate a security process called GbpSV.exe, which is used by large number of Brazilian banks in an effort to keep their online customer data secure.
Malware Threat to Online Banking is Growing rapidly and countries like Brazil, where almost half of all financial transactions are conducted online, have come up as a boon for hackers.
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(CNN)The celebratory sounds of a Wisconsin Christmas parade were interrupted by terrified screams Sunday after a vehicle plowed into participants and spectators gathered for the event in Waukesha, a city about 20 miles west of downtown Milwaukee.Five people were killed and more than 40 were injured in the chaos, city officials said, as authorities confirmed the identity of the suspect.Here's what we know about how events unfolded:What happened during the paradeCrowds were bundled up along Main Street to enjoy the parade when a red SUV drove through a series of barricades and barreled onto the parade route around 4:39 p.m. CT, police Chief Daniel Thompson said.Read MorePolice identify the driver they say plowed into a Waukesha Christmas parade, leaving 5 people dead and 48 injuredA video of the parade recorded by Angela O'Boyle, who was watching from her fifth-story apartment balcony, shows the SUV hitting an individual in a marching band. The vehicle then continues forward, hitting and running over others in the band and crowd before driving away.People can be heard screaming and seen running for safety as the SUV continues its path. Video of the parade published on the city's Facebook page shows a red SUV driving quickly through the parade, followed by a running police officer.A Waukesha police officer fired their weapon in an attempt to stop the driver, Thompson said. No bystanders were struck by the officer's gunfire, the chief added, noting he doesn't believe any shots were fired from the SUV.Video of the parade published on the city's Facebook page shows a red SUV driving quickly through the parade, followed by a police officer running through the scene.Officers and citizens took victims to the hospital in their personal vehicles, Thompson said.Where the investigation standsThe driver has been identified as Darrell E. Brooks, 39, of Milwaukee, Thompson said Monday afternoon at a news conference. Police have recommended five charges of intentional homicide. Prosecutors in the Waukesha County District Attorney's Office said they will review the matter with police and expect to file initial charges Tuesday. Brooks will make his initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon. Additional charges could be filed when more is known about the people who were injured, prosecutors said.The chief said no motive is known. Brooks was involved in a domestic disturbance earlier Sunday and left the scene just before driving his SUV through the parade, Thompson said.Here's what we know about the suspect in the Waukesha parade tragedy"We are confident he acted alone," Thompson said. "There is no evidence this is a terrorist incident."Brooks was out on bail, according to court records and the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office.Brooks posted a $1,000 bond on November 11 in relation to charges including domestic abuse. That incident also involved Brooks being accused of using a car to cause an injury, according to a criminal complaint. Brooks also has an outstanding arrest warrant in Nevada in an unrelated case in August 2016 for which he was arrested and allegedly jumped bail, according to Sara Johns, Washoe County Sheriff's Department spokesperson. CNN has reached out to a previous attorney for Brooks with no response. CNN reached out to Brooks' attorney from that case but has not yet received a response.Thompson said the SUV was identified shortly after it ran through the parade and Brooks was quickly arrested. He was not injured, Thompson said.Special agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have responded to assist the Waukesha Police Department, according to Erik Longnecker, a spokesperson for the ATF.The City of Waukesha posted this graphic of the Christmas Parade route prior to the scheduled start Sunday afternoon.Who was injured and killedThe five deceased victims were identified as Virginia Sorenson, 79; LeAnna Owen, 71; Tamara Durand, 52; Jane Kulich, 52; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81.Among the injured are members of the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a Catholic priest, multiple parishioners and Waukesha Catholic schoolchildren, according to Sandra Peterson, the communication director for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee."Please join us in prayer for all those involved, their families, and those who are traumatized from witnessing the horrible scene," Peterson said in a statement. Children's Wisconsin, a pediatric hospital in Milwaukee, received 18 injured children ranging in age from 3 to 16, Amy Drendel, director of the Emergency Department and Trauma Center, said at a news conference. "Injuries ranged from facial abrasions to broken bones to serious head injuries. Six of these patients were sent to the operating room last night and two additional patients are undergoing surgeries today," Drendel said.Three sets of siblings are among the patients, Drendel said. As of Monday, two children were discharged from the hospital, said Dr. Michael Meyer, medical director for the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.CNN's Natasha Chen reported 10 of the children were treated in intensive care. CNN reported earlier that 15 patients total were being treated there.Aurora Medical Center-Summit, a hospital in Waukesha County, told CNN on Sunday night it was treating 13 patients: three listed in critical condition, four in serious condition and six in fair condition. "We are deeply saddened by today's senseless tragedy and our hearts are with the Waukesha community," a statement from the hospital said.Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee -- the only Level I trauma center in southeast Wisconsin -- treated seven patients, said Nalissa Wienke, senior media relations specialist for Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin. Level I trauma centers care for the most critically ill patients.JUST WATCHEDVideo shows SUV narrowly miss little girl as it barrels down roadReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHVideo shows SUV narrowly miss little girl as it barrels down road 01:42The Milwaukee Dancing Grannies posted a statement on Facebook, saying members of the group were among the dead. "Those who died were extremely passionate Grannies," according to the group's statement.Their statement did not mention how many members of the group were involved.The School District of Waukesha canceled classes through Tuesday, according to the district."The District will have additional counselors available during the school day at all buildings for all students that may be in need of support services," school officials said in a statement.How witnesses described what happenedO'Boyle, who recorded the events from her balcony, told CNN she was watching the parade when "the next thing I heard were screams, and turned my head and saw the car come and plow into the band that was just pass my balcony at that point."It hit at least two people right away and rolled over them. And then continued down the road to People's Park which is at the end of the block -- and then kept going, it didn't stop."Angela O'Boyle, a Waukesha resident, recorded the incident from her apartment balcony.O'Boyle said she heard screaming and people yelling out their children's names, adding "it was not something that I wanted to see ... a little freaked out."Angelito Tenorio, who is running for Wisconsin state treasurer and was campaigning at the parade, said the scene was "absolutely chaotic.""Nobody knew if this was an attack or if this was an accident or if it was a deliberate attack on the people of the parade," he said in an interview with CNN. "People just started fleeing, running away from the scene, leaving behind their belongings, grabbing their children, calling, screaming, looking for their loved ones. "And when the crowd cleared out, that's when it looked like I saw people, who appeared to be lying in the middle of the street, lying still, lying lifeless."Biden offers prayers for the communitySpeaking from the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden offered prayers for the community and called the tragic events a "horrific act of violence.""While we don't have all the facts and details yet, we know this morning that five families in Waukesha are facing fresh grief of a life without a loved one. At least 40 Americans are suffering from injuries, some of them in critical condition, and an entire community is struggling, struggling to cope with the horrific act of violence," Biden said.Gov. Tony Evers ordered all flags be flown at half-staff at "all buildings, grounds and military installations" across the state, to honor those who were killed and injured at the Waukesha parade, according to a statement released by the governor's office."While much is still unknown, including the full extent of injuries and the number of lives lost" the statement added, "the people of Wisconsin pray for the Waukesha community and all those affected, and mourn the loss of life that occurred as a result of this senseless tragedy."CNN's Paul P. Murphy, Claudia Dominguez, Kay Jones, Alaa Elassar, Natasha Chen, Andy Rose, Arlette Saenz, Conor Powell, Shimon Prokupecz, Ralph Ellis and Evan Perez contributed to this report.
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Story highlightsFive police officers in Dallas were killed Thursday, 11 shot (CNN)Five Dallas police officers were killed in the deadliest incident for law enforcement in the United States since 9/11, according to statistics from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.A total of 11 officers were shot at a protest that took place Thursday against police brutality.The names of all five deceased officers have not yet been released, but they served in the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency. DART tweeted that it was grieving the death of Officer Brent Thompson, 43, who joined the agency in 2009. DART grieving the loss of Ofc Brent Thompson, 43, killed during Thurs protest. First DART officer killed in line of duty. Joined DART 2009.— dartmedia (@dartmedia) July 8, 2016
"To say our police officers put their lives on the line everyday is not a hyperbole, it's a reality," said Mayor Mike Rawlings in a press conference early Friday morning. Dallas Police Chief David Brown said that he was proud of the officers and saw "the courage and professionalism and their grit to stay on scene to search for the suspects while we're vulnerable."Read MoreIn 2015, 41 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty, according to FBI statistics. The number of police killed in the line of duty had been on the decline, having fallen from 51 in 2014. Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice respond after shots were fired in downtown Dallas on Thursday, July 7. Five police officers were fatally shot during a protest over recent police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. Seven other officers were injured in the ambush, as were two civilians.Hide Caption 1 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestEmergency responders administer CPR to an unknown patient near the receiving area of the Baylor University Medical Center.Hide Caption 2 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA police officer with Dallas Area Rapid Transit is comforted at the emergency room entrance of the hospital.Hide Caption 3 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA police helicopter flies over the scene in downtown Dallas. One suspect was killed by police after a standoff that lasted for hours.Hide Caption 4 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA man raises his hands as he walks near a law enforcement officer in Dallas.Hide Caption 5 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestProtesters gather as police officers arrest someone in the aftermath of the shootings.Hide Caption 6 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA Dallas police officer takes a moment as she guards an intersection in the early morning hours.Hide Caption 7 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestDallas police respond to the scene of the shootings.Hide Caption 8 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice officers shield bystanders after shots were fired at the protest.Hide Caption 9 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice officers take cover as shots are fired. Hide Caption 10 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice get in position after gunshots rang out.Hide Caption 11 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestTwo officers crouch behind barriers.Hide Caption 12 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestDallas police order people away from the area after the shootings.Hide Caption 13 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice and others gather at the emergency entrance to the Baylor University Medical Center.Hide Caption 14 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice stop a driver in downtown Dallas.Hide Caption 15 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA view of downtown Dallas after the shootings. Kent Giles captured the image and told CNN he "heard multiple shots being fired. Probably more than 20 rounds. This is the intersection of Main and Griffin looking towards the west."Hide Caption 16 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestDallas police check a car after detaining a driver.Hide Caption 17 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestDallas police stand watch after the shootings.Hide Caption 18 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestOnlookers stand near police barricades after the shootings. Hide Caption 19 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestPolice attempt to calm the crowd after an arrest.Hide Caption 20 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestA clerk looks at broken windows that were shot out at a store in downtown Dallas.Hide Caption 21 of 22 Photos: Officers shot during Dallas protestLaw enforcement officials wait outside the emergency room entrance of the Baylor University Medical Center.Hide Caption 22 of 22Here's a look at the deadliest incidents on law enforcement officers: November 29, 2009Four police officers from the Lakewood Police Department in Washington were killed at a coffee shop. The four slain officers were: Lt. Mark Renninger, Officer Ronald Owens, Officer Tina Griswold and Officer Greg Richards.They were killed in an ambush-style shooting. The suspect in that attack, Maurice Clemmons, was shot and killed by police after a two-day manhunt. Police said he intentionally targeted the officers after a series of run-ins with authorities. In 1989, Clemmons had been given a 95-year prison sentence in Arkansas for a host of charges, including robbery, burglary, theft and bringing a gun to school, but his sentence was commuted in 2000.March 21, 2009Four police officers from the Oakland Police Department in California were killed in two incidents on the same day. The gunman, Lovelle Mixon, 26, allegedly shot two Oakland patrol officers and fled to a nearby apartment building. Mixon then allegedly shot and killed two SWAT officers who burst into the apartment before police fatally shot him. A fifth officer was injured. The four slain officers were: Sgt. Ervin Romans, Sgt. Daniel Sakai, Sgt. Mark Dunakin and John Hege.September 11, 2001The terror attack is the deadliest day in U.S. law enforcement history, killing 72 officers, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a group that tracks law enforcement deaths.The officers came from several different agencies, including the Port Authority, New Jersey Police Department, New York City Police Department, New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, New York State Office of Court Administration, New York City Fire Department, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer died in the crash of Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. April 19, 1995Emergency workers sift through the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, OK.Eight federal law enforcement officers were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. The officers came from the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.The eight slain officers were: Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alan Whicher, Special Agents Cynthia Brown, Donald Leonard, Mickey Maroney, Senior Special Agents Paul Ice, Claude Medearis, Special Agents Paul Broxterman and Special Agent Kenneth McCullough. Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, was executed in June 2001. February 28, 1993The Branch Davidians, a religious sect led by David Koresh, clashed with federal agents in 1993 in Waco, Texas.Four Special Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were killed trying to serve a search-and-arrest warrant for illegal weapons at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Instead, a gun battle ensued with four ATF agents killed. The four slain agents were: Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert J. Williams and Steven Willis.The incident led to a seven-week stalemate, leading to the deaths of 82 Davidians, who followed their leader leader, David Koresh.
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Story highlightsEuro 2012 finals will be a test of Ukraine's European ambition, says Vitali KlitschkoBoxing champion is also a politician in his homeland, and has big hopes for next yearHe admits there were concerns but Ukrainians rallied to meet tournament commitmentsThe 40-year-old insists the infrastructure is ready for June 8-July 1 football eventUkrainian boxing star Vitali Klitschko hopes that co-hosting football's European Championship next year will help his country's bid to become part of the European Union.The former Soviet republic has moved towards membership in recent years, and is now covered by the European Neighborhood Policy.The tournament will be held in Poland and Ukraine from June 8-July 1, and the countries are on track to be ready despite early fears over a lack of infrastructure and slow construction work."It's our chance to show the whole world we are a European country, with our mentality, with our history," Klitschko, who is also a politician in his homeland, told CNN ahead of Friday's draw for the 16 competing nations. "With sport we are also a European country. We have to make a lot of change in Ukraine, (such as) life standards, and we will not automatically be a European country. The whole country has to support this very important event in our history."Poland and Ukraine primed for Euro 2012 kick-offBoth nations will provide four venues, with the final to be played in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and other matches in Donetsk, Lviv and Kharkiv.JUST WATCHEDWhirlwind tour of Euro 2012 co-hostReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHWhirlwind tour of Euro 2012 co-host 05:28JUST WATCHEDShevchenko wants to end on high note ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHShevchenko wants to end on high note 03:42JUST WATCHEDExperts weigh in on Euro ChampionshipsReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHExperts weigh in on Euro Championships 04:01Klitschko, the leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, admitted that there were concerns about whether they would be ready in time."There were big discussions in Ukrainian society, everyone was talking about it. Right now we don't doubt. Everything will be ready," the 40-year-old said."The infrastructure for stadiums and hotels, everything is already done, and we wait for guests from all around the world to say, 'Welcome to Ukraine.' "Klitschko, a heavyweight champion like his younger brother Wladimir, said that Ukrainians had rallied in support of the government to make sure the commitment to stage the event would be fulfilled."All society, not just the government, is responsible for Euro 2012, (there was) a very big volunteer movement. Everyone wants to support the championship," he said. "There is a famous saying that sport helps to change the world, and Euro 2012 will help to change Ukraine."Klitschko's boxing career is nearing an end, but he holds out hope that British fighter David Haye will end his short retirement and agree to a bout next year.Haye lost his WBA title in July to Wladimir, who also holds the WBO, IBF and IBO belts -- while Vitali is WBC champion."I hope David Haye signs a contract. He has different ideas -- one day he is retired, one day he is back from retirement," said Vitali, who is known as "Doctor Iron Fist." "I hope to fight against David Haye. I am very old. I hope he doesn't make excuses after the fight like last time. Next week we will have new information."
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U.S. technology firm Kaseya has released security patches to address two zero-day vulnerabilities affecting its Unitrends enterprise backup and continuity solution that could result in privilege escalation and authenticated remote code execution.
The two weaknesses are part of a trio of vulnerabilities discovered and reported by researchers at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) on July 3, 2021.
The IT infrastructure management solution provider has addressed the issues in server software version 10.5.5-2 released on August 12, DIVD said. An as-yet-undisclosed client-side vulnerability in Kaseya Unitrends remains unpatched, but the company has published firewall rules that can be applied to filter traffic to and from the client and mitigate any risk associated with the flaw. As an additional precaution, it's recommended not to leave the servers accessible over the internet.
Although specifics related to the vulnerabilities are sparse, the shortcomings concern an authenticated remote code execution vulnerability as well as a privilege escalation flaw from read-only user to admin on Unitrends servers, both of which hinge on the possibility that an attacker has already gained an initial foothold on a target's network, making them more difficult to exploit.
The disclosure comes close to two months after the company suffered a crippling ransomware strike on its VSA on-premises product, leading to the mysterious shutdown of REvil cybercrime syndicate in the following weeks. Kaseya has since shipped fixes for the zero-days that were exploited to gain access to the on-premise servers, and late last month, said it obtained a universal decryptor "to remediate customers impacted by the incident."
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Important Update (21 June 2019) ➤ The Tor Project on Friday released second update (Tor Browser 8.5.3) for its privacy web-browser that patches the another Firefox zero-day vulnerability patched this week.
Following the latest critical update for Firefox, the Tor Project today released an updated version of its anonymity and privacy browser to patch the same Firefox vulnerability in its bundle.
Earlier this week, Mozilla released Firefox 67.0.3 and Firefox ESR 60.7.1 versions to patch a critical actively-exploited vulnerability (CVE-2019-11707) that could allow attackers to remotely take full control over systems running the vulnerable browser versions.
Besides updating Firefox, the latest Tor Browser 8.5.2 for desktops also includes updated NoScript version 10.6.3 that fixes a few known issues.
According to the Tor Project Team, if you are already using Tor browser with "safer" and "safest" security levels, the flaw doesn't affect you.
For some reason, the team hasn't yet released an updated Tor version for Android users, which should be available anytime soon in the next few days. However, Android users have been advised to switch on "safer" or "safest" security levels in order to mitigate the issue until a patched app becomes available.
"The security level on Android can be changed by going in the menu on the right of the URL bar and selecting Security Settings," Nicolas Vigier, the Lead Automation Engineer at Tor Project said.
The Google security researcher who discovered this flaw also revealed that it could be abused to launch universal cross-site scripting (UXSS) attacks as well, allowing malicious websites to bypass same-origin policy on the victim's web browser and steal sensitive information.
Since Tor is primarily being used by privacy-conscious users who can't afford to get compromised at any cost, it's highly recommended for them to install the latest version of the anonymity software immediately.
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Healthcare and education sectors are the frequent targets of a new surge in credential harvesting activity from what's a "highly modular" .NET-based information stealer and keylogger, charting the course for the threat actor's continued evolution while simultaneously remaining under the radar.
Dubbed "Solarmarker," the malware campaign is believed to be active since September 2020, with telemetry data pointing to malicious actions as early as April 2020, according to Cisco Talos. "At its core, the Solarmarker campaign appears to be conducted by a fairly sophisticated actor largely focused on credential and residual information theft," Talos researchers Andrew Windsor and Chris Neal said in a technical write-up published last week.
Infections consist of multiple moving parts, chief among them being a .NET assembly module that serves as a system profiler and staging ground on the victim host for command-and-control (C2) communications and further malicious actions, including the deployment of information-stealing components like Jupyter and Uran (likely a reference to Uranus).
While the former boasts of capabilities to steal personal data, credentials, and form submission values from the victim's Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, the latter — a previously unreported payload — acts as a keylogger to capture the user's keystrokes.
The renewed activity has also been accompanied by a shift in tactics and multiple iterations to the infection chain, even as the threat actor latched on to the age-old trick of SEO poisoning, which refers to the abuse of search engine optimization (SEO) to gain more eyeballs and traction to malicious sites or make their dropper files highly visible in search engine results.
"Operators of the malware known as SolarMarker, Jupyter, [and] other names are aiming to find new success using an old technique: SEO poisoning," the Microsoft Security Intelligence team disclosed in June. "They use thousands of PDF documents stuffed w/ SEO keywords and links that start a chain of redirections eventually leading to the malware.
Talos' static and dynamic analysis of Solarmarker's artifacts points to a Russian-speaking adversary, although the threat intelligence group suspects the malware creators could have intentionally designed them in such a manner in an attempt to mislead attribution.
"The actor behind the Solarmarker campaign possesses moderate to advanced capabilities," the researchers concluded. "Maintaining the amount of interconnected and rotating infrastructure and generating a seemingly limitless amount of differently named initial dropper files requires substantial effort."
"The actor also exhibits determination in ensuring the continuation of their campaign, such as updating the encryption methods for the C2 communication in the Mars DLL after researchers had publicly picked apart previous components of the malware, in addition to the more typical strategy of cycling out the C2 infrastructure hosts.".
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A sweeping and "highly active campaign" that originally set its sights on Myanmar has broadened its focus to strike a number of targets located in the Philippines, according to new research.
Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which first spotted the infections in October 2020, attributed them to a threat actor it tracks as "LuminousMoth," which it connected with medium to high confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called HoneyMyte or Mustang Panda, given its observed victimology, tactics, and procedures.
About 100 affected victims have been identified in Myanmar, while the number of victims jumped to nearly 1,400 in the Philippines, although the researchers noted that the actual targets were only a fraction of the initial numbers, including government entities located both within the two countries and abroad.
The goal of the attacks is to affect a wide perimeter of targets with the aim of hitting a select few that are of strategic interest, researchers Mark Lechtik, Paul Rascagneres, and Aseel Kayal said. Put differently, the intrusions are simultaneously wide-ranging and narrow-focused, enabling the threat acor to siphon intelligence from high-profile targets.
The infection vector used in the campaign involves sending a spear-phishing email to the victim containing a Dropbox download link that, when clicked, leads to a RAR archive that's designed to mimic a Word document. The archive file, for its part, comes with two malicious DLL libraries ("version.dll" and "wwlib.dll") and two corresponding executable files that run the malware.
