Chances are that each of us has found ourselves in a situation where our phone is dying and we had no charger on hand, but at the same time we desperately need to stay connected — to answer an important call, receive a text message or email, whatever.
It’s perfectly normal to look for any source of precious electricity on such occasions — any USB port would do. But is it safe? No. In fact, it can be dangerous: Over a USB connection someone can steal your files, infect your smartphone with something nasty — or even brick it. Before we get to the problem of thieves, we must point out that not all electricity is equally good for your phone.
Read moreGoogle will begin testing an alternative to passwords next month, in a move that could do away with complicated logins for good.
The new feature is called the Trust API, and will initially be tested with “several very large financial institutions” in June. Kaufman is the head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, where the Trust API was first created under the codename Project Abacus. Introduced last year, Abacus aims to kill passwords not through one super-secure replacement, but by mixing together multiple weaker indicators into one solid piece of evidence that you are who you say you are.
Read moreTwo security researchers, Roberto Paleari and Aristide Fattori, have revealed the technical details of an exploit they've discovered in Samsung Galaxy devices that allows an unauthorized third-party to start calls or send SMS texts from locked devices.
According to a technical write-up published on GitHub two days ago, an attacker that has temporary access or has stolen a Samsung Galaxy device, can connect it via USB to a Linux workstation and send malicious commands that initiate hidden calls and send SMS messages. This trick works without leveraging any software vulnerability, and even if the phone has USB debugging or USB tethering turned off.
Read moreMore than a Billion of Android devices are at risk of a severe vulnerability in Qualcomm Snapdragon chip that could be exploited by any malicious application to gain root access on the device.
Security experts are warning Android users of some severe programming blunders in Qualcomm's kernel-level Snapdragon code that if exploited, can be used by attackers for gaining root access and taking full control of your device. Gaining root access on a device is a matter of concern, as it grants attackers access to admin level capabilities, allowing them to turn your device against you to snap your pictures, and snoop on your personal data.
Read moreA new Android malware family is targeting users to show unwanted ads and forcibly install dangerous applications, Check Point's security team has discovered. Called HummingBad, this threat was first seen packed inside adult-themed applications downloaded from third-party app stores.
The app is part of a trend in the Android malware ecosystem, one that includes malicious applications that were built specifically to show ads and install other apps, for the monetary gain of their creators, who are part of various shady affiliate and referral programs. Previous Android malware families that employed this tactic include Brain Test and Ghost Push.
Read moreA new prank circulating on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platform could crash your iPhone or iPad completely. If you come across a link to crashsafari.com, you are advised not to open it on your iPhone, iPad or even Macs.
Doing so will cause Safari application to crash, potentially causing your Apple device to restart. In case, you want to try this out, just click here to visit the website and watch what happens. Currently, people are spreading the link to CrashSafari.com via Twitter using a URL shortener, and users are tricked into visiting the site without being knowing. How does this Prank Work?
Read moreSome Philips s307 Android smartphones come with a pre-installed trojan that shows ads and animations on the user's main screen, and cannot be removed without a firmware update or after going through a complicated series of steps, as Dr.Web, a Russian antivirus maker, is reporting.
The adware was initially spotted in October but was only found on low-end Android smartphones from a series of unknown manufacturers. A recent incident has brought the trojan back into Dr.Web's attention when Android.Cooee was found in high-end smartphones manufactured by Philips.
Read moreA new zero-day vulnerability has been discovered that allows Android or Linux applications to escalate privileges and gain root access, according to a report released this morning by Perception Point.
"This affects all Android phones KitKat and higher," said Yevgeny Pats, co-founder and CEO at security vendor Perception Point. Any machine with Linux Kernel 3.8 or higher is vulnerable, he said, including tens of millions of Linux PCs and servers, both 32-bit and 64-bit. Although Linux lags in popularity on the desktop, the operating system dominates the Internet, mobile, embedded systems and the Internet of Things, and powers nearly all of the world's supercomputers.
Read moreThirteen more malicious apps were struck from Google's Play Store at the end of 2015 after having been discovered to be stricken with the Brain Test malware.
Named for an app discovered on the Play Store by Check Point, the Brain Test malware gains root privilege to Android devices and downloads application packages to the infected phone, allowing the adversary a free ride with the unlucky victim's device. Brain Test was discovered by cyber-security researchers at Check Point in September. They noticed that not only did the malware cling remora-like to Play Store apps but basically made the infected device its own once the malware was securely in place.
Read moreHackers can access your personal information from Target -- again -- thanks to a flaw in the retailer's mobile app. Researchers revealed the flaw, which allows unauthorized access to customers' addresses, phone numbers and other personal information from wish lists created with the Target app.
The only merry tidings are that credit card numbers don't appear to be stored with the wish lists, so financial information isn't vulnerable. If this sounds familiar, it's because last year we learned that hackers breached Target's systems and stole the credit card information of up to 70 million customers.
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