BlackBerry PlayBook The Most Secure Tablet For BYOD Solution

BlackBerry PlayBook The Most Secure Tablet For BYOD Solution

Now a days users of tablet is increasing everyday. Millions of people across the globe are using tablet for both personal and professional purposes. While the number of users and purposes of using tablet are rising, besides the matter of privacy and security arises. There are many companies who are manufacturing tablet, but before choosing, we should know which one is secured than others. According to a recent report by Context Information Security -the PlayBook of BlackBerry is the only device among three top tablets that gives users a good, safe division between their work and personal computing, a recent technology audit concluded.  The report faulted the PlayBook, as well as the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, for default settings that don't automatically encrypt backups, and for not offering complementary and compatible tools for IT teams to manage a large number of devices at the business level. According to Jonathan Roach, Principal Consultant at Context and author of the report "While the iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook performed better, both still have security deficiencies -- including desktop software that fails to encrypt backups by default." He also said "Context found the PlayBook to be the most work-ready personal tablet of the three, due to its Bridge application's excellent support of barriers between work and personal profiles," 

According to report by contrast, Apple's wildly popular iPad sold more than 17 million units last quarter. Context found the iPad to be the second-most-secure device, citing its "robust data protection and damage limitation facilities," but said on its news page that the device was still vulnerable to jailbreak attacks and "ineffective disk encryption unless a strong passcode policy is applied." 

The report also found the Galaxy Tab's security features to be the least work-play ready, with weak disk-encryption support. The Galaxy Tab's lack of tools tailored to enterprise use makes it "very difficult to manage more than a small number of Galaxy Tabs in an enterprise environment," a point Apple also falls short on. The report criticized the Galaxy Tab's encryption as well. Even with encryption enabled, the report found that Samsung's device still "allows badly-written apps to store sensitive information on the unencrypted SD card." The report also praised all three tablets for their support of Exchange ActiveSync, a feature that allows crucial security settings to be managed from a central server running Microsoft software. But the study noted important differences among the devices that may make some tablets more appropriate for dual use in both the home and the office.

"Despite that security advantage, RIM only managed to ship 130,000 tablets last quarter. By contrast, Apple's wildly popular iPad sold more than 17 million units last quarter. Context found the iPad to be the second-most-secure device, citing its 'robust data protection and damage limitation facilities,' but said on its news page that the device was still vulnerable to jailbreak attacks and 'ineffective disk encryption unless a strong passcode policy is applied" -Jonathan added

To Download the full Report Click Here

-Source (Context Information Security & NBC News)

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Security Flaws Allowing Hackers to Brute Force Twitter Passwords

Security Flaws Allowing Hackers to Brute Force Twitter Passwords 

A security flaw has been discovered in popular micro blogging site 'Twitter' which is allowing an malicious attack to brute force user's passwords.  On Saturday, multimedia producer and Twitter user Daniel Dennis Jones (@blanket) received a notification that his Twitter password had been reset. This alone would have been cause for concern; at the very least, it would mean that someone had tried and failed to access his account. He quickly found out that the problem was much worse than he expected. He was eventually able to log back into the account, but found that his username had been changed to @FuckMyAssHoleLO , and that @blanket was now operated by someone else. His account, in other words, had clearly been hacked. After seeing the above scenario it is very clear that - Twitter's password reset process allows hackers to attempt a more wide-ranging brute force approach to breaking into accounts than other services with more restrictive systems. Both Apple and Amazon quickly closed the loopholes that led to Honan's hack, but Twitter accounts (the ultimate prize Honan's hackers were after) remain surprisingly vulnerable to unsophisticated hacking efforts. That vulnerability was on display this past weekend as a desirable group of "OG" Twitter handles the short, memorable, one-word names that got snapped up when the service launched were brute-force hacked by a group of kids looking to make a little cash and impress their friends.

Daniel Jones is not the only victim of this recently discovered vulnerability, many other people around the globe also fallen victim of this security hole. After a day of research, Jones "got to the bottom of a little ring of kids who crack passwords to gain access to handles" - he found a number of other short, memorable handles like @hah, @captain, and @craves had also been hacked. Judging from the conversations he saw over Twitter, these hackers were not sophisticated social engineers, but just a group of teenagers trying to sell the names they had collected. Eventually, Jones had a long Skype conversation with a 14-year-old hacker who goes by Mason he wasn't the one who stole @blanket from Jones, but he was part of the young crew grabbing and selling these desirable names.

Of course, Twitter's security regimen is probably not all that different from that of many other sites. According to Jeremiah Grossman, CTO and co-founder of Whitehat Security, the attack that victimized Jones was "very, very common....Perhaps Twitter could have a bit stronger and more comprehensive approach to dealing with brute force attacks, but they can really only take it so far before annoying their users." 