Upon successfully gaining a foothold, an alternative infection chain observed by Kaspersky leverages removable USB drives to propagate the malware to other hosts with the help of "version.dll". On the other hand, the purpose of "wwlib.dll" is to download a Cobalt Strike beacon on the compromised Windows system from a remote attacker-controlled domain.
In some instances, the attacks incorporated an extra step wherein the threat actor deployed a post-exploitation tool in the form of a signed-but-rogue version of Zoom video conferencing app, using it to hoover sensitive files to a command-and-control server. A valid digital certificate was used to sign the software in an effort to pass off the tool as benign. Also spotted on some infected machines was a second post-exploitation utility that steals cookies from Google Chrome browser.
LuminousMoth's malicious cyber operations and its possible ties to Mustang Panda APT may also be an attempt to shift tactics and update their defensive measures by re-tooling and developing new and unknown malware implants, Kaspersky noted, thus potentially obscuring any ties to their past activities and blurring their attribution to known groups.
"APT actors are known for the frequently targeted nature of their attacks. Typically, they will handpick a set of targets that in turn are handled with almost surgical precision, with infection vectors, malicious implants and payloads being tailored to the victims' identities or environment," Kaspersky researchers said.
"It's not often we observe a large-scale attack conducted by actors fitting this profile, usually due to such attacks being noisy, and thus putting the underlying operation at risk of being compromised by security products or researchers."
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Story highlightsLindsey Vonn in tears at memory of late grandfather at news conferenceThe American is bidding for second Olympic gold after 2010 triumphVonn is most successful female ski racer ever (CNN)She was moved to tears over the memory of her late grandfather, but Lindsey Vonn vowed to win gold in honor of the man she calls her ski racing inspiration at PyeongChang 2018.Follow @cnnsport
The 33-year-old is among the favorites to add a second downhill gold to her 2010 title from Vancouver, but she cried as the emotion of losing her grandfather, Don Kildow, at the age of 88 in November came flooding back in her first Winter Olympics news conference Friday.READ: Vonn set for "full charge" at Winter Olympics
CNN's Coy Wire asked the American how memories of her grandfather resonated with her now she was in South Korea preparing for the Games."Ah, it's really hard," replied Vonn, the most successful female ski racer of all time.Read More"I wish you wouldn't have said that. It's really hard for me not to cry."She paused before adding: "Yeah, I just want so badly to do well for him and... I miss him so much."Vonn teared up as she continued: "He's been such a big part of my life. "And I really hoped he'd be alive to see me but I know he's watching and I know that he's going to help me. And... I'm going to win for him."JUST WATCHEDLindsey Vonn overcomes grief to reach OlympicsReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHLindsey Vonn overcomes grief to reach Olympics 01:15READ: Vonn -- 'I won't be representing US president at Olympics''Huge loss'Vonn missed the Sochi Olympics because of a knee injury, and struggled for much of last season after breaking her arm and suffering nerve damage in her hand.Walking in my last opening ceremonies with my teammates tonight was incredible.🙏🏻🇺🇸 So honored to be a part of this team! Sports has the power to unite the world, and watching N & S Korea walk together tonight is what it's all about. 🌏❤️— lindsey vonn (@lindseyvonn) February 9, 2018
But she has won four World Cup races this season, including back-to-back downhills coming into the Games, to close to within five victories of the all-time record held by Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark. She also won super-G bronze at Vancouver 2010.Vonn says without her grandfather's influence she may never have taken up the sport."If it wasn't for my grandfather I wouldn't be racing," Vonn told CNN's Alpine Edge in St Moritz, Switzerland in December.JUST WATCHEDVonn: I won't represent Trump at Winter GamesReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHVonn: I won't represent Trump at Winter Games 01:11"My grandfather taught my father how to ski. It's because of him that it is in our family. It was a huge loss to me and my family. I think about him all the time, especially when I'm racing. And I feel closer to him when I'm skiing."
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Story highlightsTiger Woods is tied for third after four-under par round of 68 at Turkish Airlines Open Woods trails leader Victor Dubuisson from France by six shots Frenchman shot a flawless round of 63 to move five clear of England's Ian PoulterWoods hurts arm during third round but says he should be fine for Sunday's final round Tiger Woods remains in contention at the Turkish Airlines Open but it is a little-known Frenchman who could make a name for himself come Sunday evening. Victor Dubuisson was tied for the lead after Friday's second round but now finds himself five shots clear of the field following a superb score of 63 on Saturday.The 23-year-old who hails from Cannes put together a flawless, nine-birdie round at the Montgomerie Maxx Royal course in Antalya to finish on 21-under par with just Sunday's final round to play. Read more: 'Dorky' Woods reveals why Vonn is a good match"I'm very tired now, so I think I will sleep easy tonight. But it will be very stressed I think," said Dubuisson, who has yet to win on the European Tour. "I'll try not to think about it because if I think about it, I will put too much pressure on myself. But I know tomorrow Ian, Tiger and Henrik, they will shoot very low scores, so I have to keep the same strategy. JUST WATCHEDTiger talking Turkey!ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHTiger talking Turkey! 06:54JUST WATCHEDTiger Woods' nickname: Urkel?ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHTiger Woods' nickname: Urkel? 01:02JUST WATCHEDSergio Garcia on giving backReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHSergio Garcia on giving back 07:07"I know I have a five-shot lead, but with all these great players, tomorrow it will be a very tough day."Dubuisson's 54-hole total of 195 is five shots better than joint-overnight leader Ian Poulter who continued his consistent showing with a four-under par round of 68 leaving the Englishman on 16-under par. Sweden's Henrik Stenson and South Africa's Justin Walters, who also started the day tied for the lead, both slipped a little further down the leaderboard after rounds of 69 and 70 respectively.Walters two-under round leaves him in seventh on 14-under par, while Stenson finds himself in a four-way tie for third at 15-under with Spain's Alejandro Canizares, France's Raphael Jacquelin -- who shot a course record 62 -- and a certain Tiger Woods. The 14-time major champion started his round where he left off on Friday, bagging a birdie at the first with two more (at three and eight) coming on the opening nine. Read more: Tiger steps up challenge in TurkeyWoods moved to 15-under par with a birdie at the par-five 11th but endured an erratic end to his round picking up three bogeys and three birdies in the remaining seven holes. Afterwards, the 37-year-old revealed that he had injured his arm during the round but doesn't expect it to curtail his involvement in the tournament."My arm is a little tender. I smoked it on something. I don't know what I hit but I hit something hard," Woods said."I just dealt with it, and you know, just play through it. I won't need any treatment as anti-inflams will be good."Woods is enjoying his best season since 2009, but his game will need to improve on Sunday if he is to claim his sixth title of 2013. "To birdie the last hole was a nice way to end, considering I struggled all day with swing. I was getting away with it on the front nine, but I wasn't really playing well and it caught up with me on the back nine."U.S. Open champion Justin Rose is tied for eighth place with Welshman Jamie Donaldson. The Englishman shot a five-under par 67 to leave him on 13-under, eight shots behind Dubuisson.
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The cybercrime ring that was apprehended last week in connection with Clop (aka Cl0p) ransomware attacks against dozens of companies in the last few months helped launder money totaling $500 million for several malicious actors through a plethora of illegal activities.
"The group — also known as FANCYCAT — has been running multiple criminal activities: distributing cyber attacks; operating a high-risk exchanger; and laundering money from dark web operations and high-profile cyber attacks such as Cl0p and Petya ransomware," popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance said Thursday.
On June 16, the Ukraine Cyber Police nabbed six individuals in the city of Kyiv, describing the arrests as resulting from an international operation involving law enforcement authorities from Korea, the U.S., and Interpol.
While the bust was seen as a major blow to the operations of the Clop gang, the hackers published earlier this week a fresh batch of confidential employee records stolen from a previously unknown victim on their dark web portal, raising the possibility that the arrested suspects may have been affiliates who play a lesser role in the operations.
Binance's insights into the investigation have now revealed that FANCYCAT was responsible for cashing out and laundering cryptocurrency illicitly obtained by the Clop ransomware cartel by breaching and extorting victims, confirming earlier reports from Intel 471.
Clop is one of several ransomware groups that hack into organizations, launch ransomware that encrypts files and servers, and then demand an extortion payment in return for a digital key needed to unlock access to the systems.
"In a majority of the cases associated with illicit blockchain flows coming onto exchanges, the exchange is not harboring the actual criminal group themselves, but rather being used as a middleman to launder stolen profits," security researchers from Binance said, adding the criminals take advantage of the exchanges' liquidity, diverse digital asset offerings, and well-developed APIs to facilitate cyber attacks.
To counter such nefarious activity from happening, the company said it's implementing custom detection mechanisms to identify and offboard suspicious accounts, adding it's working directly with law enforcement to take down cybercrime groups.
The development comes during a period of intense scrutiny of the risks posed by ransomware, which has ballooned from a lucrative financial crime to a national security threat, grounding critical infrastructure to a halt and causing severe disruptions, necessitating that bitcoin trails be tracked to "follow the money" and fight the spiraling problem.
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Story highlights David Cameron launches a study of ways to boost integration and opportunityThe speech comes less than four weeks after 30 British tourists were killed in TunisiaA Muslim group's leader says he's skeptical of the Prime Minister's approach (CNN)In a major speech Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled plans to confront the ideology of terrorism among the young and disaffected in the UK.The speech came a day after Cameron said in an interview on the American television network NBC that he wanted his country to do more in the fight against jihadi terrorism and to create what he called "a full-spectrum response."And it came less than four weeks after a gunman went on a murderous rampage on a beach in Tunisia, killing 38 people -- 30 of them British.Monday's speech focused on fighting the extremist ideology that he said leads to violence and finding ways to increase the sense of inclusion felt by young people in different British communities. "For all our successes as a multiracial, multifaith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don't really identify with Britain -- and feel little or no attachment to other people here," Cameron said.Read More"So when groups like ISIL seek to rally our young people to their poisonous cause, it can offer them a sense of belonging that they lack here at home."ISIL is another acronym for ISIS, the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorist group.Opinion: Terror on three continents Study on boosting inclusion to be announcedThe Prime Minister also laid out other elements of his government's five-year plan to fight terrorism at home. The measures included making it legal for parents to confiscate the passports of children they fear might travel to Syria, allocating money to groups that will help spread an "alternative narrative," tougher regulation of foreign TV channels that promote messages of hate, and taking steps to reduce segregation in schools and housing.Cameron also announced that he was appointing Louise Casey, a government official who has worked on various social welfare issues, to investigate how to boost opportunity and integration for those in Britain who feel left out."We need young people to understand that here in the UK, they can shape the future by being an active part of our great democracy," he said.But his speech drew skepticism from some in Britain's Muslim community."The Prime Minister's speech today has once again failed to engage the Muslim community, and he has peddled the same lines which we have seen from politicians since 2001," Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said in a statement. The foundation, based in Manchester, in northern England, says its goal is to bring attention to the educational and welfare needs of the Muslim community."In terms of ISIS, we are in total agreement with the Prime Minister, they are a barbaric and evil entity and their ideology of violence is what we must confront," Shafiq's statement said. "They have distorted Islamic teaching to suit their agenda, and we as Muslims must be doing more to confront them."But he continued, "Successive governments have also conflated security/extremism with integration and cohesion which I believe is the wrong debate. If Louise Casey will seriously listen and understand the concerns of British Muslims, then we are prepared to work with her; if it is not, this will be another failed government exercise."Too often, Shafiq said, ordinary citizens are penalized, snooped on and deprived of their civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.'The sick and brutal reality of ISIL'For his part, Cameron said that young British Muslims must be disabused of their misconceptions about ISIS."If you are a boy, they will brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up," he said. "If you are a girl, they will enslave and abuse you. "That is the sick and brutal reality of ISIL." Follow @faithcnn
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If you're administrating Windows Server, make sure it's up to date with all recent patches issued by Microsoft, especially the one that fixes a recently patched critical vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated attackers to compromise the domain controller.
Dubbed 'Zerologon' (CVE-2020-1472) and discovered by Tom Tervoort of Secura, the privilege escalation vulnerability exists due to the insecure usage of AES-CFB8 encryption for Netlogon sessions, allowing remote attackers to establish a connection to the targeted domain controller over Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC).
"The attack utilizes flaws in an authentication protocol that validates the authenticity and identity of a domain-joined computer to the Domain Controller. Due to the incorrect use of an AES mode of operation, it is possible to spoof the identity of any computer account (including that of the DC itself) and set an empty password for that account in the domain," researchers at cybersecurity firm Cynet explain in a blog post.
Though the vulnerability, with a CVSS score of 10.0, was first disclosed to the public when Microsoft released a patch for it in August, it became a matter of sudden concern after researchers published technical details and proof-of-concept of the flaw last week.
Along with Indian and Australian Government agencies, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also issued an emergency directive instructing federal agencies to patch Zerologon flaws on Windows Servers immediately.
"By sending a number of Netlogon messages in which various fields are filled with zeroes, an unauthenticated attacker could change the computer password of the domain controller that is stored in the AD. This can then be used to obtain domain admin credentials and then restore the original DC password," the advisories say.
According to Secura, the said flaw can be exploited in the following sequence:
Spoofing the client credential
Disabling RPC Signing and Sealing
Spoofing a call
Changing Computer's AD Password
Changing Domain Admin Password
"CISA has determined that this vulnerability poses an unacceptable risk to the Federal Civilian Executive Branch and requires an immediate and emergency action."
"If affected domain controllers cannot be updated, ensure they are removed from the network," CISA advised.
Moreover, Samba—an implementation of SMB networking protocol for Linux systems—versions 4.7 and below are also vulnerable to the Zerologon flaw. Now, a patch update for this software has also been issued.
Besides explaining the root cause of the issue, Cynet also released details for some critical artifacts that can be used to detect active exploitation of the vulnerability, including a specific memory pattern in lsass.exe memory and an abnormal spike in traffic between lsass.exe.
"The most documented artifact is Windows Event ID 4742 'A computer account was changed', often combined with Windows Event ID 4672 'Special privileges assigned to new logon'."
To let Windows Server users quickly detect related attacks, experts also released the YARA rule that can detect attacks that occurred prior to its deployment, whereas for realtime monitoring is a simple tool is also available for download.
However, to completely patch the issue, users still recommend installing the latest software update from Microsoft as soon as possible.
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(CNN)All professional tennis tournaments have been suspended until June 7, ruling out the entire clay-our season, the sport's two governing bodies have announced in a joint statement.All men's and women's rankings have also been frozen until further notice. The two bodies -- the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) -- said "now is not a time to act unilaterally, but in unison."Olympics are 'cursed,' says Japan's deputy prime minister "The challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to professional tennis demand greater collaboration than ever from everyone in the tennis community in order for the sport to move forward collectively in the best interest of players, tournaments and fans," the statement read. The decision to extend the suspension because of the coronavirus pandemic comes after French Open organizers were criticized for moving the tournament to September.Read MoreThe new start date for Roland Garros falls just six days after the conclusion of the US Open, usually the season's final grand slam.READ: French Open criticized for 'selfish, arrogant' reschedulingREAD: Facing 'impossible' situation, athletes criticize Olympic organizersTournaments taking place from June 8 onwards are set to go ahead as planned, but the joint statement added: "We are assessing all options related to preserving and maximizing the tennis calendar based on various return dates for the Tours, which remains an unknown at this time. "We are committed to working through these matters with our player and tournament members, and the other governing bodies, in the weeks and months ahead."READ: Maria Sharapova, the ultimate competitor with a complicated legacyRafael Nadal will have to wait until September to defend his French Open title but, as things stand, Novak Djokovic will be able to defend his Wimbledon.Organizers of Wimbledon have said that the championships, due to be held over two weeks in late June and early July, will go ahead as planned.Richard Lewis, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, said in a statement: "While we continue to plan for The Championships at this time, it remains a continuously evolving situation and we will act responsibly, in the best interests of wider society."We thank all of our Members, staff, players, partners, contractors and the public for their patience and trust as we continue to navigate this unprecedented global challenge."
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Following its efforts to take legal action against those misusing its social media platform, Facebook has now filed a new lawsuit against a Hong Kong-based advertising company and two Chinese individuals for allegedly abusing its ad platform to distribute malware and Ad fraud.
Facebook filed the lawsuit on Thursday in the Northern District of California against ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. as well as a Chinese software developer and a marketing director working for the firm, Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao.
All three defendants have been alleged to have deceived people into installing malware on their systems, enabling them to compromise user's Facebook accounts and then using those hacked accounts to advertise counterfeit goods and diet pills—which is clearly in violation of Facebook's Terms and Advertising Policies.
"The suit seeks to hold accountable ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. and Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao for creating the malware, tricking people into installing it, compromising people's Facebook accounts and then using people's accounts to run deceptive ads," Facebook said in a blog post today when announcing the lawsuit.
According to the social media giant, the defendants made use of improper practices such as "celeb bait" and "cloaking" to bait Facebook users into downloading and installing malware that eventually compromised their Facebook accounts.
While 'cloaking' involves deliberately disguising the true destination of a link in the ad by displaying one version of the ad's landing page to Facebook and another version to Facebook users, 'celeb bait' involves misusing celebrities photos in ads to entice users to click on them.
"Cloaking schemes are often sophisticated and well organized, making the individuals and organizations behind them difficult to identify and hold accountable. As a result, there have not been many legal actions of this kind," Facebook said.
Since April, Facebook has notified hundreds of thousands of users that their accounts may have been compromised and instructing them to change their passwords, according to the complaint.
Facebook also said the social media company had issued more than $4 million in refunds to victims whose Facebook accounts were used to run unauthorized ads and also helped to secure their accounts compromised in this malicious advertisement scheme.
This is the latest lawsuit that Facebook filed in a federal court against entities and individuals abusing its properties for malicious intent.
Just over a month ago, Facebook sued surveillance vendor NSO Group for allegedly hacking 1,400 mobile devices by misusing the company's secure messaging platform, WhatsApp.
In August this year, Facebook also filed a lawsuit against two shady Android app developers, Hong Kong-based 'LionMobi' and Singapore-based 'JediMobi,' for allegedly running a "click injection fraud" scheme that programmed bots to click on Facebook ads.
In March this year, Facebook also took two Ukrainian men into the courts for allegedly using quiz apps on the platform to distribute malware that steals Facebook users' data.
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Story highlightsAlgeria 1-2 Tunisia African Player of the Year Mahrez fails to inspire Fennec Foxes (CNN)The likes of Algeria and Tunisia have endured something of a dry spell in recent years, with no team from north of the Sahara reaching the Africa Cup of Nations semifinal since Egypt lifted the trophy in 2010. On the evidence of Thursday's North African Derby -- billed as must-win for both sides -- that barren run doesn't look any closer to ending for Algeria. Follow @cnnsport
Few in this tournament can boast star names on the level of Yacine Brahimi, Islam Slimani and CAF African Player of the Year Riyad Mahrez, but it has now been almost three decades since the Desert Warriors' solitary AFCON title back in 1990 on home soil. This is Algeria's seventeenth AFCON appearance, the same as three-time winner Nigeria, but coach Georges Leeken's men are in danger of becoming known as one of this competition's perennial underachievers. The Ugandan 'Cranes' that touched the stars and pleased a murderous dictatorFootball has never been played on paper and, despite a promising start from the Fennec Foxes, it was Tunisia that took the lead on a humid afternoon in Franceville.Read MoreAfter intricate play down the left, Youssef Msakni's cross deflected agonizingly off the foot of Ramy Bensebaini and looped over Malik Asselah in the Algeria goal. There was nothing the stand-in keeper could do and Algeria might have felt justifiably aggrieved, having shaded an end-to-end first half. READ: Host Gabon on verge of exit, heartbreak for Guinea-BissauAymen Mathlouthi was certainly the busier of the two goalkeepers throughout proceedings, and the Tunisia captain had to be at his best to deny Slimani after just five minutes, stopping a powerful header at point-blank range. With Premier League quality abounding in the Algerian ranks, Adlène Guédioura of Watford also saw a fierce swerving drive beaten away by the Tunisian goalkeeper.And yet it for all the mounting pressure, Algeria failed to break the deadlock. READ: Egypt goalkeeper, 44, breaks tournament record The Fennec Foxes had scored 25 in just six games during qualification for the tournament but, just as a porous defense let them down against unfancied Zimbabwe on matchday one, the frailties again began to surface here. Dealing with an innocuous ball over the top, left-back Faouzi Ghoulam of Napoli attempted a looping header back to his goalkeeper from all of 50 yards, unaware of the approaching Wahbi Khazri.FULL TIME: Algeria 🇩🇿 1-2 Tunisia 🇹🇳Despite a late charge, Algeria 🇩🇿 is now on the brink of an early exit from #AFCON2017. pic.twitter.com/ddcOpykP5r— CNN Football (@CNNFC) January 19, 2017
Tunisia's chief threat here and in the defeat to Senegal, Khazri was alert to the opportunity, and looked set to test Asselah as he broke through on goal.That was until Ghoulam attempted to rectify his mistake, chasing back and clumsily bringing down his opponent for a Tunisia penalty. A yellow card was generous from the referee given Ghoulam had denied a clear goalscoring opportunity, but Naïm Sliti dished out further punishment by coolly stroking home the spot kick. STATS | Check out the full-time stats! Which team had the better overall performance? #CAN2017 #ALGTUN pic.twitter.com/9USItzaZUS— CAF (@CAF_Online) January 19, 2017
If Tunisia's first goal had more than a hint of good fortune, the Algeria players now had a mountain to climb of their own making. Leekens, taking on the side he led to the quarterfinal stage two years ago, attempted to bridge the gap by introducing attacker Sofiane Hanni of Anderlecht in place of an unhappy Brahimi. Hanni did make the scoreline respectable with a fine sweeping finish in added time after Mathlouthi had been forced off injured, but it was ultimately too little too late. Algeria's attacking triumvirate would walk into almost any side in the competition, but defeat today means their 2017 AFCON future is no longer in their own hands. The drought goes on. Senegal's year?In Group B's later fixture, Senegal became the first nation to book a place in this year's quarterfinals after easily getting the better of Zimbabwe. The Lions of Teranga had looked impressive in Sunday's convincing 2-0 win against Tunisia and overcame Zimbabwe in similar fashion in Franceville, ending any semblance of a contest with two early goals. Liverpool star Sadio Mane was once again on song, poking a teasing ball from the mercurial Keita Balde into an empty net with less than ten minutes played, after good work from wideman Henri Saivet down the left.Have your say on the CNN Goal of the Week:— CNN Football (@CNNFC) January 18, 2017
Zimbabwe -- ranked 110th in the world -- had been hoping to pull off an upset after matchday one's unexpected 2-2 draw against Algeria, but the gulf in quality quickly began to show. The imposing central midfield pairing of Cheikhou Kouyaté and Idrissa Gueye -- the latter the Premier League's top tackler this season (71) -- weren't allowing Zimbabwe an outlet in attack. And, still collecting themselves after Mane's goal, it wasn't long before 'the Warriors' were dealt a knockout blow. Placing the ball down around 25 yards from goal, Saivet stepped up having only scored one goal in the past calendar year. FULL TIME: Senegal 🇸🇳 2-0 Zimbabwe 🇿🇼A comfortable win sees Senegal become the first team to qualify for the quarterfinals.#AFCON2017 pic.twitter.com/1C3lFrUb95— CNN Football (@CNNFC) January 19, 2017
A former standout player for France U21s, he had once been touted as one of European football's next big stars, but seen a promising career stall having left boyhood club Bordeaux. Now a full international for his country of birth, it was some way for the 26-year-old to score his first Senegal goal, whipping a free-kick of real quality over the wall and into Tatenda Mukuruva's top-right corner. The valiant Zimbabwe players, to their credit, refused to crumble. African Champions League winner Khama Billiat tested Abdoulaye Diallo in the Senegal goal, as Zimbabwe looked to get back into the game. But in a match decided within the opening quarter of an hour, Senegal never relinquished control. Who will win the Africa Cup of Nations? Have your say on our Facebook page. Aliou Cisse, a former Senegal player, praised the humility of his squad in the build-up, admitting they had "perhaps been overconfident in previous campaigns." Long regarded as one of African football's powerhouses after a 2002 World Cup quarterfinal appearance, the Lions of Teranga look capable of winning AFCON for the very first time.
