Hacking News

Microsoft has released an out-of-band patch for two severe flaws in Windows Defender discovered by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a unit of UK spy agency GCHQ that dispenses cyber defense advice to the government and public. Just last week, for example, NCSC told UK agencies hosting information classified ‘secret’ never to use any […]

A form of ransomware which shares similarities with Locky and also comes with the option for infected victims to negotiate a price for retrieving their encrypted files. Scarab ransomware was first uncovered in June, but during November, it was suddenly distributed in millions of spam emails, as noted by researchers at Fortinet. These emails were

Google has expanded the National Security Letter section of its Transparency Report with new examples of National Security Letters that it’s received from the FBI and is now cleared to disclose. The new subsection for NSLs consists of three columns with links to the NSL itself, the date the NSL was issued, and a link

Apple has added a new post to its Machine Learning Journal that explains how it’s using differential privacy to protect users, even when collecting very sensitive data such as keystrokes and the sites users visit. This type of data collection occurs when users opt in to share usage analytics from macOS or iOS, allowing Apple

Researchers at enSilo have identified a new method that can be used by hackers to execute a piece of malware on any supported version of Windows without being detected by security products. The new technique, dubbed “Process Doppelgänging,” is similar to process hollowing, a code injection method that involves spawning a new instance of a

Apple this week released security updates for macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, as well as updated versions of the Safari browser and the iTunes for Windows application. The company addressed a total of 22 vulnerabilities with the release of macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 this week (some of the patches were also included in Security Update 2017-002

The same researchers whose hack on the My Friend Cayla doll prompted regulatory action have followed up with a hack on a talking toy robot bird. Researchers from UK security consultancy Pen Test Partners found that it was child’s play to turn the Teksta Toucan talking toy into a potty-mouth. In homage to The Fast

Google’s latest effort to pry businesses off Internet Explorer and keep them away from Windows 10 Edge is a new security feature called site isolation, which handles each page in its own process. With the release of Chrome 63, enterprise admins will be able to configure Chrome to render content for each site in its

Interior ministers of Germany’s states are discussing whether authorities should be able to bypass the security mechanisms in smart homes and connected cars — but not, the federal interior ministry says, by installing backdoors in those mechanisms. Read more

A vulnerability in the smartphone banking apps of major banks could have allowed attackers to steal user credentials including username, password and pin code, according to researchers. The flaw was found in apps by HSBC, NatWest, Co-op and Bank of America Health, Santander, Allied Irish bank. The banks have all updated their apps to protect