We personally think that, after this case twitter should implement two step authentication, like Google to prevent its user getting compromised. 

-Source (Buzz Feed & CNET)

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Researcher Figure-out Yet Another Java Hole That Puts 1 Billion Users at Risk

Researcher Figure-out Yet Another Java Hole That Puts 1 Billion Users at Risk

Just as Oracle is ramping up for the September 30 start of JavaOne 2012 in San Francisco yet again another critical Java vulnerability has been spotted in the wild.  The Polish security researcher Adam Gowdiak has found another vulnerability in Java that could allow an attacker to bypass the sandbox. This newly discovered security hole has effected all latest versions of Oracle Java SE software. According to Security Explorations researcher Adam Gowdiak, who sent the email to the Full Disclosure Seclist, this Java exploit affects “one billion users of Oracle Java SE software.” So far the researcher were able to successfully exploit the vulnerability and achieve a complete Java security sandbox bypass 

in the environment of Java SE 5, 6 and 7. Researcher could only claim such an impact with reference to Java 7 environment (the 

Apple QuickTime attack relying on Issues 15 and 22 is the only exception here). 

The following Java SE versions were verified to be vulnerable:

• Java SE 5 Update 22 (build 1.5.0_22-b03)
• Java SE 6 Update 35 (build 1.6.0_35-b10)
• Java SE 7 Update 7  (build 1.7.0_07-b10)

All tests were successfully conducted in the environment of a fully patched Windows 7 32-bit system and with the following web browser applications:

• Firefox 15.0.1
• Google Chrome 21.0.1180.89
• Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421 (update 9.0.10)
• Opera 12.02 (build 1578)
• Safari 5.1.7 (7534.57.2)

So far there are no reports that the vulnerability is being exploited for attacks. Oracle has not said whether or when it will close the vulnerability. Here we want to remind the very recent history, when several zero day vulnerability was found in all the version of java, which was added on BlackHole Exploit kit. Later Oracle released a patch to close the security hole. 

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Apple Releases iOS 6 With 200+ New Features & Mountain Lion 10.8.2 With Facebook Integration & Game Center

Apple Releases iOS 6 With 200+ New Features & Mountain Lion 10.8.2 With Facebook Integration & Game Center

As expected, here comes double bang from Apple. Apple has also released  iOS 6 along with OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and made available for public. In case of users of recent iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch models can obtain the update either by connecting their devices to iTunes and clicking the "Check for Update" button or checking for over-the-air updates on their devices. iOS 6 adds over 200 new features, including Apple's own Maps app, Facebook integration, Siri improvements, Apple's new Passbook digital wallet app, and more. iOS 6 is compatible with the third-generation iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and fourth-generation iPod touch. It will also ship on the iPhone 5, which launches on Friday, and on the fifth-generation iPod touch launching next month. The operating system arrives as the golden master build 10A403 for existing devices, and Apple has also posted a special 10A405 build for the iPhone 5 and a 10A406 build for the upcoming fifth-generation iPod touch.

With iOS Apple quietly pushed out 10.8.2, the second minor update to Mountain Lion since it was released in July. The update is currently available via the Software Update functionality in the Mac App Store. The update includes a number of enhancements, most notably Facebook integration and Game Center. It also includes support for several features integrating with iOS 6, such as Passbook passes and  iMessage/FaceTime access via phone number. 

This update is recommended for all OS X Mountain Lion users, and includes new features and fixes:

Facebook 

• Single sign on for Facebook

• Adds Facebook as an option when sharing links and photos

• See Facebook friends' contact information and profile pictures in Contacts

• Facebook notifications now appear in Notification Center

Game Center

• Share scores to Facebook, Twitter, Mail, or Messages

• Facebook friends are included in Game Center friend recommendations

• Added Facebook "Like" button for games

• Challenge friends to beat your score or achievement

Other new features

• Adds Power Nap support for MacBook Air (Late 2010)

• iMessages sent to your phone number now appear in Messages on your Mac

• You can now add passes to Passbook (on your iPhone or iPod touch) from Safari and Mail on your Mac

• FaceTime can now receive calls sent to your phone number

• New shared Reminders lists

• New sort options allow you to sort notes by title, the date you edited them, and when you created them

• Dictation now supports additional languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Korean, Canadian English, Canadian French, and Italian

• Dictionary app now includes a French definition dictionary

Sina Weibo profile photos can now be added to Contacts

* Requires iOS 6

General fixes

The OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 update also includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac, including the following fixes:

• Adds an option to discard the changes in the original document when choosing Save As 