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(CNN)Manchester United has appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as its new permanent manager after a successful spell as temporary boss. The club legend had initially taken over until the summer, replacing Jose Mourinho in December after a series of poor results and uninspiring performances. Follow @cnnsport
But with the Norwegian at the helm, United has experienced an upturn in form. Solskjaer was unbeaten in his first 11 games in charge and his side produced a historic display to beat Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League Round of 16.In his 19 games in charge, United has won 14, drawn two and lost three, while scoring 40 goals and conceding 17. He has a win percentage of 73.7%.Read MoreUnited announced the news of Solskjaer's permanent appointment on Twitter on Thursday, stating: "Ole's at the wheel."Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (right) with midfielder Paul Pogba.Speaking to the Manchester United website, Solskjaer said he "felt at home at this special club." As well as scoring 126 goals in 366 appearances for the Red Devils between 1996 and 2007, he also coached the club's reserve team until 2010. "It was an honor to be a Manchester United player, and then to start my coaching career here," he continued. "The last few months have been a fantastic experience and I want to thank all of the coaches, players and staff for the work we've done so far. "This is the job that I always dreamed of doing and I'm beyond excited to have the chance to lead the club long-term and hopefully deliver the continued success that our amazing fans deserve."READ: Rooney hails 'fantastic' SolskjaerREAD: Liverpool or Manchester City -- who will win the Premier League title?Solskjaer's place in the hearts of United fans has never been in doubt given his heroics in the 1999 European Champions League final where he scored a last-minute winner to secure a historic treble.After coaching United's reserve team, the 46-year-old went on to manage Molde in his native Norway before a short and rather unsuccessful spell at Cardiff City in 2014.Solskjaer returned to Molde in 2015 before the option to take over at United arose in December. Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerOle Gunnar Solskjaer (L) joined Manchester United from Norwegian side Molde in 1996. At the time he was relatively unknown outside of Norway.Hide Caption 1 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerThe striker became a vital member of the team, scoring 126 goals in 11 seasons at Old Trafford. He was nicknamed the "baby-faced assassin" for his youthful image and killer instinct in front of goal. Hide Caption 2 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerHe became a United legend for scoring the winning goal in the 1999 Champions League final. His last-minute volley completed a stunning comeback against Bayern Munich. Hide Caption 3 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerSolskjaer (L) retired in 2007. He won six Premier League titles, two FA Cup trophies and a Champions League during a glittering playing career. Hide Caption 4 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerThe Norwegian didn't leave the club entirely though. He spent three years managing the Manchester United reserve team, learning from Alex Ferguson. Hide Caption 5 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerIn 2011, Solskjaer returned to Molde as the club's new first-team manager. He won consecutive domestic titles in a successful spell at his old side. Hide Caption 6 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerA return to the Premier League soon followed. In January 2014, he took over Cardiff City but his time in Wales was less successful. His side were relegated into the Championship and Solskjaer was sacked after a bad start to his second season.Hide Caption 7 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerFollowing his dismissal, Solskjaer returned to Molde to retake his position as first-team manager. Hide Caption 8 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerOn 19 December, 2019, Solskjaer was appointed as United's caretaker manager until the end of the 2018/19 season -- following Jose Mourinho's dismissal. Hide Caption 9 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerWith the Norwegian at the wheel, Manchester United's players looked rejuvenated -- with the likes of Paul Pogba shining under the new regime. United won its first eight games under Solskjaer and climbed back into contention for a top-four finish in the English Premier League. Hide Caption 10 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerHis credentials for the permanent job were given a boost after staging a stunning comeback to defeat PSG in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16. Solskjaer's side overturned a two-goal deficit at the Parc des Princes stadium, courtesy of a last-gasp penalty by Marcus Rashford. Hide Caption 11 of 12 Photos: Solskjaer's Old Trafford careerOn 28 March 2019, Manchester United appointed Solskjaer as its new permanent manager.Hide Caption 12 of 12He was due to return to Molde at the end of the English domestic season but United's performances over the past few months means he will be staying on indefinitely. "Since coming in as caretaker manager in December, the results Ole has delivered speak for themselves," Manchester United executive chairman, Ed Woodward, said in a statement."More than just performances and results, Ole brings a wealth of experience, both as a player and as a coach, coupled with a desire to give young players their chance and a deep understanding of the culture of the club. This all means that he is the right person to take Manchester United forward."I want to thank Ole and the coaching team for everything they have done so far and congratulate him on this richly deserved appointment. The fans and everyone at the club are behind him as he looks to take us where we need to be and build the next stage of our history."READ: Why Lionel Messi is the world's best playerREAD: Bayern signs Lucas Hernandez for $90 millionI'm delighted for Ole . I didn't think this would happen when he was appointed . However the results and spirit in the club have been incredible since he arrived and he deserves it. He now needs support in the transfer market in terms of finance and the right resource! ❤️👹— Gary Neville (@GNev2) March 28, 2019
Former United defender Gary Neville, who played alongside Solskjaer at Old Trafford, applauded the appointment"I'm delighted for Ole," Neville tweeted. "I didn't think this would happen when he was appointed. However the results and spirit in the club have been incredible since he arrived and he deserves it. He now needs support in the transfer market in terms of finance and the right resource!"READ: Sterling and Southgate want action on racist abuse in MontenegroREAD Footballer banned for racist abuse quits sportAnother of Solskjaer's former teammates, Peter Schmeichel, tweeted: "Congratulations my friend, it is well deserved. Up and onwards lets chase some trophies."Mikael Silvestre, who played for United between 1999 and 2008, told CNN that Solskjaer's permanent appointment was a "positive" move. "It is a three-year commitment from the club towards Ole, and vice-versa. That should give him enough time to bring the club back to where it belongs and where it should be, which is winning titles," Silvestre added. Current United striker, Marcus Rashford, whose goals have been central to United's uptick in form since Solskjaer arrived tweeted simply: "Congrats boss."United's next Premier League game is against Watford at Old Trafford on Saturday.CNN's Eoghan Macguire, James Masters and Nick Friend contributed to this report.
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SWSE - Most Advanced Wi-Fi Hacking and Security Course online
We covered the launch of the SecurityTube Wi-Fi Security Expert in a previous article. As their entire courseware is available online free of charge to evaluate: , I took a look over the weekend and I was very impressed. The instructor assumes you are an absolute n00b to the subject and starts from the very basics of how to get started with creating your own lab for doing Wireless Hacking exercises. He then slowly gains momentum and touches upon a ton of topics - Honeypots, Hotspot attacks, MITM over wireless, WEP/WPA/WPA2 Cracking, WPA/WPA2-Enterprise hacking, PEAP, EAP-TLS, EAP-TTLS cracking, creating backdoors with wireless, Wi-Fi malware etc. All of this is covered in over 12+ hours of HD videos.
I would strongly recommend you to download the full courseware here and see for yourself:
https://securitytube.net/downloads
If you are interested in using this for your job and desire to get a certification then, SecurityTube is currently providing the SWSE Certification course + exam for a promotional price of $200 till October 15th or till limited seats last. The cost will be $250 after that. https://www.securitytube.net/certifications
To show our support to this initiative (free courseware for everyone), we have put a banner AD on the right column.
Enjoy! and become a Wi-Fi Ninja soon :)
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Cybersecurity researchers today disclosed details of security vulnerabilities found in popular antivirus solutions that could enable attackers to elevate their privileges, thereby helping malware sustain its foothold on the compromised systems.
According to a report published by CyberArk researcher Eran Shimony today and shared with The Hacker News, the high privileges often associated with anti-malware products render them more vulnerable to exploitation via file manipulation attacks, resulting in a scenario where malware gains elevated permissions on the system.
The bugs impact a wide range of antivirus solutions, including those from Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, Fortinet, Check Point, Trend Micro, Avira, and Microsoft Defender, each of which has been fixed by the respective vendor.
Chief among the flaws is the ability to delete files from arbitrary locations, allowing the attacker to delete any file in the system, as well as a file corruption vulnerability that permits a bad actor to eliminate the content of any file in the system.
Per CyberArk, the bugs result from default DACLs (short for Discretionary Access Control Lists) for the "C:\ProgramData" folder of Windows, which are by applications to store data for standard users without requiring additional permissions.
Given that every user has both write and delete permission on the base level of the directory, it raises the likelihood of a privilege escalation when a non-privileged process creates a new folder in "ProgramData" that could be later accessed by a privileged process.
Antivirus
Vulnerability
Kaspersky Security Center CVE-2020-25043, CVE-2020-25044, CVE-2020-25045
McAfee Endpoint Security and McAfee Total Protection CVE-2020-7250, CVE-2020-7310
Symantec Norton Power Eraser CVE-2019-1954
Fortinet FortiClient CVE-2020-9290
Check Point ZoneAlarm and Check Point Endpoint Security CVE-2019-8452
Trend Micro HouseCall for Home Networks CVE-2019-19688, CVE-2019-19689, and three more unassigned flaws
Avira CVE-2020-13903
Microsoft Defender CVE-2019-1161
In one case, it was observed that two different processes — one privileged and the other run as an authenticated local user — shared the same log file, potentially allowing an attacker to exploit the privileged process to delete the file and create a symbolic link that would point to any desired arbitrary file with malicious content.
Subsequently, CyberArk researchers also explored the possibility of creating a new folder in "C:\ProgramData" before a privileged process is executed.
In doing so, they found that when McAfee antivirus installer is run after creating the "McAfee" folder, the standard user has full control over the directory, allowing the local user to gain elevated permissions by performing a symlink attack.
To top it all, a DLL hijacking flaw in Trend Micro, Fortinet, and other antivirus solutions could have been exploited by an attacker to place a malicious DLL file into the application directory and elevate privileges.
Urging that access control lists must be restrictive to prevent arbitrary delete vulnerabilities, CyberArk stressed the need to update the installation frameworks to mitigate DLL Hijacking attacks.
While these issues may have been addressed, the report serves as a reminder that weaknesses in software, including those that aim to offer antivirus protection, can be a conduit for malware.
"The implications of these bugs are often full privilege escalation of the local system," CyberArk researchers said. Due to the high privilege level of security products, an error in them could help malware to sustain its foothold and cause more damage to the organization."
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Two days ago when infosec bods claimed to have uncovered what's believed to be the first case of a SCADA network (a water utility) infected with cryptocurrency-mining malware, a batch of journalists accused other authors of making fear-mongering headlines, taunting that the next headline could be about cryptocurrency-miner detected in a nuclear plant.
It seems that now they have to run a story themselves with such headlines on their website because Russian Interfax News Agency yesterday reported that several scientists at Russia's top nuclear research facility had been arrested for mining cryptocurrency with "office computing resources."
The suspects work as engineers at the Russian Federation Nuclear Center facility—also known as the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics—which works on developing nuclear weapons.
The center is located in Sarov, Sarov is still a restricted area with high security. It is also the birthplace of the Soviet Union's first nuclear bomb.
In 2011, the Russian Federation Nuclear Center switched on a new supercomputer with a capacity of 1 petaflop, making it the twelfth most powerful in the world at the time.
According to Russian media reports, the engineers had tried to use one of Russia's most powerful supercomputers housed in the Federal Nuclear Center to mine Bitcoins.
The suspects were caught red-handed while attempting to connect the lab's supercomputer to the internet, which was supposed to be offline to ensure security, the nuclear center's security department was alerted.
Once caught, the engineers were handed over to the Federal Security Service (FSB).
"There has been an unsanctioned attempt to use computer facilities for private purposes including so-called mining," Tatyana Zalesskaya, head of the Institute's press service, told Interfax news agency.
"Their activities were stopped in time. The bungling miners have been detained by the competent authorities. As far as I know, a criminal case has been opened regarding them," Zalesskaya added, without revealing the exact number of employees detained.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has yet to issue a statement on the arrests and criminal charges.
Cryptocurrency has gained tremendous popularity over the past year. Mining a single Bitcoin is not an ice cakewalk, as it requires an enormous amount of computational power and huge amounts of energy.
According to media reports, Russia is becoming a hotbed of cryptocurrency mining due to its low-cost energy reserves. One Russian businessman, Alexey Kolesnik, reportedly also bought two power stations exclusively to generate electricity for Bitcoin-mining data centers.
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Story highlightsAn F-16 pilot was nearly forced to eject from his aircraft over ISIS territory due to a fuel emergency last year, an incident that could have led to the airman's capture or deathThe brutal killing of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh serves as a harsh reminder of the consequences for pilots who eject over ISIS-held territory (CNN)An F-16 pilot was nearly forced to eject from his aircraft over ISIS territory due to a fuel emergency last year, an incident that could have led to the airman's capture or death, the U.S. Air Force said.But the pilot was saved from having to abandon his aircraft due to the quick thinking of a nearby U.S. Air Force re-fueling plane crew. Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleet Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetB-52 Stratofortress – The first versions of this long-range heavy bomber flew in 1954. A total of 744 were built, the last of those in 1962. The Air Force maintains 58 B-52s in the active force and 18 in the Reserve. A single B-52 can carry 70,000 pounds of mixed munitions, including bombs, missiles and mines. The eight-engine jets have a range of 8,800 miles.Hide Caption 1 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetC-130 Hercules transport – A C-130J Super Hercules from the 37th Airlift Squadron flies over Normandy, France, June 3, 2015. First delivered to the Air Force in 1956, the C-130 remains one of the service's most important airlift platforms. More than 140 are still in active units, with more than 180 in the National Guard and a hundred more in the Reserve. The C-130 is powered by four turboprop engines.Hide Caption 2 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetAC-130 gunships – The AC-130H Spectre and the AC-130U Spooky gunships are designed for close air support, air interdiction and force protection. Armaments on the Spectre include 40mm and 105mm cannons. The Spooky adds a 25mm Gatling gun.Hide Caption 3 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetF-22 Raptor – The twin-engine F-22 stealth fighter, flown by a single pilot and armed with a 20mm cannon, heat-seeking missiles, radar-guided missiles and radar-guided bombs, can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. The service has 183 of the Raptors, which went operational in 2005.Hide Caption 4 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetThe single-engine F-35A is the Air Force's eventual replacement for the F-16 and the A-10. The supersonic jets, which will be able to conduct air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks, are just beginning to enter the Air Force fleet. Here, an F-35 Lightning II from the 34th Fighter Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, flys at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, April 15, 2017.Hide Caption 5 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetB-2 Spirit bomber – The four-engine B-2 heavy bomber has stealth properties that make it hard to detect on radar. Flown by a crew of two, it has an unrefueled range of 6,000 miles and can deliver both conventional and nuclear bombs. Twenty B-2s are in the active inventory. They joined the fleet in 1997.Hide Caption 6 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetB-1B Lancer bomber – The four-engine jet can fly at 900 mph and carry the largest payload of bombs and missiles in the Air Force inventory. The Air Force has 62 B-1Bs in the fleet.Hide Caption 7 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetF-15 Eagle – The F-15 Eagle, the Air Force's main air superiority fighter, became operational in 1975. With a crew of one or two, depending on the model, the twin-engine jets are armed with a 20mm cannon along with Sidewinder or AMRAAM missiles. The Air Force lists 249 F-15 Eagles in its inventory.Hide Caption 8 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetF-15E Strike Eagle – The Strike Eagle is a version of the air superiority fighter adapted to perform ground-strike missions. With a crew of two, the twin-jet can carry and deploy most weapons in the Air Force inventory and operate in any weather. The F-15E was first delivered in 1988. The Air Force lists 219 in its fleet.Hide Caption 9 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetA-10 Thunderbolt – The A-10 Thunderbolt jets, nicknamed "Warthogs," are specially designed for close air support of ground forces. Key to their armaments is a 30mm Gatling gun. The pilot is protected from ground fire by titanium armor, and the plane's fuel cells are self-sealing in case of puncture. Hide Caption 10 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetRC-135U – The RC-135U Combat Sent, based at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, provides strategic electronic reconnaissance information to the president, secretary of defense, Department of Defense leaders and theater commanders.Hide Caption 11 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetAn F-15 Eagle takes off from the Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, flight line as two E-3 Sentries are seen in the background.Hide Caption 12 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetOV-10 Bronco – A 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron OV-10 Bronco aircraft fires white phosphorus rockets to mark a target for an air strike during tactical air control training. Hide Caption 13 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetA-29 Super Tucano – An A-29 Super Tucano taxis on the flightline during its first arrival, Sept. 26, 2014, at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. Afghan Air Force pilots trained on the planes that will be used in air-to-ground attack missions in Afghanistan.Hide Caption 14 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetKC-135 Stratotanker – The four-engine KC-135 joined the Air Force fleet in 1956 as both a tanker and cargo jet. It can carry up to 200,000 pounds of fuel and 83,000 pounds of cargo and passengers in a deck above the refueling system. More than 400 of the KC-135s are flown by active, Air Guard and Reserve units.Hide Caption 15 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetF-16 Fighting Falcon – The single-engine jet is a mainstay of the Air Force combat fleet. It can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions with its 20mm cannon and ability to carry missiles and bombs on external pods. More than 1,000 F-16s are in the Air Force inventory.Hide Caption 16 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetC-17 Globemaster transport – The four-engine jet joined the Air Force fleet in 1993 with a primary mission of troop and cargo transport. Each plane can carry up to 102 troops or 170,900 pounds of cargo. The Air Force has 187 C-17s on active duty, 12 in the Air National Guard and 14 in the Reserve.Hide Caption 17 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetC-5 Galaxy transport – The C-5, with a wingspan of 222 feet, a length of 247 feet and a height of 65 feet, is the largest plane in the Air Force inventory and one of the largest aircraft in the world. The first versions of the four-engine jet joined the force in 1970. The Air Force expects to have 52 versions of the latest model, the C-5M, in the fleet by 2017.Hide Caption 18 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetCV-22 Osprey – The Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft that combines vertical takeoff, hover and landing qualities of a helicopter with the normal flight characteristics of a turboprop aircraft, according to the Air Force. It is used to move troops in and out of operations as well as resupply units in the field. The Air Force has 33 Ospreys in inventory.Hide Caption 19 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetE-3 Sentry AWACS – AWACS stands for airborne warning and control system. This four-engine jet, based on a Boeing 707 platform, monitors and manages battle space with its huge rotating radar dome. The planes have a flight crew of four supporting 13 to 19 specialists and controllers giving direction to units around the battle space. The Air Force has 32 E-3s in inventory.Hide Caption 20 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetKC-10 Extender – Based on the DC-10 passenger jet, the triple-engine KC-10 is a gas station in the sky with the ability to carry 75 people and 170,000 pounds of cargo. In its six tanks, the KC-10 can carry up to 356,000 pounds of fuel and dispense it while airborne. The Air Force has 59 KC-10s on active duty.Hide Caption 21 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetT-38 Talon – The twin-engine jet trainer, used by the Air Force to prepare pilots for the F-15E Strike Eagle, F-15C Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, B-1B Lancer, A-10 Thunderbolt and F-22 Raptor, first flew in 1959. Almost 550 are in the active force.Hide Caption 22 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetU-2 – The single-engine, single-pilot U-2 is used for high-altitude reconnaissance and surveillance. Flying at altitudes around 70,000 feet, pilots must wear pressure suits like those worn by astronauts. The first U-2 was flown in 1955. The planes were used on missions over the Soviet Union during the Cold War, flying too high to be reached by any adversary. The Air Force has 33 U-2s in its active inventory.Hide Caption 23 of 24 Photos: In the U.S. Air Force fleetWC-135 Constant Phoenix – The four-engine WC-135 is used to fly through airspace to detect the residue of nuclear blasts. "The aircraft is equipped with external flow-through devices to collect particulates on filter paper and a compressor system for whole air samples collected in holding spheres," the Air Force says. It has two of these jets in the active force.Hide Caption 24 of 24The KC-135 Stratotanker was linked up with a group of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in support of the U.S.-led coalition's air campaign against ISIS when it was approached by the F-16, the Air Force said on Thursday.The first sign of trouble occurred when the F-16 attempted to re-fuel but was forced to disconnect from the KC-135 after taking in only 500 pounds of fuel -- an amount that fell significantly short of the 2,500 pounds that the tanker expected to off-load.After a second failed re-fueling attempt, the F-16 pilot ran through his checklist and alerted the tanker crew that he was experiencing a fuel system emergency.Read More"Over 80% of his total fuel capability was trapped and unusable," a malfunction that could have forced the pilot to eject as his aircraft could only use up to 15 minutes of fuel at a time, the Air Force said in a press release.Instead of leaving the pilot to fend for himself, the tanker crew decided to diverge from its area of responsibility, and safely escorted the F-16 to its base while refueling every 15 minutes on the way to allied airspace."Knowing the risks to their own safety, they put the life of the F-16 pilot first and made what could've been an international tragedy a feel-good news story," said Lt. Col. Eric Hallberg, 384th Air Refueling Squadron commander. "I'm sure they think it was not a big deal, however, that's because they never want the glory or fame."The Air Force did not specify where, exactly, the incident took place and did not specify the country to which the F-16 belonged.US military: News, history, videos and opinionsThe brutal killing of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kassasbeh serves as a harsh reminder of the consequences for pilots who eject over ISIS-held territory and are taken prisoner by the terror group.Footage and images released early last year by the Islamist extremists appeared to show the pilot in a cage, being burned alive.The video sparked global condemnation and prompted immediate promises of retaliation and protests in Jordan, one of more than 60 nations involved in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.As of February 10, the U.S. and its coalition partners have conducted a total of 10,242 strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.And despite escorting the F-16 pilot back to base, the KC-135 tanker crew completed the rest of their daily missions with 100% success, the Air Force said.What it is like flying in an F-16
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Symantec product PGP Whole Disk Encryption which is used to encrypt all the contents on the disk on a block-by-block basis having Zero-Day Vulnerability, according to a pastebin note.