• Unsent drafts are now opened automatically when launching Mail

• Receive Twitter notifications for mentions and replies from anyone

• URLs are shortened when sending tweets from Notification Center

• Notifications are disabled when AirPlay Mirroring is being used

• Adds SSL support for Google searches from the Smart Search Field in Safari

• Adds a new preference to have Safari launch with previously open webpages

• Resolves an issue that may cause the "Enable Autodiscover" checkbox to always remain checked

• Enables access to the Mac App Store when Parental Controls are enabled Support for @icloud.com email addresses

• Resolves a video issue with some VGA projectors when connected to certain Mac notebooks

• Addresses an issue that may prevent Active Directory accounts from being locked out

• Resolves an issue that may cause the policy banner to re-appear prior to logging in

• Improvements to SMB

• Addresses an issue with NIS users when auto-login is enabled

• Addresses an issue in which the Keychain may not be accessible

• Ability to pre-authenticate a FileVault protected system

• Addresses an issue that may cause Xsan to not automatically start after migrating from Mac OS X Snow Leopard 

Direct downloads of OS X 10.8.2 is also available through Apple's site form the following links-

OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.2 

 OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.2 (Combo) 

-Source (Apple & MacRumors)                             

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iPhone 4S Hacked By Dutch Researchers During Pwn2Own Contest

iPhone 4S Hacked By Dutch Researchers During Pwn2Own Contest & Won $30,000 Prize

 

So called fully patched and secured iPhone 4S have fall into victim in-front of hackers. Two Dutch clever minds during a Pwn2Own contest were able to hack a fully patched iPhone 4S to gain a slew of information from the device. The hackers, Joost Pol and Daan Keuper, were able to find vulnerability in WebKit that allowed them to hi-jack photos, videos, address book contacts, and browsing history right from the phone. The two earned a $30,000 cash-prize for performing what they call “a clean hack.” 

That was the intellectual challenge that drove a pair of Dutch researchers to start looking for an exploitable software vulnerability that would allow them to hijack the address book, photos, videos and browsing history from a fully patched iPhone 4S. 

"It took about three weeks, starting from scratch, and we were only working on our private time," says Joost Pol (photo left), CEO of Certified Secure, a nine-person research outfit based in The Hague. Pol and his colleague Daan Keuper used code auditing techniques to ferret out the WebKit bug and then spent most of the three weeks chaining multiple clever techniques to get a "clean, working exploit." "We really wanted to see how much time it would take a motivated attacker to do a clean attack against your iPhone. For me, that was the motivation. The easy part was finding the WebKit zero-day," Pol said in an interview.  Once the vulnerability in WebKit was found, the hackers said they put many things together in about three weeks to write an exploit to hack the iPhone 4S. The two found that the exploit developed also worked for iOS 6 (released today) and all previous versions of iOS devices.

Although the successful attack exposed the entire address book, photo/video database and browsing history, Pol and Keuper said they did not have access to the SMS or e-mail database. "Those are not accessible and they're also encrypted," Keuper explained.

While Pol and Keuper could use the hack for harm, the two said the exploit has already been destroyed. Pol told : ”We shredded it from our machine. The story ends here, we’re not going to use this again. It’s time to look for a new challenge.” They further added that iOS is definitely the most secure mobile platform around thanks to Apple’s strict guidelines. 

-Source (ZDNet)

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Twitter Hires Renowned Apple Hacker Charlie Miller For Twitter Security Team

Twitter Hires Renowned Apple Hacker Charlie Miller For Twitter Security Team

It is almost impossible task for social networks to keep everything safe against hacks and other vulnerabilities. Hackers will constantly find their way around anything that you put in place. So they often deals with hackers & turn themselves to beef up the security level. Social networking giant Twitter exactly did the same thing. The micro-blogging network has hired the famous/infamous Apple hacker, Charlie Miller, to be a part of its security team. Charlie Miller, a popular figure among hackers, broke the news via his Twitter account, saying, “Monday I start on the security team at Twitter. Looking forward to working with a great team there!” Twitter issued a short statement noting that Miller’s title will be that of Software Engineer, but declined to discuss any further details.

Charlie Miller has a background as a Global Exploitation Analyst in the National Security Agency, and has hacked devices running on iOS, OSX, and Android. He is considered to be a white-hat hacker, which means that he hacks to expose vulnerabilities in a system in order to have those weaknesses fixed. Five year ago, Miller was said to be the first to hack the iPhone using the device’s browser, exposing the handset’s vulnerability to security attacks. Several months after this, he was likewise able to hack a MacBook Air in just two minutes. This feat allowed Miller to win the Pwn2Own hacking competition. Miller also showed a way to hijack iPhones through SMS in 2009. In 2011, he used the MacBook power adapter to implant malware on the laptop. In the same year, his license as an Apple developer got revoked because Apple found that he breached the development agreement. 

In more recent times, Miller had been working on Android devices. In June, he was able to overcome Bouncer, Google’s security program. He has furthermore experience in using Near Field Communications to control Samsung and Nokia handsets with a simple wave of another phone that is within the vicinity. 

While talking about Charlie Miller, we must have to take another name and that is Nicholas Allegra, the world-famous hacker known as "Comex", creater of JailbreakMe.com; who later has been hired by Apple itself . In case of Twitter we must have to say, apart from Miller, Twitter also hired Moxie Marlinspike, a hacker who specializes in SSL and VPN encryption.

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A Tribute to The 10 Most Infamous Student Hackers of All Time

A Tribute to The 10 Most Infamous Student Hackers of All Time

Since last two years, we the VOGH team has been covering all the latest cyber security updates. But today lets do some thing different. One of our frequent reader and fan Katina Solomon has requested us to share a fantastic article. Everyday VOGH draws headlines of hackers around the world and their activities. While trying to maintain speed with time, we usually forgot our past. Today we will take you into the past, where we will discuss about those heroes, who are always been ill treated by the society & the system while revamping those heroes into cyber-criminals or infamous hackers. Its our question to our humanity "Did the system has done justice with them??" 

Hacking has always been inherently a young person’s game. The first usage of the word “hacker” was to describe pranksters meddling with the phones at MIT. Many hackers have cited boredom, a desire for change, or the thrill of going somewhere one is not supposed to go as their motivation for hacking, all of which could apply to scores of common activities on college campuses. While today’s hacking scene is dominated by large hacking groups like Anonymous and Masters of Deception, many of the greatest hacks ever have been pulled off by college, high school, and even middle school kids who rose to infamy armed only with a computer and the willingness to cross the bounds of legality.

1. Sven Jaschan: In the words of one tech expert, “His name will always be associated with some of the biggest viruses in the history of the Internet.” The viruses: the Sasser and NetSky worms that infected millions of computers and have caused millions of dollars of damage since their release in 2004. The man behind the viruses proved to be not even a man at all, legally. Seventeen-year-old hacker Sven Jaschan, a student at a computer science school in Germany, claimed to have created the viruses to become a hero by developing a program that would eradicate the rampaging Mydoom and Bagle bugs. Instead he found himself the subject of a $250,000 bounty courtesy of Microsoft, for which some of his classmates turned him in.
   
2. Jonathan James: In 2000, at the age of 16, James, or “C0mrade” as he was known in the hacker community, infamously became the first juvenile federally sentenced for hacking. The targets of his notorious hack jobs were a wing of the U.S. Department of Defense called the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, NASA, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. (By hacking the latter James gained the ability to control the A/C in the International Space Station.) All of these were pulled off “for fun” while James was still a student at Palmetto Senior High in Miami. Unfortunately, the fun ran out when James was tied into a massive identity theft investigation. Though insisting he was innocent, James took his own life, saying he had “no faith in the justice system.”
   
3. Michael Calce: Yahoo. CNN. Ebay. Amazon. Dell.com. One by one in a matter of days, these huge websites crashed at the hands of 15-year-old Canadian high school student Michael Calce, aka “MafiaBoy.” Armed with a denial-of-service program he called “Rivolta” that overloaded servers he targeted, the young hacker wreaked $7.5 million in damages, according to court filings. Calce was caught when he fell victim to a common ailment of teenage boys: bragging. The cops were turned on to him when he began boasting in chat rooms about being responsible for the attacks. On Sept. 12, 2001, MafiaBoy was sentenced to a group facility for eight months on 56 counts of cybercrime.
   
4. Kevin Mitnick: Before performing hacks that prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to declare him “the most wanted computer criminal in United States history,” Kevin Mitnick had already made a name for himself as a hacker in his school days, first at Monroe High School in LA and later at USC. On a dare, Mitnick connived an opening into the computer system of Digital Equipment Corporation, which some fellow hackers then used to steal proprietary source code from the company before ratting on him. While still on probation for that crime, Mitnick broke into the premises of Pacific Bell and had to go on the run from police in the aftermath, during which time he hacked dozens of systems, including those of IBM, Nokia, Motorola, and Fujitsu.
   