Note was posted on 25th Dec by Nikita Tarakanov, claiming that pgpwded.sys kernel driver distributed with Symantec PGP Desktop contains an arbitrary memory overwrite vulnerability. Affected version of software is Symantec PGP Desktop 10.2.0 Build 2599 (up-to date).
Through a blog post, Symantec confirmed that its a potential issue, but it cannot easily be exploited. Vulnerability is limited to systems running Windows XP and Windows 2003 only. An attacker would need local access to a vulnerable computer to exploit this vulnerability.
Note posted by Nikita also provide technical details on the issue, that help Symantec encryption engineering team to understand the issue. "However, the exploit would be very difficult to trigger as it relies on the system entering an error condition first. Once in this error condition, the exploit could allow an attacker with lower privileges to run some arbitrary code with higher privileges." Kelvin Kwan said.
Vendor is planning a fix in an upcoming maintenance pack in February.
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Story highlightsJoey Johnson uses a wheelchair, after a motorcycle accident damaged his spine in 2012He wanted to stand for the first dance with his new wife, so he got creativeThere wasn't a dry eye in among the wedding guests, according to the wedding photographer (CNN)Michelle Johnson has stood by her husband, Joey, through good times and bad. On their wedding day in June, he returned the favor by standing by her for their first dance.It was a surprise for Michelle and an inspirational moment for their wedding guests, because Joey is a paraplegic who has used a wheelchair since August 2012, after a motorcycle accident severely injured his spinal cord. JUST WATCHEDParaplegic groom's first dance surpriseReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHParaplegic groom's first dance surprise 01:43With the help of his groomsmen, Joey had fashioned together a harness that suspended from the ceiling above the dance floor and allowed him to be wheelchair-free for the couple's first dance to "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri.To pull off the surprise, Michelle's mother created a ruse by suggesting she return to the bridal suite after cutting the cake. When she returned to the reception, her husband was standing, waiting for her. "She saw Joey standing and she had a giant smile on her face which quickly turned to tears. Everyone was in tears," wedding photographer Rachel Linnea wrote in an email to CNN.Read More"The dance was a beautiful moment to not only capture, but to experience."While the couple was married on June 28, 2014, a video of the dance started gaining traction on Veterans Day as the couple met at a Miranda Lambert concert shortly after Joey returned from a tour in Afghanistan in 2012. "I stuck by his side through it all and I know we could get through anything now," Johnson wrote before the wedding on her blog.
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(CNN)A gunman walked into an Islamic center in central Zurich and shot three men, police in the Swiss city said Monday.The man, decked out in dark clothing, opened fire on a group of worshipers standing inside a prayer room at about 5:30 p.m., police said, citing eyewitnesses. The shots injured the men, some seriously, Zurich police said in a news release. The gunman fled and police blocked off the area, not far from the central train station. Witnesses said the shooter, who is still being sought, appeared to be about 30 years of age and was wearing a dark wool cap. The victims are aged 30, 35 and 56. Police didn't disclose any potential motive.US President-elect Donald Trump tweeted about the attack, lumping it in with two other incidents occurring on the same day: the truck crash in Berlin and the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey in Ankara. Trump called all three terror attacks.
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Apple Mac Computers are considered to be much safer than Windows at keeping viruses and malware out of its environment, but that's simply not true anymore.
It's not because Mac OS X is getting worse every day, but because hackers are getting smart and sophisticated these days.
The bad news for Mac users is that malware targeting webcams and microphones has now come up for Mac laptops as well.
Patrick Wardle, an ex-NSA staffer who heads up research at security intelligence firm Synack, discovered a way for Mac malware to tap into your live feeds from Mac's built-in webcam and microphone to locally record you even without detection.
Wardle is the same researcher who has discovered a number of security weaknesses in Apple products, including ways to bypass the Gatekeeper protections in OS X.
Wardle also released a free tool called RansomWhere? earlier this year that has generic detection capabilities for Mac OS X ransomware variants.
Wardle is scheduled to present his new findings at the Virus Bulletin conference in Denver later today, along with his research demonstrating how malware could easily piggyback on your legitimate webcam sessions to keep its spying activity hidden.
Yes, piggybacking legitimate webcam sessions initiated by you.
Here's How Mac Malware Works:
Since Mac's firmware-level protection lights the green LED for any unauthorized access to user's webcam, Wardle believes that attackers can use a malicious app that quietly monitors the system for any outgoing feed of an existing webcam session – like a Skype or FaceTime call – where the light indicator would already be ON.
The malware then piggybacks the victim's webcam or microphone to secretly record both audio and video session, without any visible indication of this malicious activity and any fear of detection.
In his paper presentation, titled 'Getting Duped: Piggybacking on Webcam Streams for Surreptitious Recordings,' Wardle outlines the threat along with countermeasures to detect "secondary" processes that try to access an existing video session on OS X.
How to Prevent Your WebCam and Mic from Being Hacked
Wardle has developed and released a free tool, dubbed OverSight, which not only monitors webcam and microphone activities but also alerts you when a secondary process accesses your webcam, asking whether you want to allow or block access.
Oversight is a free download from Wardle's website.
Moreover, physically covering your webcam – like what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and FBI Director James Comey do – also offers a low-tech approach to keeping snoopers away.
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Are you also the one who downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th? You may have been Infected!
Linux Mint is one of the best and popular Linux distros available today, but if you have downloaded and installed the operating system recently you might have done so using a malicious ISO image.
Here's why:
Last night, Some unknown hacker or group of hackers had managed to hack into the Linux Mint website and replaced the download links on the site that pointed to one of their servers offering a malicious ISO images for the Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon Edition.
"Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it," the head of Linux Mint project Clement Lefebvre said in a surprising announcement dated February 21, 2016.
Who are affected?
As far as the Linux Mint team knows, the issue only affects the one edition, and that is Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.
The situation happened last night, so the issue only impacts people who downloaded the above-mentioned version of Linux Mint on February 20th.
However, if you have downloaded the Cinnamon edition or release before Saturday 20th, February, the issue does not affect you. Even if you downloaded a different edition including Mint 17.3 Cinnamon via Torrent or direct HTTP link, this does not affect you either.
What had Happened?
Hackers believed to have accessed the underlying server via the team's WordPress blog and then got shell access to www-data.
From there, the hackers manipulated the Linux Mint download page and pointed it to a malicious FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server hosted in Bulgaria (IP: 5.104.175.212), the investigative team discovered.
The infected Linux ISO images installed the complete OS with the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) backdoor Tsunami, giving the attackers access to the system via IRC servers.
Tsunami is a well-known Linux ELF trojan that is a simple IRC bot used for launching Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
Hackers vs. Linux Mint SysAdmins
However, the Linux Mint team managed to discover the hack, cleaned up the links from their website quickly, announced the data breach on their official blog, and then it appears that the hackers compromised its download page again.
Knowing that it has failed to eliminate the exact point of entry of hackers, the Linux Mint team took the entire linuxmint.com domain offline to prevent the ISO images from spreading to its users.
The Linux Mint official website is currently offline until the team investigates the issue entirely. However, the hackers' motive behind the hack is not clear yet.
"What we don't know is the motivation behind this attack. If more efforts are made to attack our project and if the goal is to hurt us, we'll get in touch with authorities and security firms to confront the people behind this," Lefebvre added.
Hackers Selling Linux Mint Website's Database
The hackers are selling the Linux Mint full website's database for a just $85, which shows a sign of their lack of knowledge.
The hack seems to be a work of some script kiddies or an inexperienced group as they opted to infect a top-shelf Linux distro with a silly IRC bot that is considered to be outdated in early 2010. Instead, they would have used more dangerous malware like Banking Trojans.
Also, even after the hack was initially discovered, the hackers re-compromised the site, which again shows the hackers' lack of experience.
Here's How to Protect your Linux Machine
Users with the ISO image can check its signature in an effort to make sure it is valid.
To check for an infected download, you can compare the MD5 signature with the official versions, included in Lefebvre's blog post.
If found infected, users are advised to follow these steps:
Take the computer offline.
Backup all your personal data.
Reinstall the operating system (with a clean ISO) or format the partition.
Change passwords for sensitive websites and emails.
You can read full detail about the hack here. The official website is not accessible at the time of writing. We'll update the story when we hear more.
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(CNN)The world watched this week as the disheveled figure of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was hauled, kicking and screaming at British police officers, from Ecuador's London embassy, where he had been holed up for seven years.Much of the coverage focused on a big new revelation: The US request for his extradition, on a single charge of conspiring with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal military secrets.But potentially just as significant could be the announcement by Sweden's prosecuting authority that it is considering whether to reopen an investigation into an allegation of rape against Assange that was closed in 2017.Swedish authorities are clearly playing catchup. While it is clear that there was a degree of co-ordination between UK and US authorities -- the US indictment was unsealed shortly after the Metropolitan Police announced Assange's arrest -- the Swedes knew nothing of it. "This is news to us too ... We also do not know why he is under arrest," said Sweden's Chief Prosecutor Ingrid Isgren. "We are following the developments."Read MoreJulian Assange's seven-year stay inside a London embassy took him from wanted man to unwanted house guestSome commentators have expressed surprise that Sweden wasn't given a heads up -- after all, the reason Assange turned up at the Ecuadorian embassy on June 19, 2012, was because he had lost his UK Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault and rape. "Serious question for the UK (and Ecuador) to answer: Why was Sweden not not told before the arrest was made," wrote the British legal commentator, David Allen Green, on Twitter.Nevertheless, Sweden moved fast. By the end of Thursday, Deputy Director of Public Prosecution Eva-Marie Persson had been appointed to the case. "We will now examine the case in order to determine how to proceed," she said in a statement. "The investigation has not yet been resumed, and we do not know today whether it will be. Furthermore, we cannot set a timetable for when any such decision will be made."The allegations were made separately by two women in Sweden after a visit by Assange there in August 2010. By December that year, the Stockholm Criminal Court had issued an international arrest warrant and Assange -- who has always proclaimed his innocence -- handed himself into British police. Over the next couple of years, Assange fought extradition to Sweden but the UK Supreme Court ruled against him in May 2012. Three weeks later, he entered the Ecuadorian embassy requesting political asylum. WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, right, and barrister Jennifer Robinso, centeer, address the media outside Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.In August 2015, the statute of limitations on the allegations of sexual assault expired. Sweden dropped the investigation into the rape allegation in 2017, after questioning Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The country's then Director of Public Prosecution, Marianne Ny, said that "all possibilities to advance the investigation have now been exhausted."The case was set aside, Ny said, because there was no practical way it could be continued while Assange remained in the Ecuadorian embassy. If that situation changed, the decision could be reviewed. "If he, at a later date, makes himself available, I will be able to decide to resume the investigation immediately," she said. As news broke of Assange's arrest on Thursday, Elisabeth Massi Fritz, a lawyer for the woman who accused Assange of rape, tweeted that she and her client were shocked by his arrest, but said they had been hoping for it since 2012.Under Swedish law, any charges related to the rape allegation must be made by August 2020. WikiLeaks' UK-based lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told CNN Friday that Assange would face any allegation in Sweden. "We've always said that Julian was very happy to answer those allegations. We offered his testimony back in 2010 before the extradition request first came," Robinson said. "He continued to offer his testimony, and his Swedish defense counsel say that he has a good defencse, so if he was ever required to go back and answer that, he has a defense and he'd be happy to."We are going to do everything we possibly can to get the swedish police investigation re-opened so that Assange can be extradited to Sweden and prosecuted for rape. No rape victim should have to wait 9 years to see justice be served.— Elisabeth Massi Fritz (@ElisabethMFritz) April 11, 2019
In the UK Parliament Thursday, Home Secretary Sajid Javid outlined how court proceedings for extraditions play out in Britain. Following the initial arrest, the full extradition papers must be received by the judge within 65 days. The extradition request must be certified by the Home Office before going to court, Javid said. If Sweden decides to submit its own extradition request, it would be up to UK courts to decide on whether it should take precedence over the expected petition from the US. And in any event, Assange must first serve his sentence for skipping bail in 2012. A judge will determine his punishment at a later date.Assange's legal team may be concentrating for now on how to defend him from being sent to the US. But with the Swedish case back in play, they may yet be fighting on two fronts.CNN's Claudia Rebaza and Emily Dixon contributed to this report.
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Nvidia shut down its Developer Zone online forum today after hackers gained access to members' account details.A statement Nvidia posted on the forum reads, "Nvidia suspended operations today of the Nvidia Developer Zone. We did this in response to attacks on the site by unauthorised third parties who may have gained access to hashed passwords."
Users are also warned not to provide any personal, financial or sensitive information in response to any email purporting to be sent by an NVIDIA employee or representative. All user passwords will be reset when the system comes back online, though it wasn't mentioned when that was going to be. NVIDIA insists it is "continuing to investigate this matter.
Nvidia forum hack follows the recent LinkedIn and Yahoo! hacks. Earlier 6.5 million LinkedIn hashed passwords were stolen and subsequently published on unauthorized websites.
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A version of this article originally appeared in the weekly weather newsletter, which releases every Monday. You can sign up here to receive these every week and during significant storms. (CNN)With 61% of the contiguous US in drought, wouldn't it be nice if we could just "make it rain" or just "make more snow?"Well, certain parts of the country are doing just that, sort of. It's called cloud seeding, and it's nothing new.It's been around since the 1940s and countries all over the world have been doing it for various reasons (most notably China), but it's a growing practice in the US, especially in the drought-stricken West.It's also surrounded with controversy.We spoke with Julie Gondzar who is the program manager for Wyoming's Weather Modification Program, who admits she gets lots of calls about what they are doing.Read MoreGondzar said some people say "you're playing God," others say "you are stealing moisture from the storm," making other areas drier than they normally would be, kind of like robbing Peter to pay Paul.There are also environmental factors to consider, as well as the cost-effectiveness versus the reward, which in the West these days water is liquid gold."Think about it like water storage, but in the winter on mountaintops," is how Gondzar described what cloud seeding is trying to achieve in her state, "in a nutshell."Wyoming started cloud seeding in 2003 as part of a study. Then eight seasons ago, they started doing it in an official capacity after their 10-year study proved it works.This season, they have gone on 28 flight missions for cloud seeding in Wyoming. King Air's twin engine plane that is used for cloud seeding.She pointed out there are four weeks left in the season, so she is hoping for more opportunities before it winds down. When you compare Wyoming to other states such as Utah and North Dakota, who have been cloud seeding since the '70s and '80s, the state is fairly new to the game.Cloud seeding uses an already existing cloud, and injects silver iodide into the cloud, which adds tiny particles called ice nuclei (which water needs to freeze).Clouds, in basic terms, are a collection of water droplets and/or ice crystals floating in the sky. The nuclei help the cloud produce precipitation, and artificial ice nuclei help create more precipitation than the cloud would produce otherwise. It's done in two ways: One way is from the ground and the other is from the air, using silver iodide as the seeding agent."The ground-based generators kind of look like small weather stations, are like 20 feet tall, and they aerosolize into the atmosphere," Gondzar explained. "But you have to wait for the right atmospheric conditions so that the plume goes over the mountain range." It makes seeding a little more tricky, because if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, you'll completely miss your target.The most popular way is by plane, using flares. "There are flares on the wing of the planes with silver iodide inside of cardboard casings and there are flares on the belly of the plane," Gondzar pointed out.This photo shows flares fixed on the aircraft's wing that house the silver iodide used for cloud seeding.Once the pilot flies into the storm, they ignite the cardboard casings full of silver iodide and "seed" the clouds. The result is more moisture in the cloud, resulting in more precipitation.The silver iodide "is a natural salt compound," Gondzar emphasized. "The reason it's used is because the geometric shape down to a molecular level is very similar to that of an ice crystal. And if you don't have that, you're not going to create additional ice crystals, which will then accumulate into snowflakes."But if you think you can bust the drought by using planes to modify the weather, Gondzar said think again. Is it working?"Cloud seeding does not fix the drought," Gondzar said. "You can't break a drought with cloud seeding. It's a tool in the toolbox."Gondzar admitted while they know the method makes more snow than they would otherwise receive, it's difficult to know exactly how much more they are getting."There's evidence of it in radar and all kinds of papers written," Gondzar noted. "The question that they're trying to answer now is how well does it work? And that's a difficult question to answer. Because there's an abstract piece of this. There's really no way to know how much snow a particular system would have produced."She knows cloud seeding doesn't generate a lot of additional snowfall, but every little bit helps these days.According to Wyoming's Water Systems Data Map, some areas in the state are only at 60% of average for snowpack this season, and the window for additional snow is slowly closing as the season winds down.Since most of the West gets the majority of its water from snowmelt, she hopes what they are doing helps a tiny bit in the long term.
"It's a small incremental change over a long period of time. That's why consistency is important," Gondzar urged.She added at $28-$34 per acre foot, cloud seeding is relatively cheap. "Those numbers tell us that this is an inexpensive way to help add water to the system. Essentially, we are creating a little bit of additional snowpack, that becomes additional streamflow in the spring and summer."But you need a cloud, to cloud seed. You can't just go out to the Mojave Desert and make it rain."This is not something that we can do out of thin air," Gondzar cautioned. "The criteria is very specific for this to actually work."It can only be done within already existing clouds that were going to produce snow anyway and there has to be a certain temperature range."The silver iodide in the cloud is initiating that snow," Gondzar said. "But you can't just make snow out of nothing. You have to have the supercooled liquid water in the cloud."She explained part of what made this year difficult was the much drier weather during the last month. There were fewer opportunities to cloud seed."A lot of people think it's manipulating the weather pattern," Gondzar remarked. "We are essentially just playing with cloud dynamics and cloud physics, on a super, super-small scale."She is a meteorologist as well and points out the moisture from the weather systems come from much bigger areas like the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific."There's always a huge stream of moisture that our systems are tapping into, and cloud seeding probably brings an additional one to 2% down to the surface."Playing God While Gondzar is confident cloud seeding doesn't steal snow from another area, some scientists disagree. Daniel Swain is a climate scientist at UCLA and spoke with my colleague and climate writer Rachel Ramirez. He told her "It is possible that you're actually stealing water from someone else when you do this, because it may be, at least on a regional basis, a zero-sum game where if water falls out of the cloud in one spot, it's even drier by the time it makes it downwind to the next watershed."