5. Tim Berners-Lee: “Scandalous” is a synonym for “infamous,” and for this legendary computer scientist, knight of the British Empire, and inventor of the World Wide Web to have been a hacker in his school days is certainly a juicy factoid. During his time at Oxford in the mid-’70s, Sir Tim was banned from using university computers after he and a friend were caught hacking their way into restricted digital areas. Luckily by that time he already knew how to make his own computer out of a soldering iron, an old TV, and some spare parts. And also luckily for him, he will always be revered as the father of the Internet.
   
6. Neal Patrick and the 414s: In the early ’80s, hacking was still a relatively foreign concept to most Americans. Few recognized the enormous power hackers could hijack with a few strokes on a keyboard, which explains why a young group of hackers known as the 414s (after a Milwaukee area code) were virtual celebrities after they hacked into the famous Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and elsewhere. While today hacking a lab where classified nuclear research is conducted could earn you a one-way ticket to Guantanamo, the 17-year-old ringleader and high school student Neal Patrick was on the cover of Newsweek. The group members got light sentences but prompted Congress to take a stronger role in cybercrime.
   
7. Robert T. Morris: The first ever Internet worm, the Morris Worm derived its name from Cornell grad student Robert Tappan Morris. In 1988, Morris released the worm through MIT’s system to cover his tracks, which would seem to contradict his claims that he meant no harm with it. But that’s exactly what resulted: the worm spread out of control, infecting more than 6,000 computers connected to the ARPANET, the academic forerunner to the World Wide Web. The damages reached as high as an estimated $10 million, and Morris earned the ignominious distinction of being the first person prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Morris got community service but was apparently not considered too infamous to be offered his current job as a professor at MIT.
   
8. George Hotz: To some, George Hotz (aka “geohot,” aka “million75,” aka “mil”) is a public menace, a threat to electronic businesses everywhere. To many, Hotz is a hero. The high-schooler shot to fame/infamy in 2007 at the tender age of 17 by giving the world its first hacked, or “jailbroken” iPhone. He traded it for a new sports car and three new iPhones, and the video of the hacking received millions of hits. Apple has had to grudgingly come to terms with jailbreaking, seeing as the courts have declared it legal, but Sony Corp. is definitely not OK with such tampering. When Hotz hacked his PlayStation 3 and published the how-to on the web, the company launched a vicious lawsuit against him. In turn, the hacker group Anonymous launched an attack on Sony, stealing millions of users’ personal info.
   
9. Donncha O’Cearbhaill: According to the FBI, this 19-year-old freshman at Trinity College Dublin is one of the top five most wanted hackers in the world. Well, he was; now that he’s been arrested he’s not really “wanted” anymore. The Feds contend the young man is a VIP member of the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups that have already been mentioned and whose targets have included the FBI, the U.S. Senate, and Sony (in the Hotz backlash). It seems “Palladium” (O’Cearbhaill) took the liberty of listening in on a conference call between the FBI and several international police forces who were discussing their investigations of the hacking groups. He could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted for that hack alone.
   
10. Nicholas Allegra: Just as George Hotz moved on from the Apple hacking game, Brown University student Nicholas Allegra is also hanging up his jersey. “Comex,” as he is known to millions of rooted iPhone fans, created the simple-to-use Apple iOS jailbreaking program JailbreakMe in 2007 and has since released two newer versions of it. However, Comex seems to have gone over to the dark side, accepting an internship with the very company whose products he became famous exploiting. Still, Allegra’s hacking skills are so advanced (one author puts him five years ahead of the authors of the infamous Stuxnet worm that corrupted Iran’s nuclear facilities) and so many people availed themselves of his talents, he will forever live in hacking infamy.
    

We want to dedicate the above post to the legendary hacker, who left us -Jonathan James aka “C0mrade”. Also the post is a tribute to all the so called 'infamous hackers'. You are our heroes and inspiration, you will always be there in our soul. Team VOGH salutes you...... 

-Thank you Katina & Online Degrees

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FBI Agent's Laptop Hacked, 12 Million Apple UDID Stolen By Anonymous (#FFF)

FBI Agent's Laptop Hacked, 12 Million Apple UDID Stolen By Anonymous (#FFF)

#Antisec an Offshoot part of infamous hacker collective Anonymous claims to have stolen a file from an FBI laptop which contained more than 12 million unique Apple device indentity numbers. The hackers declares this hack as part of their Friday rampage (#FFF) though the breach did not took place on Friday

The data which hackers stole came from a laptop belonging to Supervisor Special Agent at the FBI, Christopher K. Stangl. Stangl, who joined the FBI in 2003 after graduating from Monmouth University, has been with the agency for nine and a half years and won an award in 2010 for helping bust a cyber crime ring. He was also sucked into another Anonymous stunt earlier this year when at least one of their supporters breached an FBI conference call that had been discussing Anonymous and LulzSec. Stangl was listed among those invited into the call, in an e-mail that was posted on Pastebin. In a video posted to Facebook in 2009 (and which will likely be getting a lot more views in the coming days), Stangl is shown wearing a dark suit and tie, speaking to the camera, and calling for “cyber security experts” to join the FBI.

According to the hacker :-

"During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java, during the shell session some files were downloaded from his Desktop folder one of them with the name of “NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv” turned to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc. the personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose."

The data is just part of a larger database of 12,367,232 UDIDs, and personal information such as full names, cellphone numbers, addresses and zipcodes belonging to Apple customers. The data was allegedly stolen via exploiting a Java vulnerability. In a pastebin note, the hacker posted several download links of the hacked database. Several security experts have already stated that the stolen data is correct. For those you are not familiar with the term UDID -Each iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) is assigned a unique alphanumeric number known as a UDID. This was previously used by app developers to track data usage for their apps, until Apple decided to reject any apps which sought to gain access to this number in the most recent official iOS update. As well as believing that the FBI was using these identifiers to track people, though AnticSec, in its missive on Pastebin, said it didn't agree with the idea of hardware coded identifiers anyway: "We always thought it (UDIDs) was a really bad idea. That hardware coded IDs for devices concept should be eradicated from any device on the market in the future." To read the full press release of #Antisec click Here

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Facebook Launched Its App Center in India & Six Other Countries

Facebook Launched Its App Center in India & Six Other Countries

Today the world's largest social networking site Facebook has started Application Center (App Center) in India and six other countries around the world. We all know that App Center makes it easier for people around the world to discover the best apps and games for them, wherever they are. Last month this social networking giant had launched its App Center in the U.S. According to Facebook software engineer Drew Hoskins - “The App Center is now available to everyone in the U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K.” In addition, Facebook said that it will be launching App Center to users in Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, and Turkey in the coming weeks. The launch is part of a plan to expand its reach to a large number of Facebook users, with 80 per cent residing outside the U.S. and Canada. The users can access new App Center icon located on the left side of the home page on Facebook.com recommending apps to users based on their interests. Additionally, the service is also available on Apple and Android mobile devices.

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Hacker Face $66,179 Fine & 5 Years Imprisonment For Leaking Nude Photo of Celebrities

Hacker Face $66,179 Fine & 5 Years Imprisonment For Leaking Nude Photo of Celebrities

According to US prosecutors the computer hacker who broke into the email accounts of celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, by automatically forwarding any email the hacked celebrities received to an account under the control of the hacker, by which the hacker was able to gain access to the actress's private correspondence and personal photographs and thus he leaked nude photographs of the stars online faces tough & big amount of penalties. Christopher Chaney, from Jacksonville, Florida, pleaded guilty to breaking into the Apple, Gmail and Yahoo email accounts of various female stars, including Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson.

According to the report of Dailymail prosecutors have filed documents at the US District Court in California, calling for 35-year-old Chaney to spend 71 months in prison, and pay over $150,000 in restitution.

Specifically, prosecutors are calling on Chaney to Pay:

• $7,500 to Christina Aguilera for semi-nude snaps, allegedly grabbed from her personal stylist's account.
• $66,179.46 to Scarlett Johansson.
• $76,767.35 to actress and singer Renee Olstead.

-News Source (NS)

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Microsoft is Expected Launch Tablet To Compete With iPad

Microsoft is Expected Launch Tablet To Compete With iPad

A Speculation is building that Microsoft is expected to introduce a tablet computer of its own design that runs a new version of its Windows operating system in an effort to compete with Apple's iPad. It is the first time in the company’s 37-year history that it will offer a computer of its own creation.

This would be a dramatic break from Microsoft's usual moves in computer hardware, where it develops the software and licenses that to hardware makers to ensure the broadest possible market. But Microsoft has fallen behind Apple and Google in the fast growing tablet market – already one-eighth as large as the PC market and forecast to be 40% by 2016. The fastest growth in tablet sales is in western countries, where PC sales are slowing, reducing sales in the Windows division in four of the past six quarters. Windows 8, to be released this year, is designed to be used on a tablet as well as a desktop PC. 

Microsoft has invited the media to an event in Los Angeles Monday afternoon, where it is expected to show its tablet device. The entertainment industry Web site The Wrap earlier reported that Microsoft planned to announce a tablet at the event.

For Microsoft, making a tablet is a risky venture. Even with the emerging competition from the iPad, Windows remains one of the greatest franchises the technology industry has known, accounting for $4.6 billion in sales during the most recently reported quarter. Those sales are rooted in Microsoft’s alliance with its hardware partners. The plans could erode the commitment those partners have to Windows since Microsoft will effectively be competing with them for sales. 