He went on to ask, "To what extent are you just shifting around the spatial distribution of precipitation during a scarcity period rather than actually causing it to rain or snow more overall?"He believes water equity issues need to be researched more.Another note of controversy has been the safety of the chemicals used in cloud seeding. Gondzar stressed it is not made of harmful chemicals like some people claim.She pointed out they did lots of testing for before they started officially cloud seeding and could not find any traces of harmful amounts of silver."There's silver in natural background levels in the water in the soil everywhere, on the surface of the earth," Gondzar noted. "So you already have a natural background level of silver, it's been really difficult to find anything beyond background levels."She said the amount of silver iodide used is only a few grams at a time. What she's hoping is a small price to pay for bigger rewards down the road.There have been climate concerns surrounding cloud seeding. Here's more from Ramirez, who reached out to a few scientists, to get their take on cloud seeding's climate angle. Climate scientists remain skeptical this is the silver bullet Although cloud seeding has been around for decades and is currently being operated in roughly 50 countries, many climate scientists remain skeptical of the technology's efficacy as well as the time and effort put into trying to manipulate weather.Swain pointed out it has been historically difficult to design scientific experiments to test the effectiveness of cloud seeding, leaving behind a trail of unclear, intangible evidence on what the benefits are."How do you know how much precipitation that might actually end up falling from that cloud occurred due to the seeding? Or how much would have fallen without the seeding?" Swain told CNN. "This isn't a setting where you can do a truly controlled experiment."Cloud seeding experiments typically deal with a narrow set of parameters, according to Swain, taking into account weather conditions including cloud cover, time of the day, and location. Additionally, the rapidly changing climate adds another layer to the list of variables. As the planet warms, weather patterns and clouds will constantly evolve, often in unexpected ways.That's what Sarah Tessendorf, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other researchers from universities and an Idaho power company, set out to examine in 2017. Their results, published in 2020 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, managed to quantify how effective cloud seeding is. Yet uncertainties still linger.During the cold winter months in 2017, the researchers flew aircraft to inject silver iodine, the seeding chemical used, into clouds over the Payette Basin in Idaho, while simultaneously using radars and models to measure its impact on snowfall.In three cloud-seeding events, the scientists identified "unambiguous seeding patterns," in cold cloud decks not producing ice at all; but once seeded, ice crystals formed inside mirroring the same pattern the aircraft had flown. They were then able to track the formed ice and snow to the ground and measure how much additional snow fell from the seeded clouds.Despite the results, Tessendorf said more experiments need to be done to improve the technology for it to become a sweeping solution to the climate crisis. The amount of precipitation produced by cloud seeding — up to 10% — isn't enough at all to quench the drought-stricken West.
"It could help over the years augment the storage levels in reservoirs, so that when you get into that extract, you might just go into that drought with a little bit more than you would have otherwise," she said. "That to me is the way that cloud seeding should be viewed. It's not going to be the silver bullet, but it could be a helpful tool in a water manager's toolbox."When it comes to tackling climate change as a whole, many also question the methods such as the deployment of fossil fuel-powered aircraft to inject silver iodide into clouds, arguing it is counterintuitive to the overall climate goals of slashing fossil fuel emissions. But Tessendorf argued it is a small price to pay in order to improve the technology."I will say that the number of aircraft and the duration of these flights to do cloud seeding and the programs that are currently having it done pales in comparison to the number of commercial flights and aircraft we have in the skies all over the world right now," she contended. "So it's to me a drop in the bucket of extra fossil fuels being burned.""But that does not mean that there isn't room for improvement there in order to have more of a clean process," Tessendorf added.With the climate crisis accelerating, climate scientists like Swain say resources are much better invested in climate solutions already guaranteed to make significant and equitable impacts."There needs to be controlled studies that actually shows it was the seeding that increased the precipitation in a meaningful way," Swain asserted. "The best case scenario is it's a small incremental adjunct to other water-saving or conservation measures during scarce periods, but even that's not clear if it would really work in that capacity in any systematic way."CNN meteorologist Judson Jones contributed to this article
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Iran has been linked to yet another state-sponsored ransomware operation through a contracting company based in the country, according to new analysis.
"Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was operating a state-sponsored ransomware campaign through an Iranian contracting company called 'Emen Net Pasargard' (ENP)," cybersecurity firm Flashpoint said in its findings summarizing three documents leaked by an anonymous entity named Read My Lips or Lab Dookhtegan between March 19 and April 1 via its Telegram channel.
Dubbed "Project Signal," the initiative is said to have kickstarted sometime between late July 2020 and early September 2020, with ENP's internal research organization, named the "Studies Center," putting together a list of unspecified target websites.
A second spreadsheet validated by Flashpoint explicitly spelled out the project's financial motivations, with plans to launch the ransomware operations in late 2020 for a period of four days between Oct. 18 and 21. Another document outlined the workflows, including steps for receiving Bitcoin payments from ransomware victims and decrypting the locked data.
It's not immediately clear if these attacks went ahead as planned and whom they targeted.
"ENP operates on behalf of Iran's intelligence services providing cyber capabilities and support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the IRGC Quds Force (IRGC-QF), and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)," the researchers said.
Despite the project's ransomware themes, the researchers suspect the move could likely be a "subterfuge technique" to mimic the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of other financially motivated cybercriminal ransomware groups so as to make attribution harder and better blend in with the threat landscape.
Interestingly, the rollout of Project Signal also dovetailed with another Iranian ransomware campaign called "Pay2Key," which ensnared dozens of Israeli companies in November and December 2020. Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm ClearSky attributed the wave of attacks to a group called Fox Kitten. Given the lack of evidence, it's unknown what connection, if any, the two campaigns may have with each other.
This is not the first time Lab Dookhtegan has dumped crucial information pertaining to Iran's malicious cyber activities. In a style echoing the Shadow Brokers, the mysterious person or group previously spilled the secrets of an Iranian hacker group known as APT34 or OilRig, including publishing the adversary's arsenal of hacking tools, along with information on 66 victim organizations and doxxing the real-world identities of Iranian government intelligence agents.
News of Iran's second ransomware operation also comes as a coalition of government and tech firms in the private sector, called the Ransomware Task Force, shared a 81-page report comprising a list of 48 recommendations to detect and disrupt ransomware attacks, in addition to helping organizations prepare and respond to such intrusions more effectively.
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Story highlightsBenoit Assou-Ekotto is a footballer who plays for Tottenham Hotspur in EnglandBorn in France, he chose to represent the birth land of his father -- Cameroon Assou-Ekotto, 28, dropped out of school aged 16 to focus on footballHe has started a foundation promoting education in a practical and interesting wayOn the pitch, he is known as a combative defender whose marauding runs down the left flank have helped him establish himself as one of football's most enterprising fullbacks. Off the pitch, however, Tottenham Hotspur left back Benoit Assou-Ekotto is far from your ordinary top-level footballer.Opinionated and strong-minded, Assou-Ekotto's surprisingly candid views have often been at odds with the monotonous, if not pretentious, rhetoric that often surrounds the beautiful game.The French-born Cameroonian international has famously admitted that he's playing the sport just for the money on offer. He's grabbed headlines by saying every player is driven by riches and has openly criticized badge-kissing peers of "hypocrisy." The refreshingly open, yet soft-spoken, player describes football as a "very, very, very good job," but says there are more important things in life. He shies away from the celebrity lifestyle favored by many of his English Premier League colleagues and has few friends within football."For me it's very important to have a normal friend and not only friends in football because you can see the reality and the difficulty of the life, [which] you can forget as your job is a very good job," he explains.JUST WATCHEDFootballing maverick on giving backReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHFootballing maverick on giving back 08:29JUST WATCHEDAssou-Ekotto on race relations in FranceReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHAssou-Ekotto on race relations in France 08:53JUST WATCHEDAssou-Ekotto: Education is keyReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHAssou-Ekotto: Education is key 05:28Watch video: Assou-Ekotto on race relations in FranceIs he concerned whether some of his comments can be seen in a negative way? "I'm honest and I say what I think," says Assou-Ekotto, who is known as much for his frank comments as his eye-catching hairstyles. "If you don't like, I don't care -- I know how I speak maybe will not help me, but I don't care and I have too much confidence in me."With a French mother and having grown up in the city of Arras, northern France, Assou-Ekotto, 28, could have played for the French national team. But he turned his back on "Les Bleus," opting instead to play for the country of his father's origin. He says he's no turncoat -- he just never had an emotional connection with Europe, unlike his strong Cameroonian roots."I have more feeling with Cameroon and Africa," he explains.Assou-Ekotto says that his decision to play in Africa does limit his earning potential at club level in Europe. He claims African players don't earn the same wages as other players, partly because they have to play in the Africa Cup of Nations. The tournament, which is usually held every two years, takes many of the continent's top football stars out of action for their club teams at a critical period in the European domestic season.See: Africa Cup of Nations 2013 team guide"When you make a choice and play for an African [national] team, the football will be more difficult for you because you have the Africa Cup of Nations and there's not a club [that] wants their footballers to travel one month out in the middle of the season," he says. "A French player or an English player or a Belgium player or a Spain player would be all the time more expensive as an African player -- it's like that, it's a reality."Yet, for Assou-Ekotto, the choice to represent Cameroon's "Indomitable Lions" was easy to make."I prefer to be proud to play for my country, even if my football will be more difficult, [than] to play for France and don't have a feeling," he says.See: NBA boss finding Africa's basketball starsAssou- Ekotto, who joined Tottenham from French outfit Lens in the summer of 2006, comes from a fine footballing pedigree. His older brother Mathieu played top-flight football in Belgium, while his dad, David, left Cameroon for France as a teenager to play professionally. Assou-Ekotto's footballing education came from watching matches with his dad, who was an astute mentor, passing on the nuances of the sport."Every weekend when I was about 10 I go with him to see football and to play football and then I said, it's a good job," remembers Assou-Ekotto. "I said, okay, I will focus only on the football."Disinterested with learning in the classroom, Assou-Ekotto dropped out of school at the age of 16 to pursue his sporting ambition. But although his gamble has paid off, Assou-Ekotto says today he regrets not completing high school.His view on the importance of education has prompted him to start BA32, a foundation promoting the idea of teaching youth in a practical and interesting way, focused on encouraging children across the globe to learn more about mathematics, science and technology."When I make this foundation [it] is to give the opportunity to a young boy to understand that the education and the school is very important because you know when you are young you don't see the real problems of the life; to sleep under the roof you have to pay every month," he says. "I think it is more easy to pay this kind of stuff when you are clever and when you have a good job."Assou-Ekotto is keen for his philanthropy, rather than his sporting success, to be his lasting legacy."I prefer to be remembered about what I will do after football because every weekend about 40,000 people enjoy with me and my team but I hope to help more than 40,000 people after football over the world," he says. "People need help and that will be more interesting for me. People [will remember me] not just as a footballer, because I am not just a footballer."
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A Google security researcher has discovered a severe vulnerability in Blizzard games that could allow remote attackers to run malicious code on gamers' computers.
Played every month by half a billion users—World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo III, Hearthstone and Starcraft II are popular online games created by Blizzard Entertainment.
To play Blizzard games online using web browsers, users need to install a game client application, called 'Blizzard Update Agent,' onto their systems that run JSON-RPC server over HTTP protocol on port 1120, and "accepts commands to install, uninstall, change settings, update and other maintenance related options."
Google's Project Zero team researcher Tavis Ormandy discovered that the Blizzard Update Agent is vulnerable to a hacking technique called the "DNS Rebinding" attack that allows any website to act as a bridge between the external server and your localhost.
Just last week, Ormandy revealed a similar vulnerability in a popular Transmission BitTorrent app that could allow hackers to remotely execute malicious code on BitTorrent users' computers and take control of them.
By simply creating a DNS entry to bind any attacker-controlled web page with localhost (127.0.0.1) and tricking users into visiting it, hackers can easily send privileged commands to the Blizzard Update Agent using JavaScript code.
Although a random website running in a web browser usually cannot make requests to a hostname other than its own, the local Blizzard updater service does not validate what hostname the client was requesting and responds to such requests.
Blizzard DNS Rebinding Attack — Proof of Concept Exploit
Ormandy has also published a proof-of-concept exploit that executes DNS rebinding attack against Blizzard clients and could be modified to allow exploitation using network drives, or setting destination to "downloads" and making the browser install malicious DLLs, data files, etc.
Ormandy responsibly reported Blizzard of the issue in December to get it patched before hackers could take advantage of it to target hundreds of millions of gamers.
However, after initially communication, Blizzard inappropriately stopped responding to Ormandy's emails and silently applied partial mitigation in the client version 5996.
"Blizzard was replying to emails but stopped communicating on December 22nd. Blizzard is no longer replying to any enquiries, and it looks like in version 5996 the Agent now has been silently patched with a bizarre solution," Ormandy says.
"Their solution appears to be to query the client command line, get the 32-bit FNV-1a string hash of the exename and then check if it's in a blacklist. I proposed they whitelist Hostnames, but apparently, that solution was too elegant and simple. I'm not pleased that Blizzard pushed this patch without notifying me, or consulted me on this."
After the Ormandy's report went public, Blizzard contacted and informed him that a more robust Host header whitelist fix to address the issue entirely is currently being developed for deployment.
Ormandy is also checking other big games vendors with a user base of over 100 Million to see if the problem can be replicated.
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A very quick and urgent warning for Twitter users, If you receive a direct message (DM) on Twitter saying "My profile was viewed..times..today" with a link then please don't click it. If you do, you will run the risk of having your Twitter account hijacked, your account turned into a spam-spewing tweet factory and all of your Twitter followers will be sent a personal copy of the same DM saying "My profile was viewed..times..today".
The direct message is a Scam aimed at stealing your twitter account. Or If any of this phishing scheme sounds familiar, it's because this scam and others like it have been going around for quite some time now. Reason being, they're all highly effective. Sure, the verbiage in the Twitter DMs may change periodically, but the goal of stealing your Twitter username and password stays the same.
We recommend you to:
DO not click the link.
DELETE that message
ONCE REVIEW all the application you have allowed in your twitter profile, Here.
REVOKE access of the suspicious applications immediate.
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter via email - Be First to know about Security and Hackers. or Join our Huge Hackers Community on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman 'Patrick Leahy' reintroduced a revamped version of the "Personal Data Privacy and Security Act" for tough criminal penalties for hackers, that he originally authored in 2005.
During last Christmas Holidays, a massive data breach had occurred at the shopping giant Target, involving hack of 40 million credit & debit cards, used to pay for purchases at its 1500 stores nationwide in the U.S.
Reason: "Target Data Breach? Seriously"? In a statement, as published below, the Senator wrote:
"The recent data breach at Target involving the debit and credit card data of as many as 40 million customers during the Christmas holidays is a reminder that developing a comprehensive national strategy to protect data privacy and cybersecurity remains one of the most challenging and important issues facing our Nation"
It seems that the TARGET Breach was scheduled, as the best opportunity to ramp up the cyber security laws against all kinds of Hackers.
Finally, on Wednesday he has re-introduced a more strict version of the "Personal Data Privacy and Security Act" bill that aims to protect Americans' data from cyber criminals. He wrote in a statement,
"The Personal Data Privacy and Security Act will help to meet this challenge, by better protecting Americans from the growing threats of data breaches and identity theft."
In his proposal, the companies with databases containing sensitive customer information will have to adopt a 'nationwide standard' of internal policies to defend against cyber attacks. It will also provide an alert notice to all Americans users, when they have been victims of such data breach.
No Doubt, I am also in favor to give strict sentences to the Cyber criminals who are involved in Malware related crimes, financial hacks, cyber bullying, espionage or spying, but this Bill now also covers strict sentencing for hactivists and hackers who have nothing to do with financial data. I have explained these facts about the bill as follow:
Obviously, I smell a Rat here!
New Penalty - 20 Years, rather than 10: Another most important modification is proposed to increase the maximum sentence for a first-time offender from 10 years to 20.
Cyber Criminal = Hacktivist = Anonymous = Cyber Fraud ≠ NSA: Unfortunately, this Bill will also apply to all types of hackers, who is involved in Data Breaches, Cyber Fraud activities, Identity theft, Malware developers as well as on the other hackers including Anonymous, Hacktivist etc. who is not hacking for financial benefits.
"The bill also includes the Obama administration's proposal to update the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, so that attempted computer hacking and conspiracy to commit computer hacking offenses are subject to the same criminal penalties, as the underlying offenses."
If you haven't forgotten the news of the Hactivist Jeremy Hammond, who was sentenced 10 years in prison under the same Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for hacking into private intelligence contractor Stratfor and attempting to highlight Stratfor's work as a private intelligence firm.
He exposed Surveillance operation done by Stratfor on the political protesters at the behest of both private companies and the government. His attack was for political purpose, rather than financial.
Attempt to Hack = Successfully Hacked: If you are even planning to hack someone, then, according to this updated Bill, you are also considered as a Criminal. The Senator also proposed that the hackers who are unsuccessful in their actions are punished as severely as more accomplished ones regardless.
Considering the NSA's unethical Hacking operation? Now that's interesting! Whistle-blowing comes under a massive crime, but spying on the whole world by the their own NSA comes under nothing from any above??
Recently, The Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum accused the NSA of illegally hacking the massive amounts of private data of users under the guise of counterterrorism. "NSA gets to do something like intercepting 7 billion people all day long with no problems. And the rest of us are not even allowed to experiment with improving the security of our own lives without being put in prison or under threat of serious indictment." he said.
Making Laws more strict for hackers with criminal or Fraud activities is OKAY, but what about the team of hackers who are unethically hacking into world's telecommunication companies, devices or the database of Big Internet companies?
Now, this is something on what U.S Government won't give a damn look!
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Developers of phpMyAdmin, one of the most popular and widely used MySQL database management systems, today released an updated version 4.8.4 of its software to patch several important vulnerabilities that could eventually allow remote attackers to take control of the affected web servers.
The phpMyAdmin project last Sunday gave an early heads-up about the latest security update through its blog, probably the first time, as an experiment to find if pre-announcements can help website admins, hosting providers and package managers better prepare for the security release.
"We are inspired by the workflow of other projects (such as Mediawiki and others) which often announce any security release in advance to allow package maintainers and hosting providers to prepare. We are experimenting to see if such a workflow is suitable for our project," phpMyAdmin release manager Isaac Bennetch told The Hacker News.
phpMyAdmin is a free, open-source administration tool for managing MySQL databases using a simple graphical interface over the web-browser.
Almost every web hosting service pre-installs phpMyAdmin with their control panels to help webmasters easily manage their databases for websites, including WordPress, Joomla, and many other content management platforms.
Besides many bug fixes, there are primarily three critical security vulnerabilities that affect phpMyAdmin versions before release 4.8.4, phpMyAdmin revealed in its latest advisory.
New phpMyAdmin Vulnerabilities
Details of three newly discovered phpMyAdmin vulnerabilities are as described below:
1.) Local file inclusion (CVE-2018-19968) — phpMyAdmin versions from at least 4.0 through 4.8.3 includes a local file inclusion flaw that could allow a remote attacker to read sensitive contents from local files on the server through its transformation feature.
"The attacker must have access to the phpMyAdmin Configuration Storage tables, although these can easily be created in any database to which the attacker has access. An attacker must have valid credentials to log in to phpMyAdmin; this vulnerability does not allow an attacker to circumvent the login system."
2.) Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)/XSRF (CVE-2018-19969) — phpMyAdmin versions 4.7.0 through 4.7.6 and 4.8.0 through 4.8.3 includes a CSRF/XSRF flaw, which if exploited, could allow attackers to "perform harmful SQL operations such as renaming databases, creating new tables/routines, deleting designer pages, adding/deleting users, updating user passwords, killing SQL processes" just by convincing victims into opening specially crafted links.
3.) Cross-site scripting (XSS) (CVE-2018-19970) — The software also includes a cross-site scripting vulnerability in its navigation tree, which impacts versions from at least 4.0 through 4.8.3, using which an attacker can inject malicious code into the dashboard through a specially-crafted database/table name.
To address all above listed security vulnerabilities, phpMyAdmin developers today released the latest version 4.8.4, as well as separate patches for some previous versions.
Website administrators and hosting providers are highly recommended to install latest update or patches immediately.