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Microsoft Discovered a New Malware Targeting Apple OS X Exploiting Office Vulnerability

Microsoft Discovered a New Malware Targeting Apple OS X Exploiting Office Vulnerability

This year is going bad to worse for MAC users. Earlier we have seen more than 600,000 Mac user infected by Flashback Trojan after this one another Mac Trojan "Backdoor.OSX.SabPub" penetrated mac security. Recently Microsoft has detected a new piece of malware targeting Apple OS X computers that exploits a vulnerability in the Office productivity suite patched nearly three years ago. The malware is not widespread, according to Jeong Wook Oh of Microsoft's Malware Protection Center. But it does show that hackers pay attention if it's found people do not apply patches as those fixes are released, putting their computers at a higher risk of becoming infected.

The exploit discovered by Microsoft doesn't work with OS X Lion, but does work with Snow Leopard and prior versions. Oh wrote that it is likely attackers have knowledge about the computers they are attacking, such as the victim's operating system version and patch levels. The malware delivered by the exploit is written specifically for OS X and is basically a "backdoor," or a tool that allows for remote control of a computer. Microsoft advised those who use Microsoft Office 2004 or 2008 for Mac or the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac to ensure those products have applied the patch.

-Source (Computer World)  

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VMWare Source Code Was Stolen at The Time of CEIEC Breach

VMWare Source Code Was Stolen at The Time of CEIEC Breach 

In the official blog VMWare, the visualization software company has revealed that a hacker associated with hacktivist calling himself "Hardcore Charlie" has stolen at least one and possibly many more source files for its software - and has begun posting them on line. VMware on Tuesday announced that a single file from its ESX server hypervisor source code has been posted online, and it held out the possibility that more proprietary files could be leaked in the future. The fact that the source code may have been publicly shared does not necessarily mean that there is any increased risk to VMware customers, Said by VMWare official. Earlier we covered that Hardcore Charlie claimed to breach China NationalElectronics Import-Export Corporation (CEIEC), based in Beijing, he got inside CEIEC and posted documents ranging from purported U.S. military transport information to internal reports about business matters on several file-sharing sites, but the authenticity of the documents could not be independently confirmed. Hacker Charlie' claims to have found program files for virtualisation software on CEIEC. In a conversation with Kaspersky Lab, the hacker claimed to have 300MB of VMWare source code. 

The hacker also claimed to have cracked cryptographic hashes on the credentials of hundreds of thousands of sina.com email accounts with the help of another hacker, who goes by the name of @Yamatough and who is thought to have been involved in the distribution of documents suggesting that the Indian government had put in monitoring systems for Nokia, RIM and Apple smartphones. The companies all denied the claim, and the documents were later shown to be faked.

VMWare insisted that the code dated back to 2003-04, though it did not say whether that section of the code had been changed since then. "We will continue to provide updates to the VMware community if and when additional information is available," said Iain Mulholland, director of VMware's security response centre in a statement. VMWare didn't indicate whether its own systems had been breached, and seemed to widen the number of potential targets to include commercial partners.  

Like VMWare, a hacker group named The Lords of Dharmaraja has managed to steal the source code of Norton anti-virus, Symantec. There also hacker leaked the source code and hacktivist Anonymous take the responsibility of the entire phenomena

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Apple Offering A Free DVD of Mac OSX Snow Leopard

Apple Offering A Free DVD of Mac OSX Snow Leopard

You haven’t upgraded to Lion or iCloud because you still haven’t forked out money for Snow Leopard yet?If the answer is yes then we have a great news for you and that is Apple is now giving away Snow Leopard to potential iCloud customers. 

In an article sent to MobileMe customers, Apple has recommended that potential customers get in touch with Apple to receive a free DVD of Snow Leopard so that users can upgrade to Lion and move to iCloud. All you have to do is follow this link, log in to MobileMe with your MobileMe account, and fill out your mailing information. Apple will then send you a Snow Leopard DVD for free. The free Snow Leopard offer was presumably initiated to encourage people to upgrade to iCloud before MobileMe is shut down on June 30th, 2012.

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Another Mac Trojan "Backdoor.OSX.SabPub" Discovered, Exploiting Java Vulnerability

Another Mac Trojan "Backdoor.OSX.SabPub" Discovered, Exploiting Java Vulnerability 

Few weeks ago security experts found Flashback Trojan infected more than 60,000 Mac users around the world. Immediately after this incident Apple issued patches that curb the vulnerability. Yet again it has been found that another Mac trojan that is also spread through Java exploits. The malware, called Backdoor.OSX.SabPub, can take screen-shots of a user’s current session, execute commands on an infected machine and connect to a remote website to transmit the data. It is not clear how users get infected with the trojan, but because of the low number of instances and the trojan’s backdoor functionality, Securelist speculates that it is most likely used in targeted attacks, possibly launched through emails containing a URL pointing to two one of websites hosting the exploit. Two versions of SabPub were discovered in the wild this past weekend, flying undedected for about two months now. Kaspersky's Costin Raiu wrote in a blog post that SabPub was probably written by the LuckyCat authors.