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(CNN)A Brazilian woman who has accused Neymar of rape has broken her silence to provide a detailed account of the evening she spent with the Brazilian soccer star to reaffirm her allegations against him.Follow @cnnsport
In a television interview with Brazilian station SBT broadcast Wednesday, 26-year-old Najila Trindade said she had been left "traumatized," accusing the Paris Saint-Germain forward of raping and violently assaulting her.Neymar, the world's most expensive soccer player, has previously denied all the allegations against him, and has called the incident, "a trap."CNN has contacted Neymar and PSG for comment on the allegations made by Trindade in the interview, but has yet to receive a response.Speaking on Wednesday, Trindade, who met Neymar on May 15 in Paris, says she contacted him on Instagram, intent on pursuing a sexual relationship with the soccer star.Read More"There was a sexual intent, it was a desire of mine. I think that was clear to him. And he asked when I could go and I said at that moment I couldn't, for financial reasons, I couldn't go, and also because of my schedule at work."And so he suggested "well, but I can solve that" and I went. With money ... with the ticket," she told Brazil's SBT.Neymar plays for French club Paris Saint-Germain.Trindade says she met Neymar at the Hotel Sofitel Paris Arc Du Triomphe."I had the desire of being with Neymar and when I got there everything was good, everything was fine, the messages, I was going to succeed, do you understand? But when I got there he was aggressive, totally different from the guy I met through the texts."Still, to that point it was fine. Because I really wanted to be with him, I thought, let me try to get a handle on this. And we started to caress each other, to kiss each other and then he undressed me," she said.She says that after warning him that she would not have sex without a condom he began to violently restrain her in order to have intercourse with her without using a prophylactic.Trindade says she asked Neymar to stop but he refused."From the moment that he held me, violently hitting me, he was forcing me to stay there, in that place," she said."I don't think that just because I was keen to be with him that he had the right to do that to me," she told SBT in Brazil.Neymar has strenuously denied allegations against him, publishing text messages and photos, on Instagram, he said prove he was set up, and his representative claimed he was the victim of attempted extortion."I'm being accused of rape," the Paris Saint-Germain player said in a video published on his Instagram account last week. "Yes, it is a heavy word, a very strong thing," he said in Portuguese."What happened was totally the opposite of what they are talking and saying," Neymar said. "I'm very upset at this moment." "This is a very unpleasant situation, not only for myself but also for my family. For putting them in this situation, because I really didn't want to, I was induced to do it, it was something that happened, it was a trap and I ended up falling for it, but that's a lesson from here on out."The video has since been taken down.The woman left Paris on May 17 and waited to file a report in Brazil because she "was quite emotionally shaken and scared of registering the facts in another country," the police report said.Police in Paris have not responded to CNN's calls regarding the alleged incident. The Paris prosecutor's office say they have not opened an investigation. In his Instagram video, an emotional Neymar contended that his encounter with the accuser was "a relationship between a man and woman, within four walls, something that happens with every couple," but also that he had been set up. "It was a trap, and I ended up falling for it."Neymar's representative, NR Sports, said in a press release, last week, that the player "was a victim of attempted extortion, practiced by a lawyer from the city of Sao Paulo, who, according to his version, represented the interests of the alleged victim."In Wednesday's TV interview, Trindade says she has no desire for financial compensation and is only "pursuing justice." She also says that her first lawyer dropped her case after she went to the police to pursue her complaint against his advice.CNN has been unable to reach that attorney for comment. It is not known if she has new representation.Neymar ended his Instagram video showing flirty and at times explicitly sexual texts and intimate photos that he said were exchanges with his accuser even after the alleged incident. The exchanges began in March, according to the time stamp on the texts."I will expose everything, expose all the conversations I had with the girl, all our moments, which are intimate ... but it is necessary to open and expose them to prove that nothing really happened," he said.Two days after Trindade filed the report, he took to social media, strenuously denying her accusations and sharing a sexually charged text exchange between the pair that he claims continued after the alleged assault, he says proving the consensual nature of their relationship.When asked about why she continued to message Neymar after the alleged rape, Trindade said: "Initially, I wasn't able to react, due to the trauma."And then I knew that if I didn't speak to him normally, pretending that I hadn't understood what had happened, he wouldn't speak to me again and I wouldn't have how to prove what he had done to me."The latest allegations came on the same day Neymar was ruled out of the Copa America, South America's showpiece international tournament, after sustaining an ankle injury during Brazil's 2-0 warm-up win over Qatar in Brasilia.Neymar limped off during Brazil's 2-0 win over Qatar in Brasilia.Visit CNN.com/sport/football for more news and featuresNeymar was seen walking with crutches with heavy ice packaging around his left ankle before being taken to hospital where he was visited by the country's president Jair Bolsonaro.The injury is the latest setback in a forgettable season for Neymar, who was stripped of the Brazilian captaincy last month following disciplinary issues.He was banned for three matches by French football authorities last month after a video posted by a spectator at the Coupe de France final appeared to show him striking a fan after a brief confrontation. PSG had said it would appeal the ban.The striker was also banned from European competition by UEFA for an Instagram post criticizing match officials in charge of the French club's Champions League defeat to Manchester United in March.Neymar, incensed that a last minute penalty was awarded to United using the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system, will serve a three-match suspension next season as punishment. CNN's Vasco Cotovio, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Sean Coppack in London contributed to this report.
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I hope you all still remember the famous and powerful Remote Administration Tool (RAT) called 'Dark Comet', developed by a French computer geek 'Jean-Pierre Lesueur', also known as 'DarkCoderSc'.
However, He had closed the Dark Comet project, when the Syrian government found to be using it to track down and to spy on their people. After that DarkCoderSc started working under a new banner 'Phrozen Software' to develop many new security softwares and penetration testing tools.
Just yesterday, Jean-Pierre and his team-mate Fabio Pinto from French University, have released a new tool called 'Rakabulle', a file binder with some cool features for penetration testers and malware researchers.
File binder is an application that allows a user to bind multiple files together, resulting in a single executable file. When you execute that single application, all previous merged files will be extracted to a temporary location, and will be executed normally.
"The builder Rakabulle application will create a stub and inject in its resource the target files to extract and execute. The stub is the little generate part of the program which is designed to extract from its resource the target files to a temporary location and execute. In our application the stub also got a part to inject in Explorer or Internet Explorer process and load custom made plugins.
Video Demo:
Listed features are:
File binder, auto file extractor and executor.
REM (Remote Code Execution), Execute code (Plugins) in target process (Explorer or Internet Explorer)
Support 32 and 64 Process.
The application is a 32bit Application (Soon we will compile the 64bit version)
Support UPX compression for the stub (Without compression stub size is about 38KiB using pure Windows API no extra libraries; with compression stub size is approximately 16KiB) The UPX compression doesn't change the way the application work only the final size.
Support Windows startup.
Doesn't require administrative privileges.
Plugins and File list support drag and drop.
Support plugins with an open source example.
The stub and the builder are coded using Unicode encoding.
The file binder application is available for Free to download from Rakabulle website.
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(CNN)Russian President Vladimir Putin is quarantining after several people in his inner circle tested positive for Covid-19, the Kremlin said Tuesday.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin has tested negative for coronavirus and is "absolutely healthy."Peskov told journalists in a conference call that as "several people" in Putin's entourage got sick with Covid-19 the President "must take a responsible position and not endanger the health of his colleagues." The spokesman did not specify who has tested positive and said he didn't know whether the individuals had been vaccinated.During a televised meeting with government officials and members of the ruling United Russia party, Putin said several people in his "innermost circle" had contracted the virus, including one staff member with whom he worked closely on Monday.The staffer was vaccinated and recently got "revaccinated," Putin said, apparently referring to a booster shot, which Russia is now offering to those immunized more than six months prior.Read More"He was revaccinated, apparently, a bit too late. He fell ill three days after the revaccination. The day before I communicated with him very closely, all day long," Putin said. "This is an experiment -- let's see how Sputink V actually works. Because my [antibodies] are high. Hope everything will be as it should be and Sputnik will show its high parameters for protection against Covid-19 in real life," he added.Putin -- who was vaccinated against Covid-19 in March -- had a busy day on Monday. He held face-to face talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, met a number of Russian Paralympians and inspected troops taking part in military exercises in Nizhny Novgorod.How Russian vaccine Sputnik V spread through Latin AmericaAsked why Putin met with Assad if there were concerns about his exposure to people who tested positive, Peskov said the event took place before the decision to quarantine was made.When pressed on the matter by journalists who brought up the fact Putin told Russian athletes on Monday there were people sick with coronavirus around him, Peskov reiterated there was "nothing illogical" about Putin's schedule."First, I can say that Putin did not meet with Assad at the end of the day, it was at the beginning of the working day. And everything else, as the doctors completed their studies and the necessary procedures ... a decision was made. There is nothing illogical here. At that time [when the meetings happened], doctors were still doing their tests," Peskov said."Nobody's health was endangered," he added.Putin also met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow on Monday.The Russian President acknowledged the existence of "identified cases of coronavirus in his environment," according to a Kremlin statement.Putin also referred to the situation on a call on Tuesday with his Republic of Tajikistan counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, adding that he would have to quarantine for "a certain period of time" as a consequence.The Kremlin statement said that Putin's scheduled appointments for the ongoing week will now be attended via videoconference."Isolation does not directly affect the work of the President. But there will be no face-to-face events for some time," Peskov added. Russia is among the countries worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic, reporting the eighth highest number of cases globally. As of Tuesday, it had officially recorded more than 7 million cases and 190,000 deaths, according to World Health Organization data.It is currently battling a devastating third wave of infections, with weekly deaths at some of the highest levels so far. Russia has developed several Covid-19 vaccines, but it is battling persistently low vaccination rates -- a problem caused by high levels of hesitancy among its population. Just over a quarter of Russians have received the shot, compared to more than a half in the United States and two thirds in the United Kingdom, according Our World in Data.
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Nearly 1 million Windows systems are still unpatched and have been found vulnerable to a recently disclosed critical, wormable, remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)—two weeks after Microsoft releases the security patch.
If exploited, the vulnerability could allow an attacker to easily cause havoc around the world, potentially much worse than what WannaCry and NotPetya like wormable attacks did in 2017.
Dubbed BlueKeep and tracked as CVE-2019-0708, the vulnerability affects Windows 2003, XP, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 editions and could spread automatically on unprotected systems.
The vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code and take control of a targeted computer just by sending specially crafted requests to the device's Remote Desktop Service (RDS) via the RDP—without requiring any interaction from a user.
Describing the BlueKeep vulnerability as being Wormable that could allow malware to propagate to vulnerable systems just like WannaCry, Microsoft released a security fix to address the vulnerability with its May 2019 Patch Tuesday updates.
However, the latest Internet scan performed by Robert Graham, head of offensive security research firm Errata Security, revealed that, unfortunately, roughly 950,000 publicly accessible machines on the Internet are vulnerable to the BlueKeep bug.
This clearly means that even after the security patch is out, not every user and organisation has deployed it to address the issue, posing a massive risk to individuals and organizations, including industrial and healthcare environments.
Graham used "rdpscan," a quick scanning tool he built on top of his masscan port scanner that can scan the entire Internet for systems still vulnerable to the BlueKeep vulnerability, and found a whole 7 million systems that were listening on port 3389, of which around 1 million systems are still vulnerable.
"Hackers are likely to figure out a robust exploit in the next month or two and cause havoc with these machines," the researcher says.
"That means when the worm hits, it'll likely compromise those million devices. This will likely lead to an event as damaging as WannaCry, and notPetya from 2017 -- potentially worse, as hackers have since honed their skills exploiting these things for ransomware and other nastiness."
The BlueKeep vulnerability has so much potential to wreak havoc worldwide that it forced Microsoft to release patches for not only the supported Windows versions but also Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003, which no longer receive mainstream support from the company but are still widely used.
Not just researchers, malicious hackers and cybercriminals have also started scanning the Internet for vulnerable Windows systems to target them with malware, GreyNoise Intelligence said.
"GreyNoise is observing sweeping tests for systems vulnerable to the RDP "BlueKeep" (CVE-2019-0708) vulnerability from several dozen hosts around the Internet. This activity has been observed from exclusively Tor exit nodes and is likely being executed by a single actor," the tweet says.
However, fortunately, so far no security researcher has yet publicly published any proof-of-concept exploit code for BlueKeep, though a few of them have confirmed to have successfully developed a working exploit.
Are you still waiting for me to tell you what you should do next? Go and fix the goddamn vulnerability if you are using one of them.
If fixing the flaw in your organisation is not possible anytime sooner, then you can take these mitigations:
Disable RDP services, if not required.
Block port 3389 using a firewall or make it accessible only over a private VPN.
Enable Network Level Authentication (NLA) – this is partial mitigation to prevent any unauthenticated attacker from exploiting this Wormable flaw.
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The infamous eGobbler hacking group that surfaced online earlier this year with massive malvertising campaigns has now been caught running a new campaign exploiting two browser vulnerabilities to show intrusive pop-up ads and forcefully redirect users to malicious websites.
To be noted, hackers haven't found any way to run ads for free; instead, the modus operandi of eGobbler attackers involves high budgets to display billions of ad impressions on high profile websites through legit ad networks.
But rather than relying on visitors' willful interaction with advertisements online, eGobbler uses browser (Chrome and Safari) exploits to achieve maximum click rate and successfully hijack as many users' sessions as possible.
In its previous malvertising campaign, eGobbler group was exploiting a then-zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2019-5840) in Chrome for iOS back in April, which allowed them to successfully bypass browser's built-in pop-up blocker on iOS devices and hijack 500 million mobile user sessions in just a week to show pop-up ads.
Malicious sample pop-up ad showing how attackers social engineer victims
Though Google already patched the vulnerability with the release of Chrome 75 in June, eGobbler is still using the flaw to target those who haven't yet updated their Chrome browser.
eGobbler Exploits WebKit Flaw to Redirect Users to Malicious Sites
However, according to the latest report published by security firm Confiant, the eGobbler threat actors recently discovered and started exploiting a new vulnerability in WebKit, the browser engine used by Apple Safari browser for both iOS and macOS, Chrome for iOS and also by earlier versions of Chrome for desktop.
The new WebKit exploit is more interesting because it doesn't require users to click anywhere on legit news, blog or informative websites they visit, neither it spawns any pop-up ad.
Instead, the display ads sponsored by eGobbler leverage the WebKit exploit to forcefully redirect visitors to websites hosting fraudulent schemes or malware as soon as they press the "key down" or "page down" button on their keyboards while reading the content on the website.
This is because the Webkit vulnerability actually resides in a JavaScript function, called the onkeydown event that occurs each time a user presses a key on the keyboard, that allows ads displayed within iframes to break out of security sandbox protections.
"This time around, however, the iOS Chrome pop-up was not spawning as before, but we were, in fact, experiencing redirections on WebKit browsers upon the 'onkeydown' event," the researchers said in their latest report.
"The nature of the bug is that a cross-origin nested iframe is able to 'autofocus' which bypasses the 'allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation' sandbox directive on the parent frame."
"With the inner frame automatically focused, the keydown event becomes a user-activated navigation event, which renders the ad sandboxing entirely useless as a measure for forced redirect mitigation."
Though Apple's app store guidelines restrict all iOS apps with web browsing ability to use its WebKit framework, including for Google Chrome for iOS, mobile users are still less likely to be impacted by the redirection flaw as the 'onkeydown' event doesn't work on the mobile OS.
However, the eGobbler payload, often delivered through popular CDN services, also includes code to trigger redirections when visitors of a targeted web application try to input something in a text area or search forms, likely "to maximize the chances of hijacking these keypresses."
As researchers believe, "this exploit was key in magnifying the impact of this attack."
Between August 1 and September 23, the threat actors have been seen serving their malicious code to a staggering volume of ads, which the researchers estimate to be up to 1.16 billion impressions.
While the previous eGobbler malvertising campaign primarily targeted iOS users in the United States, the latest attack targeted users in Europe countries, with a majority being from Italy.
Confiant privately reported the WebKit vulnerability to both the Google and Apple security teams. Apple fixed the flaw in WebKit with the release of iOS 13 on September 19 and in Safari browser 13.0.1 on September 24, while Google has yet to address it in Chrome.
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Note: We have updated this story to reflect new information after Stack Overflow changed its original announcement and shared more details on the security incident.
Stack Overflow, one of the largest question and answer site for programmers, revealed today that unknown hackers managed to exploit a bug in its development tier and then almost a week after they gained unauthorized access to its production version.
Founded by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky in 2008, Stack Overflow is the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network. With 10 million registered users and over 50 million unique visitors every month, Stack Overflow is very popular among professional and enthusiast programmers.
In an older version of the announcement published by Mary Ferguson, VP of Engineering at Stack Overflow, the company confirmed the breach but said it did not find any evidence that hackers accessed customers' accounts or any user data.
However, the updated announcement now says that after sitting quiet for a week, hackers executed privileged web requests, but were able to gain access to a very small portion of data, including IP address, names, and email address—and that for only a small number of users.
"Between May 5 and May 11, the intruder contained their activities to exploration. On May 11, the intruder made a change to our system to grant themselves a privileged access on production. This change was quickly identified and we revoked their access network-wide, began investigating the intrusion, and began taking steps to remediate the intrusion."
"We can now confirm that our investigation suggests the requests in question affected approximately 250 public network users. Affected users will be notified by us," Ferguson said.
The company also revealed hackers exploited a bug that was introduced in a recently deployed built to the development tier for the Stack Overflow website.
Stack Overflow said the company is patching all known vulnerabilities.
"We discovered and investigated the extent of the access and are addressing all known vulnerabilities," Ferguson said.
"As part of our security procedures to protect sensitive customer data, we maintain separate infrastructure and networks for clients of our Teams, Business, and Enterprise products and we have found no evidence that those systems or customer data were accessed. Our Advertising and Talent businesses were also not impacted by this intrusion."
Late last year, another popular question and answer website Quora suffered a massive data breach with hackers gaining access to sensitive information of about 100 million of its users, including their names, email addresses, hashed password, and personal messages.
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(CNN)Azerbaijan and Armenia, neighbors and political rivals, have begun to spar verbally over the absence of a leading European footballer from next week's Europa League final.Arsenal's Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan will miss the May 29 showpiece occasion due to fears over his safety in Baku, Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a century-long conflict stemming from the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. Both Arsenal and Mkhitaryan decided it was best for the 30-year-old to remain in the UK, while the rest of the squad traveled to Baku for the game against Chelsea.Mkhitaryan tweeted earlier this week that, "It's the kind of game that doesn't come along very often for us players and I must admit, it hurts me a lot to miss it. I will be cheering my teammates on! Let's bring it home @Arsenal." [...] It's the kind of game that doesn't come along very often for us players and I must admit, it hurts me a lot to miss it.I will be cheering my teammates on! Let's bring it home @Arsenal 🏆💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼 #uel #final #arsenal #chelsea #AFC #COYG pic.twitter.com/gnDA6oyolw— Henrikh Mkhitaryan (@HenrikhMkh) May 21, 2019
Read MoreThat decision was taken despite European football governing body UEFA's "guarantees" -- after speaking to "the highest authorities in the country" -- that the player would be safe.On Thursday, Azerbaijan's Minister of Youth and Sports, Azad Rahimov, told CNN Sport that there is nothing more his country can do to allay Mkhitaryan's fears given the Azeri government provided more written assurances than on any previous occasion for an athlete entering the country."More?" Rahimov said when questioned by CNN Sport's Amanda Davies. "What do you mean when you say more? More than a guarantee? More than 100%? Our feeling and our understanding about the security, we did all that. What more could we do?"We can send a private jet for him? Accompanied by two F16 Fighting Falcons ... a navy machine? I don't know what more we could do.""UEFA and Arsenal received all possible and not possible documentation. From my personal side, I sent a letter and signed the letter with a guarantee from the government, also from the Azerbaijan Football Federation, also from all the government states in charge for security."'Deep concerns'However, a spokesperson for the Armenian ministry of foreign affairs, told CNN that "the toleration of racist targeting of Armenians in the Azerbaijani public and the media, and manifest security risks have made it impossible" for Mkhitaryan to travel to Baku."The Europa League Final could be a good opportunity for Azerbaijan to live up to its alleged commitment to keeping politics separate from sports as well as to demonstrate its capacity of tolerance and non-discrimination. This opportunity has been spectacularly missed," said Anna A. Naghdalyan, the spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Arsene Wenger: Henrikh Mkhitaryan case 'should not happen in football'Earlier in the week an Arsenal statement expressed "deep concerns" about the situation and the fact that Mkhitaryan's absence would be a big loss for the team. "We're also very sad that a player will miss out on a major European final in circumstances such as this, as it is something that comes along very rarely in a footballer's career," the statement read. However, Rahimov pointed out that numerous Armenian athletes were able to successfully compete in the 2015 European Games in Azerbaijan.READ: Arsenal omits Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Europa League final amid safety concernsREAD: Mkhitaryan absence from Europa League final shames UEFA -- Arsenal and Chelsea should boycottUEFA has already faced criticism for the paltry number of tickets offered to Chelsea and Arsenal fans for the match. Just 6,000 were supplied to fans of each club in a stadium that seats about 65,000 people.Those lucky enough to secure a ticket face a nearly 3,000 mile journey to make the final, despite the stadiums of the two London clubs being based less than nine miles apart. Mkhitaryan's absence and UEFA's decision to award the game to Azerbaijan has also focused scrutiny on the country's human rights record.Kate Allen, Amnesty International's UK director, said in a statement that it is important Azerbaijan isn't allowed to use the Europa League final to "sportswash" and distract from a crackdown that has seen "journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders being ruthlessly targeted."Rahimov said that those who have come to Azerbaijan will find that the country has a number of opposition newspapers, with no limitation, and all political parties are able to organize. And in a statement, the country's foreign ministry said that visitors to the country -- whether they be fans or players will see the real situation in Azerbaijan, saying that it will be "the best response to the baseless claims."CNN's Amanda Davies and Matias Grez contributed to this report
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Lord's, London (CNN)First came the boos, then came the cruise.Australian duo David Warner and Steve Smith were welcomed into one of the world's most famous sporting theaters as pantomime villains amid a cacophony of boos and jeers. By the time they took their leave, only the sound of Australian celebrations remained after an emphatic 64-run victory over England secured a place in the semifinals of the Cricket World Cup.Australia's Steve Smith was booed and jeered by England supporters at Lord's.Facing arch rival England for the first time since returning from a 12-month ban for ball tampering, both men walked out to boos and jeers, though the most forceful were reserved for Smith. Not that the extra attention from the crowd appeared to bother either man. Warner hit 53 to become the leading run scorer in the tournament, while Smith, whose dismissal was celebrated with a huge amount of glee by those in the stands, battled to 38.Read MoreBoth men played their part in Australia reaching 285-7 from its 50 overs before helping to skittle England out for 221.READ: England gave Jofra Archer 'all the respect' he deserves, says Viv RichardsAustralia's David Warner received some sledging from the home supporters.For England, yet more frustration. A third defeat in seven group games leaves its participation in the final four of the 2019 Cricket World Cup in severe jeopardy.It must now defeat either India or New Zealand, both unbeaten in the tournament so far, to ensure it does not suffer a similar fate to the last time it hosted the tournament in 1999 when it crashed out at the group stage.As so often in an international competition, the ability to peak at the right time is crucial. For England, so dominant in one-day cricket over the past few years, it appears that peak is now fading out of view.Already under pressure following two disappointing defeats by Pakistan and Sri Lanka, England was up against it from the start as Australia made a fast start at Lord's.Aaron Finch, the Australian captain, struck a century and his opening partnership of 123 with Warner allowed the visiting side to take control of the contest.READ: Why India vs Pakistan is the 'biggest game in world sport'JUST WATCHEDCricket legend Viv Richards on the 2019 CWCReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHCricket legend Viv Richards on the 2019 CWC 02:54England, victorious in 10 of its past 12 one-day games against Australia, appeared rattled. Poor fielding, dropped catches and inaccurate bowling left it facing an uphill struggle.Chasing 286 for victory, England's task became nigh on impossible after losing its opening three wickets for just 26 runs.Ben Stokes offered some resistance by hitting 89 but once he was dismissed by Mitchell Starc, England's hopes of an unlikely victory were all but ended.More worrying for England will be the sight of Bangladesh, a point behind, coming up on the rails. Sri Lanka, two points behind but with a game in hand, will also fancy its chances of gatecrashing the semifinals. What was unthinkable only weeks ago -- that the top-ranked host nation could not make the final four -- is now becoming a more realistic possibility.And if that happens, you can bet you'll hear some boos.
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Other than Windows, Now other platforms are becoming more popular every day and attracting bad guys who are starting to create malicious code for other systems.
Java applications can run on multiple platforms with ease, thus no surprise that malicious code written in Java that is designed to target more than one operating system are becoming increasingly common.
Researchers at McAfee Labs spotted another sample of Java based trojan dubbed as JV/BackDoor-FAZY that opens a back door for an attacker to execute commands and acts as a bot after infection.
According to researcher, The key to decrypt the config file was encrypted with Base 64, Triple-DES algorithm and Hex. Decrypting the file provides information about the backdoor connection, includes IP address, port number, operating system, mutex information, and password for the connection.
"On execution, the JAR file opens the backdoor connection to the IP address and the port mentioned in the plain config file. Once the backdoor connection is made, the compromised user environment will act as the server and the attacker will be the client. The attacker can now take control of the victim's system and can execute any commands." blog post said.
Such malicious file can be bundled with a legitimate file and can be dropped and executed in the background, without the user consent and can copy itself to all available drives on the system and allows hackers to record the user screen, keystrokes, access to command prompt, downloading & execute other binary files or using the system to DDoS using HTTP POST and GET requests.
Multi-platform malware is not entirely new, but with the increasing popularity of Apple products and systems running Linux, there is an incentive for malware authors to save time and resources by developing strains that are capable of infecting multiple operating systems.
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(CNN)The United Arab Emirates' first mission to Mars is almost ready for a rendezvous with the red planet.The Emirates Mars Mission, known as the Hope Probe, will go into orbit around Mars on February 9. The mission was one of three that launched to Mars from Earth in July, including NASA's Perseverance rover and China's Tianwen-1 mission. Hope will orbit the planet, Tianwen-1 will orbit the planet and land on it and Perseverance will land on Mars.All three missions launched around the same time due to an alignment between Mars and the Earth on the same side of the sun, making for a more efficient journey to Mars. The Hope Probe will be the first of these missions to arrive at Mars. The UAE Space Agency will share live coverage of Hope's arrival on February 9 beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET on its website. Read MoreWhen the spacecraft arrives, the Hope Probe will mark the UAE as only the fifth country in history to reach the red planet. The ambitions of the mission don't stop there. The probe, along with its three scientific instruments, is expected to create the first complete portrait of the Martian atmosphere. The instruments will collect different data points on the atmosphere to also gauge seasonal and daily changes. The UAE has successfully launched the Arab world's first Mars missionThis information will provide scientists with an idea of what climate dynamics and weather are like in different layers of the Martian atmosphere. Together, this will shed light on how energy and particles, like oxygen and hydrogen, are moved through the atmosphere and how they even escape Mars. "We've learned from past missions that the loss of the atmosphere over time over Martian history is important," said David Brain, deputy principal investigator for MAVEN orbiter, or the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. "We need to do more to quantify that loss and to understand how the rest of the atmosphere influences that loss from a global perspective."UAE hopes this tiny lunar rover will discover unexplored parts of the moonThe mission team said the spacecraft is very healthy and behaving exactly as it's supposed to in the days before arrival during a press conference Thursday. Ramping up for the mission's arrival at Mars has been an emotional roller coaster, said Her Excellency Sarah bint Yousef Al Amiri, chairperson at the UAE Space Agency and minister of state for advanced sciences in the UAE. "Every point of celebration is followed by several points of worry waiting for the next points of celebration," she said. "On the other hand, one of our mission objectives was to stimulate a lot of students and an entire society within STEM. And we've seen a large shift with the mindset of students, first and foremost, within the Emirates. But we've also seen a lot of keen engagement within the region, a region that is typically known to be unstable, and that has triggered a lot of thoughts with regards to what is possible."Arrival at MarsThe Hope Probe is moving with such speed toward Mars that if it doesn't slow down appropriately upon arrival, the spacecraft will literally use Mars' gravity to slingshot it through deep space. Almost half of the spacecraft's fuel will be used to slow it down enough for the spacecraft to be captured by Mars' gravity and go into orbit. By firing its thrusters for 30 minutes before reaching Mars, it will slow down from a speed of more than 75,185 miles per hour to 11,184 miles per hour. How the Hope Mars mission will make history in the UAEFor reference, when the Perseverance rover arrives to land on Mars on February 18, it will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 miles per hour and only has seven minutes to decelerate for a soft landing on the surface. The Hope Probe's team considers this phase of the spacecraft's arrival at Mars, called the Mars Orbit Insertion phase, just as critical and risky as launching the spacecraft. And much like Perseverance will essentially land itself on Mars without any interference from NASA, Hope will be able to react to any issues and take care of itself, to some degree. Once Hope has established an orbit around Mars, it will make contact with Earth through a ground station in Spain. One-way light time between Mars and the Earth takes between 10 and 11 minutes, so the signal will be slightly delayed. "Less than half of the spacecraft that have been sent to Mars have actually made it successfully," said Pete Withnell, program manager for the mission at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. "But this is a highly practiced, highly simulated and highly analyzed event. I cannot imagine being better prepared than we are right now."Capturing a new viewAfter the gravity of Mars captures Hope, it will enter an elliptical orbit around the planet, coming as close as 621 miles above the Martian surface and as distant as 30,683 miles from it. It will take Hope about 40 hours to complete one orbit. The probe will send back its first image of Mars during this time. Hope will stay in this phase, called the capture orbit, between February and mid-May during the transition stage of the mission, according to Brain. During this transition, the ground teams will send some commands to the spacecraft to test the instruments and make observations of Mars to see if any of the instruments need tweaking. Then, it will be time to maneuver Hope into the science orbit which will allow the probe's instruments to begin capturing scientific data of Mars.Hope will complete one scientific orbit of the planet every 55 hours. This orbit will provide the first global picture of weather and atmospheric dynamics on Mars, which will be shared with the scientific community via the mission's data center. After '7 minutes of terror,' NASA's Perseverance rover will begin an 'epic journey' on Mars next monthThe mission is expected to last for two years, with the possibility of being extended for a third year. The probe will be in a different orbit from past spacecraft that have visited Mars. "It's a very high altitude orbit, much higher than any other Mars science missions," Brain said. "In that high altitude orbit, where our instruments observe Mars from the global perspective, will always be seeing roughly half of Mars no matter where we are in the orbit when we look at the planet."The orbit will take the probe fairly close to parallel with the Martian equator, which will enable the spacecraft to capture different times of day on the planet. And the fact that it's an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit means that observations will be captured close to as well as distant from Mars. "It can observe many geographic regions at a single time of day when the whole probe gets close to Mars and speeds up, and it can match the speed at which Mars is spinning on its axis," Brain said. "It can hover above a single geographic region like the big volcano, Olympus Mons, and study the atmosphere there at many times of day."Every nine days of the mission, the probe will have completely captured a picture of the Martian atmosphere. "We will have observed every geographic region at every time of day, every nine days," Brain said.
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US authorities have arrested two North Carolina men on charges that they were part of the notorious hacking group "Crackas With Attitude."
Crackas with Attitude is the group of hackers who allegedly was behind a series of audacious and embarrassing hacks that targeted personal email accounts of senior officials at the CIA, FBI, the White House, Homeland Security Department, and other US federal agencies.
Andrew Otto Boggs, 22, of North Wilkesboro, N.C., who allegedly used the handle "INCURSIO," and Justin Gray Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, who known online as "D3F4ULT," were arrested on Thursday morning on charges related to their alleged roles in the computer hacking, according to a press release by Department of Justice.
A 16-year-old British teenager suspected of being part of the group was arrested in February by the FBI and British police.
Although court documents did not name the victims, the hacking group had allegedly:
Hacked into the AOL email of CIA director John Brennan and released personal details.
Hacked into the personal emails and phone accounts of the US spy chief James Clapper.
Broke into the AOL email of the FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano.
Cracka also leaked the personal details of 31,000 government agents belonging to nearly 20,000 FBI agents; 9,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers and some number of DoJ staffers.
"In some instances, members of the conspiracy uploaded private information that they obtained from victims' personal accounts to public websites; made harassing phone calls to victims and their families; and defaced victims' social media accounts," reads the press release.
According to the FBI officials, between October 2015 to February 2016, the hacking group used social engineering in order to trick the victims into revealing their account number, password, and other details.
Boggs and Liverman will be extradited next week to the Eastern District of Virginia, where federal prosecutors have spent months building a case against Crackas With Attitude.
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More than 200 million records containing a wide range of property-related information on US residents were left exposed on a database that was accessible on the web without requiring any password or authentication.
The exposed data — a mix of personal and demographic details — included the name, address, email address, age, gender, ethnicity, employment, credit rating, investment preferences, income, net worth, and property information, such as:
Market value
Property type
Mortgage amount, rate, type, and lender
Refinance amount, rate, type, and lender
Previous owners
Year built
Number of beds and bathrooms
Tax assessment information
According to security firm Comparitech, the database, which was hosted on Google Cloud, is said to have been first indexed by search engine BinaryEdge on 26th January and discovered a day later by cybersecurity researcher Bob Diachenko.
But after failing to identify the database owner, the server was eventually taken offline more than a month later yesterday.
"We've been trying to contact Googles cloud security team (IP with database was hosted on their cloud) for them to take down the IP but never got a response," the research team told The Hacker News. "No other ways to determine the owner were possible because no reverse DNS records were available due to the cloud-based nature of the IP."
In all, the database comprised of 201,162,598 records, with each entry corresponding to a unique individual.
Comparitech noted that during the time it had access to the database, "it was being updated with new data, suggesting that the information contained is fairly recent."
Furthermore, the leak raises questions about the identity of the service that would need to store such detailed personally identifiable and demographic data of this kind.
Spear-phishing Warning
Given that the data was not adequately secured, it's not immediately clear if other unauthorized parties accessed this database and downloaded its content. The consequence of such exposure is the increased possibility of targeted spear-phishing attacks.
"The detailed personal, demographic, and property information contained in this data-set is a gold mine for spammers, scammers, and cybercriminals who run phishing campaigns," Comparitech said. "The data allows criminals not only to target specific people but craft a more convincing message."
Specifically, attackers could target individuals with phishing emails to deliver all kinds of malware that can download malicious programs and steal sensitive information.
It's therefore crucial that users turn on two-factor authentication to add a second layer of account protection.
The incident is not the only time instances of leaky servers have drawn headlines. In recent months, Ecuadorian and Russian citizens, and US government personnel have had their personal info left unprotected on Elasticsearch servers, underscoring that there's still a long way to go when it comes to cloud security.
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After Whatsapp, The Chinese WeChat is the second most popular messaging application and currently being targeted by cybercriminals to spread a new Banking Trojan in order to steal the financial information from its users.
WeChat is a famous mobile instant messaging app developed by Chinese company Tencent, with more than 355 million users across the world. The app offers people to chit-chat with their friends and relatives, and also allows users to make payments for goods and services on WeChat.
The Payment feature of the app requires users' bank account details to their messenger account and this is what tempting cybercriminals to develop new and more sophisticated banking Trojans and malwares.
The security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have uncovered such banking Trojan, dubbed as Banker.AndroidOS.Basti.a, which looks exactly like the legitimate WeChat application for Android devices. While installation, it also requires the same permissions such as to access the Internet, received SMSs, and other services just like the real Wechat app.
Researchers found that some modules of the malware app are encrypted and this feature makes it different and sophisticated from other Mobile banking malwares. The malware authors have used an effective encryption in order to prevent Banker.AndroidOS.Basti.a trojan from reverse engineering of the code.
However, the Kaspersky researchers have successfully managed to decode the threat module and found that the malware is capable to perform various types of malicious tasks, including its more professional GUI, which makes it an efficient phishing tool.
Once the malicious WeChat app installed on the victims' android devices, they are served a page asking to enter some useful information including their phone numbers, payment card numbers, PINs and other financial data.
As soon as a victim provides the personal details to the fake app, it sends them back to an email account controlled by the malware author. "This Trojan-Banker also registered a BootReceiver. It will monitor newly received text messages and uninstall broadcasts from the infected mobile." they noticed.
The email account name and password details are hard-coded in the source code of the trojan and researchers have successfully retrieved it. They logged into the attackers email account and found that the banking trojan has already made lots of victims.
As the online apps are becoming more popular among the people, hence becoming an easy and a tempting target for cyber thieves. So, its up to you to better safeguard your data privacy.
Make sure that you have installed a reputed mobile security software in your devices. Always update your software applications to the latest version and avoid providing your sensitive information to any suspicious websites or downloading any app from any untrusted source.
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(CNN)Lille's 2-1 victory over Angers on Sunday secured arguably the most unlikely league title in European football this season, as the French club beat powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain to the Ligue 1 trophy by a single point.As is the case for every other team in France, Lille's budget is a fraction of the Qatari-backed PSG's and its ascent to the top of French football -- from avoiding relegation by a single point as recently as 2018 -- is nothing short of remarkable.The recipe for success is Lille's close-knit squad, which has become a mix of mostly young players with a few older stars to guide them, as well as diverse group of nationalities.Lille boasts the fourth-youngest squad in Ligue 1 and has given playing time to only 21 players this players, the fewest in the league, according to Transfermarkt.One of the older players is defender José Fonte, who was brought to the club three years ago to help guide the talented youngsters that Lille's scouting department is so adept at unearthing.Read MoreThe 37-year-old Portugal international, one of numerous Portuguese-speaking players and coaches, believes the array of languages and cultures in the squad makes acclimatizing easy for the new recruits.READ: How football "art" helped Lille return to the big timeLille's players celebrate after winning the Ligue 1 title."I would say having three or four experienced players [is crucial]," Fonte told CNN before the end of the season. "We have the French contingent that are very, very close knit. They're always together, but we manage to mingle with them. We manage to be close to them. We laugh with them, we try to learn the language. "Everybody in the dressing room, or almost everybody in the dressing room, speaks French. We give ourselves to the other cultures and we give ourselves to them, and they try to know about us. So there's a great chemistry between us. Then we have the Turkish [players] that also have been fundamental in the squad with Burak [Yilmaz] as the older guy. "He's been very good in terms of passing this experience and helping the other two young boys that we have from Turkey. I mean, it's a young and old mix and there's people from every country almost in this squad, but it works. It works because we also have good people, good guys that want to be successful and are positive influences. "That's what we try to do, be positive, be helpful towards others and understanding that to win, you know, we've got to win together and help each other."Lille's chemistry and the squad's bond have been crucial to this season's success.'Pieces of the puzzle'The man Lille largely has to thank for its current success is former Sporting Director Luis Campos, who left the club in December.Campos, who was appointed by Lille in 2017, is widely regarded as one of the smartest and most effective technical directors in football and is likely to be chased by several of Europe's top clubs ahead of next season.In 2018, the Portuguese traveled a staggering 240,000 miles around the globe in search of new talent for Lille's ambitious project, which he hoped would see it become a regular in the Champions League.Lille's former general director Marc Ingla (L) and former sporting director Luis Campos (R).That dream was realized in 2019, when Lille played its first Champions League campaign for seven years and, once again, it has guaranteed a place in European football's top competition for next season."This year still, but the last two seasons or three seasons, it was Luis Campos that put together the whole squad, the three squads in this case," Fonte said. "Obviously with the manager [Christophe Galtier] behind the scenes also choosing, but Luis Campos did the work, you know, he brought us all to the club."We've got to give credit where credit is due and well done to him and to the chairman as well at the time [Marc Ingla] for putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and then it was all of us being able to gel."READ: Lille and the making of Arsenal star Nicolas PepeLille sold Nicolas Pepe to Arsenal for $102 million in 2019.Lille's inability to compete financially with Europe's biggest clubs means the talented youngsters it discovers inevitably leave, but the disappointment of seeing star players depart is offset somewhat by the transfer fees they command.In the past two seasons alone, Lille has made five of the top eight most expensive player sales in its history; Nicolas Pepe, Victor Osimhen, Thiago Mendes, Gabriel and Rafael Leao were sold for a combined fee of more than $290 million.Early beliefLille started the season in exciting form, winning five of its opening nine matches and remaining undefeated until the 10th game of the season. PSG, meanwhile, stumbled to defeats in its opening two matches, before a string of bad results in November and December had people wondering whether one of the chasing pack could break the club's three-year stranglehold on the Ligue 1 title.However, Fonte believed this group of players was capable of something special as early as the opening few weeks of the season."Honestly, after a few games and, you know, seeing the depth that we had in our squad, I kind of expected us to be where we are at the moment," he said. "Like competing for the first place. We have a very young squad, but there's a lot of quality in the squad. Lille supporters celebrate a first Ligue 1 title in 10 years."You almost have two good players for each position, so that gives us the possibility to compete in European competitions and then come back into the league and still perform. You know, we started well in the league, we put some wins in a row and we've been able to consistently be close to them [PSG]. "So when I arrived three years ago, I wasn't so sure, but the beginning of this last season, I was confident that we could challenge them one hundred percent."Whether for fear of tempting fate or becoming complacent, players often deny thinking about winning the title before the end of the season, instead often opting for the "taking it game by game" cliché.Fonte admitted that hasn't been the case at Lille and said the squad had been talking about lifting the trophy "every day" for the last 15 rounds of fixtures."I really believe that you have to visualize before you achieve," he said. "I've been trying to put this target in my teammates' head because I believe that we can do it."'Counting us out'On April 3, Lille traveled to Paris to play PSG in a crucial top of the table clash. While it was perhaps too early in the campaign to be dubbed a "title decider," Fonte called that 1-0 victory over PSG at the Parc des Princes a "massive turning point" in the season."Everybody was already counting us out," he said. "You know, we have French players in our team that play in the national team for France, and they were telling me and other teammates the conversations they were having in the national team, that they were going to beat us and it was finished from then on. "So it was a big moment, [it] was a big turning point for us in terms of confidence and giving us even more belief," as was the victory away to Lyon just three weeks later, in which Lille turned a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 win, with Yilmaz scoring the winning goal with just five minutes to go.Jose Fonte battles with PSG star Kylian Mbappe during April's crucial 1-0 win."So those two games, I would say, were massive in terms of giving us that extra belief."Lille's remarkable rise isn't over yet. The club still has Champions League football to look forward to next season and will almost certainly be better prepared for the rigors of that competition than it was in 2019.Some of the club's special talents will likely leave -- Boubakary Soumaré, Jonathan Ikoné and the rejuvenated Renato Sanches have all drawn the gaze of European clubs -- but, for now, this group of players will just celebrate their remarkable achievement."You know," Fonte said. "Opportunities like this don't come often."
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(CNN)The UK's postal service is urging environmental campaigners to stop sending empty potato chip bags without an envelope after the launch of a campaign urging the country's most popular chip producer to ditch its plastic packaging.The online campaign, which has been signed by more than 310,000 people, calls on the PepsiCo-owned British chip manufacturer Walkers to make its plastic packaging more environmentally friendly. Campaigners have been posting pictures of themselves mailing their empty bags of chips, or crisps as they are known in the UK, through the Royal Mail with the hashtag #PacketInWalkers.The UK consumes approximately 6 billion packets of potato chips every year, according to campaign organizer Geraint Ashcroft. Most of those bags are not recyclable."That's an awful lot of landfill and poison for the environment," Ashcroft wrote on the campaign's petition page.Read MoreWalkers, which produces 11 million bags of potato chips daily, has said that it plans to make its packaging plastic-free by 2025.In a statement emailed to CNN on Wednesday, a Walkers spokesperson said: "We have received some returned packets and recognize the efforts being made to bring the issue of packaging waste to our attention. The returned packets will be used in our research, as we work towards our commitment of improving the recyclability of our packaging." The spokesperson added that PepsiCo is working on a number of ways to tackle the issue, including a pilot of compostable packaging in the US, India and Chile. But some campaigners say those proposals aren't enough. Campaigner Jarred Livesey wrote on Twitter: "2025 is too long to wait for you to use plastic free packaging. It's just not good enough. You produce 4 billion packs per year. I'm sending these back to you so you can deal with your own waste. #PacketInWalkers." .@walkers_crisps 2025 is too long to wait for you to use plastic free packaging. It's just not good enough. You produce 4 billion packs per year. I'm sending these back to you so you can deal with your own waste. #PacketInWalkers pic.twitter.com/S13uiZXpdx— Jarred Livesey (@Jaz_Livesey) September 22, 2018
Some however, have hinted it might be more environmentally -- and physically -- friendly to ditch their potato chip habit altogether. "What if - instead of buying crisps and posting the packages back to @walkers_crisps - we just save our planet AND cholesterol levels by not buying crisps...," Lisa Ann Pasquale wrote on Twitter.According to UK law, the Royal Mail must treat the potato chip bags as mail as long as they're properly addressed. Since Walkers has a registered Freepost address, any correspondence to the company doesn't require customers to pay for a stamp. "If an item is addressed properly and carries the correct postage then Royal Mail is obliged by law to handle and deliver the item to the stated address," a Royal Mail spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CNN. The national mail service has said, however, that it "strongly encourage(s)" activists involved in the campaign to use an envelope."If they are taking part in this campaign we would urge them to put crisp packets in an envelope before posting," the statement said, adding that customers who don't properly package their bags could cause delays or be taken out of the system altogether.
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(CNN)Athletes from around the world are coming to terms with Tokyo 2020's postponement with a mixture of relief and sadness.The decision to push back competition until 2021 came as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faced mounting pressure to delay the Games, which were originally scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9 this year, amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and IOC president Thomas Bach finally agreed to a postponement Tuesday, the first time the Olympics have ever been delayed in their 124-year modern history.Writing on Twitter, Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge praised the "wise decision" to postpone the Games until 2021, adding that he looked forward to defending his title in Japan and "witness a wonderful event."Meanwhile, USA's double Olympic swimming gold medalist from Rio 2016, Lilly King, opted for a short and simple message, writing on Instagram: "Just one more year to get better #Tokyo2020."Read MoreREAD: Japanese PM and IOC chief agree to postpone 2020 Olympics until 2021Tokyo 2020 has been postponed until next year amid the coronavirus pandemic. 'Waited eight years for this'Athletes and individual federations had begun questioning whether it was safe to stage the Games in Tokyo amid the global pandemic and had started to urge organizers to take action as soon as possible. Australia and Canada then became the first countries to pull their athletes out of the competition, which led to a number of other nations doing the same. World champion heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson was one of the leading athletes who had raised her concerns about competing in Japan later this year."Waited eight years for this, what's another one in the grand scheme of things? As an athlete, it's heartbreaking news about the Olympics being postponed until 2021, but it's for all the right reasons and the safety of everyone! Stay indoors," the Briton wrote on Twitter.Similarly, Dutch sprinter Dafne Schippers wrote on Instagram that she had been looking forward to competing in Tokyo this summer but "for now we have to look at the bigger picture and do whatever it takes to beat the coronavirus."READ: Jose Mourinho helps out at local food bank amid coronavirus outbreakFINALLY The OLYMPICS OFFICIALLY postponed for a year!! No box of Wheaties for me today. #breakfastofchampions pic.twitter.com/BAtlDUliQE— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) March 24, 2020 'Struggling with a much bigger problem'While areas of the world are now emerging from up to two months in quarantine, parts of Europe have shut down, notably Italy, which has become the epicenter of the outbreak on the continent. "Today we are all struggling with a much bigger problem and although August still seems far away, the security for such a big event was very difficult. See you in 2021," Italian track cycling champion Elia Viviani wrote on Twitter.Meanwhile, US swimmer Ryan Lochte admitting to being a little annoyed, given the training he has put in."This Olympics was going to be the most important Olympics of my career because of everything that's happened in my past," he told the LA Times."But this whole thing is way bigger than me. It's way bigger than the Olympians. It's affecting the entire world right now. Our main thing is staying safe and healthy."
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Story highlightsFrancois Hollande is forecast to win the French presidency, exit polls sayHollande emerged as Socialist candidate after fall of ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-KahnMany analysts unconvinced that Hollande has right stuff to become presidentHollande has never formally held national elective office, despite rise inside partyFrancois Hollande is forecast to become France's first Socialist president since 1995, according to France 2 television exit polls, but his rise has as much to do with luck as his own political skill, experts say.Hollande led the Socialist Party for 11 years and was leader when his partner Segolene Royale ran unsuccessfully for president against Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007. He emerged as the candidate after the downfall last May of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was then considered the Socialist favorite to defeat President Nicolas Sarkozy. Strauss-Kahn was arrested after a New York hotel maid alleged that he tried to rape her. Charges against the former IMF chief were later dropped in the U.S. but he has been warned he could be investigated in France over accusations he participated in a prostitution ring. One commentator said Hollande was maneuvering himself even before the scandal broke. "He's been preparing this campaign for 18 months now, much before DSK's demise," journalist Agnes Poirier told CNN. "Some say that he knew, like actually many others in the party, that DSK was doomed: his colorful private life was always bound to prevent his running for president. "In that respect, he's not a candidate by default," Poirier added. "He's simply a less charismatic personality than DSK, and less antagonistic than Sarkozy. It doesn't make him weaker though. If he wins, it'll be down to political skill, luck and the fact that Sarkozy is massively rejected by the French."JUST WATCHEDHollande claims victory in FranceReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHHollande claims victory in France 01:24JUST WATCHEDHollande: I've heard call for changeReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHHollande: I've heard call for change 05:11JUST WATCHEDThe challenges that Hollande will faceReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHThe challenges that Hollande will face 03:11JUST WATCHEDMessages to French election candidatesReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHMessages to French election candidates 02:28Born in 1954 in the northern city of Rouen, Hollande was the son of a doctor and a social worker. He was educated at the elite Ecole National d'Administration (ENA), where in 1978 he met Royal, and the couple started a three-decades relationship. They had four children together without marrying, before splitting a month after the 2007 election. Hollande has represented the southern Correze region in parliament since 1988 but many question if he has the right stuff. The main obstacle to his election, analysts believe, is that despite being a Socialist Party insider Hollande has never formally held any national elective office.The 57-year-old's electoral appeal is built around his affability, but the candidate continues to be dogged by questions from even within his own party about whether he has the charisma and decisiveness to be president.Hollande himself said: "There's always a risk when the candidate becomes president: will he deliver what is expected of him? "It's a choice, it's always an important moment for a country because it has to choose between two risks: either you keep the candidate who is on his way out or take the new candidate that we don't know. It's a gamble." But after five years of Sarkozy's hyperactive premiership, during which time France's economic status has taken a knock, polls suggested voters were keen for a change from the president's flamboyancy. Before the first round, former president Jacques Chirac added his support to Hollande. Chirac's biographer Jean Luc Barre told French TV channel BFM TV: "He said last June that he will vote for Francois Hollande ... he has said it a few times since and then again 10 days ago."Hollande is wary of complacency, saying half of those who declare they will vote for him will do so only because they are voting against Sarkozy."What the French want is coherence, stability and justice," Hollande said. "If I am in a favorable position today it's because my fellow citizens want to make the effort to straighten out the country, and at the same time they want it to be just and equitable, no one left out of national solidarity and no one left out of the contributions which must be made." To his critics that sounds as if Hollande wants to revive left-wing tax and social policies of the past, a view reinforced in the first speech of his campaign when he attacked the financial community."I don't want to drive the markets crazy, I don't want to create trouble but rather order and rules and norms. We have to struggle against financial excesses ... those who speculate with sovereign debt, those who develop financial products which have done so much harm."Given the constraints of international finance and economic structures, observers say that if Hollande is elected president he will not really have the room to maneuver to radically shift France to the left the way his Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand did three decades ago. What's more, they believe many voters may be making their choice for president this election based not on substance but on style. And who can blame them, as Hollande has been criticized for declining to spell exactly what his policies will be on the economy, although he has pledged to increase taxes on the rich, boost social spending and create thousands of state jobs. He has also vowed to renegotiate the eurozone fiscal agreement, but analysts say Hollande will likely be a pragmatic leader.Economy: Unspoken issue in electionThe word one hears most often to describe Hollande's style is "sympa," French slang for sympathetic, but his anticipated victory also owes a great deal to Strauss-Kahn's misfortune.
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Story highlightsFormer England star Paul Gascoigne in rehab facility in Arizona Gascoigne admitted after latest alcohol fueled incident The troubled 45-year-old has "complex issues" say his management company A number of leading showbiz and sports stars show public supportFeted as the most talented English player of his generation, whose tears after their semifinal exit of the 1990 World Cup touched a global audience, Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne had it all.His working class background and precocious talent drew comparisons with George Best, but like the former Manchester United legend, who died in 2005, the demons of alcohol addiction have taken an ominous toll. "Alcoholic Paul Gascoigne has been experiencing a tough time of late," said his management agency GamePlan Solutions in a statement released to CNN on Tuesday. "He has been asking for help and has willingly been admitted to a treatment center in America. He has complex issues that are currently being dealt with by professionals."Paul has been extremely touched and overwhelmed by the generous offers of help and support over the past few days. He is motivated to fully understand and control his addiction problem under guidance."JUST WATCHED380 football matches deemed suspiciousReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH380 football matches deemed suspicious 03:28JUST WATCHEDMatch-fixing scandal engulfs EuropeReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHMatch-fixing scandal engulfs Europe 03:05Since his playing career ended in 2004, Gascoigne's life has been on a downward spiral as he has battled both the bottle and compulsive disorders. The 45-year-old has been sectioned three times under Britain's Mental Health Act and made regular trips to rehabilitation clinics. Barely coherentEach time has come promises of a new start, but the grip of addiction manifested itself again last week at a charity event in the Midlands town of Northampton.Barely coherent as he answered questions on stage, he broke down in tears in an appearance lasting less than 10 minutes.Not for the first time, fears for Gascoigne's well being were raised by friends and supporters, including Gary Lineker, a teammate for both England and Tottenham Hotspur.It was Lineker, who famously signaled to the England bench in the semifinal against Germany at Italia 90 after Gascoigne had been yellow carded, meaning the heartbreak of missing the final should the team have made it. Gascoigne's tears of frustration that day formed the basis of Lineker's concern -- now nearly 23 years later, his fears are over a more serious matter. Reacting to the latest sorry incident, Lineker, a respected television presenter, tweeted: "Lots of you asking for my thoughts on Gazza's plight. I can only hope he finds peace somehow, but fear those hopes may be forlorn."JUST WATCHEDJerome Valcke: Match-fixing a 'disease'ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHJerome Valcke: Match-fixing a 'disease' 02:35JUST WATCHED'El Tigre' Falcao on the hunt for goalsReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCH'El Tigre' Falcao on the hunt for goals 04:12From outside the game, CNN's Piers Morgan was quick to lend his support to the fallen star.Great support"Anyone who knows Paul Gascoigne knows how desperate he is, and has been, to sort himself out. He deserves our sympathy, not ridicule. #Gazza," he wrote on his Twitter feed.Lineker and Morgan were reported to have assisted to get Gascoigne admitted to the specialist clinic in Phoenix, Arizona to deal with his alcohol and related problems.Another close friend, former England Test cricketer Ronnie Irani, helped to get Gascoigne on a plane to the United States, as he confirmed in an interview on national radio."I had a chat with (BBC radio DJ) Chris Evans and he just asked how we could help him," Irani told TalkSport."We knew we just had to get him on this flight, out to Phoenix, we just had to get him on the plane."I called British Airways and explained the situation, that we had to get him out to Phoenix to get him some help. He needs it, and if not, who knows what's going to happen?"Irani added: "It's tough. Mental health issues are a serious, serious subject."But sadly he's not been able to help himself."So many people rang up yesterday to help Paul Gascoigne, like you could never believe, but the truth is he hasn't been able to help himself."Gascoigne's precocious talent was first recognized by his local club Newcastle, though his troubled upbringing in an area of the north-east city noted for social deprivation, may well have been the basis for his troubled life.JUST WATCHEDTiny island makes football historyReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHTiny island makes football history 03:42JUST WATCHEDEgypt verdict causes deadly clashesReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHEgypt verdict causes deadly clashes 02:24Top talentBut the midfielder's talent on the pitch was undoubted, once taunting opponents by sitting on the ball in the middle of a hotly contested English top division match.Turning down an offer from Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, Gascoigne signed for Tottenham and made his first of his 57 appearances for England shortly afterwards.Then national manager Bobby Robson famously labeled him as "daft as as brush" because of his unpredictable and compulsive behavior, but had no complaints as Gascoigne proved central to England's 1990 World Cup success.Read: Depression in the Premier LeagueRobson's predecessor Graham Taylor first flagged up a wider problem, referring to Gascoigne's "refuelling" problems -- a clear reference to his liking for alcohol.When Terry Venables, Gascoigne's club manager at Tottenham, took over the England team, he had to cope with the infamous "Dentist's Chair" incident in Hong Kong.Supposedly preparing there for Euro 96, Gascoigne and teammates were pictured in a bar sitting in a chair and having alcoholic drinks poured down their throats.After scoring a brilliant individual goal against Scotland in the tournament, Gascoigne lay prone on the Wembley turf and allowed teammates to spray water in his mouth, mimicking the controversy.But eventually the jokes turned sour and off field problems and lack of fitness were cited when Glenn Hoddle left him out of England's squad for the 1998 World Cup.Gascoigne reportedly smashed up his hotel room in response and at the same time was going through a very public divorce from his wife of two years Sheryl. In two subsequent "bare it all" autobiographies, Gascoigne admitted to once striking his wife during an argument, asking for forgiveness.Fading careerAfter spells at Lazio in Serie A and Scotland's Glasgow Rangers, Gascoigne saw out his career with Middlesbrough, Everton, Burnley, a Chinese club Gansu Tianma and lowly Boston United.JUST WATCHEDLionel Messi breaks goal scoring recordReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHLionel Messi breaks goal scoring record 01:51JUST WATCHEDA day in the life of Cristiano Ronaldo ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHA day in the life of Cristiano Ronaldo 00:58Since retiring, Gascoigne has tried a career as a TV pundit, briefly coached a non-league side and played in a number of charity matches, still displaying his formidable skills.Interspersed have been appearances in British courts for drunken driving and a drugs offense, but he has narrowly avoided serving a custodial sentence.Read: Football's addiction to gamblingHis fall from grace mirrors that of Best, who battled alcohol problems after his glittering career came to an early end.Northern Ireland's Best died of complications arising from an earlier liver transplant eight years ago and Gordon Taylor, the chief of the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), is worried the same fate could befall Gascoigne."We just don't want this to be another George Best tragedy," Taylor told BBC national radio."He does need a big support system, and he's got it from lots of friends. But there is a frustration that when things look to be improving, it all goes off wire." Taylor also refuted suggestions that the PFA had not done enough to help Gascoigne.
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On Friday, we reported about the large-scale operation of International raids launched by the FBI and other law enforcement officials in countries around the world to arrest the targeted customers of a popular Remote Administration Tool (RAT) called 'Blackshades,' which is designed to take over the remote control of the infected computers and steal information.
The news broke when various announcements on underground forums by hacking group members claimed that FBI especially going after all of them who purchased the hacking tool using PayPal as payment option.
Today, the UK's National Crime Agency announced that the raids took place in more than 100 of countries and they have arrested more than 100 people worldwide involved in the purchasing, selling or using the Blackshades malware.
More than half million computers in more than dozens of countries were infected by this sophisticated malware that has been sold on underground forums since at least 2010 to several thousands people, which cost between 40 and 100 dollars.
The Investigation involved the law enforcement coordination agencies Europol and Eurojust said Monday that authorities raided a total of 359 houses in 13 different European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as in the United States, Canada and Chile, and seized cash, firearms, drugs and over 1,100 data storage devices including computers, laptops, mobile phones, routers etc.
"This case is a strong reminder that no one is safe while using the internet, and should serve as a warning and deterrent to those involved in the manufacture and use of this software," said Koen Hermans, an official representing the Netherlands in the European Union's criminal investigation coordination unit, Eurojust. "This applies not only to victims, but also to the perpetrators of criminal and malicious acts. The number of countries involved in this operation has shown the inherent value in Eurojust's coordination meetings and coordination centres."
As we reported in previous article, the Blackshades website (https://bshades.eu/) has now been seized by the FBI.
'Blackshades' is a remote administration tool (RAT) and is sold legally around the world but bad intention actors are using the tool as a malware for collecting private information of innocent users, including usernames and passwords for email and Web services, instant messaging applications, FTP clients and lots more.
In worst cases, the malicious program even allows hackers to take remote control of users' computer and webcam to take photos or videos without the knowledge of the computer owner.
The infected PCs can also be hijacked by the attackers to perform DDoS attacks and other illegal activities without any knowledge of its owner. The program modifies itself in such a way so that it remains elusive for antivirus software.
In 2012, while a very serious and bloody internal war between the government and the opposition forces, the BlackShades RAT was also used to infect and Spy on Syrian activists. However, in 2012, a developer of the Blackshades team was reportedly arrested and during same time the source code of the tool was also leaked on the Internet.
BlackShades tool was actually developed by an IT surveillance and security-based company, who promoted it as a tool for parents to monitor their Children activities and for finding the cheating partners in relationship. But, as usual every weapon could be used for both purposes, killing and saving lives.
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Story highlightsLeading F1 teams tell CNN they won't pull out of Bahrain GPRed Bull and Toro Rosso say decision rests with FIABahrain GP due to take place April 22Decision should be made after this weekend's Shanghai GPOrganizers for the controversial Bahrain Grand Prix have been given a boost after several Formula One teams, including world champions Red Bull, told CNN they will not unilaterally pull out of the race. Following reports this week that some teams were planning on canceling their appearance at the grand prix, which is due to take place April 22 at the Bahrain International Circuit on the Persian Gulf island, CNN contacted all 12 constructors. Nine declined to comment but Red Bull, whose driver Sebastian Vettel won the drivers' championship and who also clinched the 2011 constructors' title, told CNN that the decision on whether the Bahrain Grand Prix goes ahead is a matter for motorsport's governing body the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile [FIA] and not individual teams.Teams won't pull out"It's up to the FIA," a Red Bull spokesperson said."We take part in the F1 championship and if that calendar includes a race in Bahrain then we will be racing in Bahrain. It's not up to the teams to pick and choose which races we take part in.JUST WATCHEDVettel on Bahrain F1 uncertainty ReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHVettel on Bahrain F1 uncertainty 01:38JUST WATCHEDTensions grow in BahrainReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHTensions grow in Bahrain 03:10JUST WATCHEDHow Bahrain quashed 2011 uprisingReplayMore Videos ...MUST WATCHHow Bahrain quashed 2011 uprising 01:49"The FIA are the ones monitoring the situation. They are the ones who make a decision based on what is happening on the ground and we take their guidance."Bernie Ecclestone, the driving force behind Formula One, had earlier stated that it is up to the individual teams to decide whether they would race in Bahrain."We've no way we can force people to go there," he told the UK Press Association. "We can't say 'you've got to go' -- although they would be in breach of their agreement with us if they didn't go -- but it doesn't help. Commercially they have to go, but whether they decide to or not is up to them. I've had no one say anything other than 'we're going to be racing in Bahrain'."By not racing in Bahrain, any Formula One team would be breaking the Concorde Agreement -- a commercial contract between FIA, Ecclestone's Formula One Administration and the teams -- and would be liable to potentially ruinous multi-million-dollar censure. "Teams are unable to cancel grands prix," replied the Formula One Team Association (FOTA)."We race in an international series called the FIA Formula One world championship, and it is therefore for the FIA to offer the teams guidance on these issues."A year of protests Controversy has raged over the Bahrain Grand Prix ever since an uprising against the ruling Al Khalifa royal family rocked the kingdom just over a year ago. Pro-democracy protests were crushed, with dozens killed in the ensuing violence. Last year's race was canceled as a result but protests have continued in the run up to this year's race. Local human rights groups claim that abuses have continued despite government assurances to the contrary. "If Formula One go ahead with the race it will give the impression that everything is back to normal when everything is not back to normal. People are dying on a daily basis," Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, told CNN."I say think of the human rights, think of things other than just your profit and your interest. Human rights have to come first," he added."We will welcome you back when everything is back to normal, when the killing and arrests have stopped in the streets."However, Zayed al Zayani, chairman of the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) where the F1 race will be staged, insisted that safety would not be a problem and blamed the crisis on press "scaremongering.""What has been happening is that armchair observers -- who have not been sufficiently interested or committed to investigate the situation for themselves -- have been driving this debate, at the expense of those neutral parties who have taken the trouble to investigate the situation at first hand," Zayani said in a statement released to CNN."This, combined with the scaremongering tactics of certain small extremist groups on social networking sites, has created huge misconceptions about the current situation."Negative publicity Such has been the negative publicity surrounding the race, BIC released a statement on Monday quoting British parliamentary MP Ben Wallace, the British Ambassador to Bahrain Iain Lindsay and the Lotus F1 team as saying that Bahrain was safe and the race should go ahead.But that move backfired when the Lotus F1 team criticized BIC for using their quotes without permission. "These quotes were part of a full internal and confidential working document, that was also sent on a confidential basis to all F1 team managers last week," Lotus F1 said in their statement."Lotus F1 Team is one of 12 contestants of the Formula One world championship and we would never try to substitute ourselves for the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), which is the only party entitled to determine if a grand prix should go ahead or not."The situation has been further exacerbated by the condition of human rights activist Abdulhadi al Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike for close to two months after being jailed for life charged with plotting to overthrow the state. International rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have called for his release.According to the British newspaper The Independent, Ecclestone reportedly phoned a leading writer and activist in Bahrain to check on Al Khawaja's condition and even offered to host a press conference with opposition figures."(Mr Ecclestone) said he was very concerned about what is going on," Dr. Ala'a Shehabi told The Independent. "He said the crown prince (Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa) told him that Al Khawaja was doing fine, but I said that I am hearing very different reports."Decision Sunday?This weekend will see the Shanghai Grand Prix take center stage. "As it stands we're due to fly there (Bahrain) straight from Shanghai so a decision on whether the race takes place could be taken as late as Sunday morning," a spokesman for the Toro Rosso team told CNN. "Clearly it's a situation that we would like to see resolved as soon as possible. I certainly don't think it will be a case of some teams going and some not going. It will be everybody or nobody."The team bosses will have a meeting in China ... Bernie Ecclestone will of course be there and I'm sure they will thrash something out."Although several former drivers, like the British 1996 world champion Damon Hill, have voiced concerns over the Bahrain Grand Prix, the current crop has been largely silent on whether the race should be won."If we go, it's a good decision to make," two-time world champion Vettel told CNN Wednesday. "If we don't go, we don't go."
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