Version 1: Microsoft Office
One version of SabPub traps Mac (and potentially Windows) users with booby-trapped Microsoft Word documents which exploit the vulnerability 'MSWord.CVE-2009-00563.a.'
The spear-phishing emails containment a malicious Word attachment entitled '10thMarch Statemnet' (with typo) to Tibet sympathizers. March 10, 2011 refers to the day the Dalai Lama delivered his annual speech observing the Tibetan Uprising of 1959. The Word doc was created in August 2010 and updated in February with SabPub thrown in; "quite normal" for such attacks and seen in other APT's like Duqu, Raiu notes.
Version 2: Java
A March version of Sabpub also discovered last weekend exploits the same drive-by Java vulnerability seen in Flashback, one of the biggest botnet attacks seen in OS X. Once the backdoor Trojan is downloaded, a victim's system is connected to a command-and-control center via HTTP. From there the botnet can grab screenshots, upload/download files, and remotely execute commands, Sophos' Graham Cluley writes. SabPub drops the following two files on a user's system, so if you are concerned about infection Cluley recommends searching for these files:
/Users//Library/Preferences/com.apple.PubSabAgent.pfile
/Users//Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.PubSabAGent.plist

Earlier also Mac users faced such attacks where OSX/Revir-B trojan was installed behind a PDF, and giving hackers remote access to MAC computers, not only Revier-B also Linux Tsunami trojan Called "Kaiten" targeted Mac OS users in 2011. Also another malware named "Devil Robber" which was also make MAC users victim while stealing their personal informations. 

-Source (Securelist & PC Mag)

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Apple Launching New iPad (3rd Generation) in 12 Countries This Week

Apple Launching New iPad (3rd Generation) in 12 Countries This Week

In a press release Apple confirmed the launch on new i-pad, the third generation of its category defining mobile device, will arrive in South Korea and 11 additional countries on Friday, April 20. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video. The new iPad still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life while remaining amazingly thin and light. In addition to South Korea, the new iPad also will be available beginning on Friday, April 20 in Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela. Beginning on Friday, April 27, the new iPad will be available in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.
The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The iPad Wi-Fi + 4G models will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. The new iPad will be sold through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com) and select Apple Authorized Resellers. Additionally, iPad 2 is available at a more affordable price starting at just $399.
Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary. 4G LTE is supported only on AT&T and Verizon networks in the U.S. and on Bell, Rogers and Telus networks in Canada. Data plans sold separately. Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

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Apple Working On TV With Integrated Voice/Motion Controller & Gaming Console

Apple Working On TV With Integrated Voice/Motion Controller & Gaming Console

Apple is planning an assault on the living room with a TV that will come equipped with an Apple-branded, Kinect-like video game console. According to sources Apple is working on a television set with an iTunes-integrated touch screen remote and Siri-like voice command technology. The TV set will be coming before the end of 2012. Rumors and patents have said as much for the past year, so that’s nothing new. But that’s not all we’ve heard. Also it has come to light that Apple’s television set will come with an Apple-branded, Kinect-like video game console. The interface will rely heavily on motion and touch controls. The rumor gained more traction following claim made by Walter Isaccson in Steve Jobs’ biography that the late Apple CEO would ‘like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use’ that would ‘ seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. ‘Jobs also claimed to have ‘finally cracked’ the user interface problem to make the whole package easy to use.
Here comes few Doubts:-

• Outside of the iOS platform (iPhone and iPad), Apple isn’t known as a gaming company.

• A TV with a built-in voice and motion controller and a games console? How much is this thing going to retail for exactly?

• The games console market is tightly stitched up by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Breaking into this new market would be extremely difficult.

• Valve does have a portfolio of Mac games, but not enough to create a new ecosystem for a games console.

• Apart from branding, what differentiates an Apple games experience from PC/Mac/Xbox 360/PS3?

• Wouldn’t it make more sense for Apple to bring iOS games into the living room through an updated Apple TV set top box? There’s a massive ecosystem of games here ready to exploit, along with a healthy developer base.

• That said, folks who own an iPhone/iPad and an Apple TV device can use AirPlay to put games on any HDMI-enabled TV without the need for an Apple-branded TV or an Apple-branded games console. Where does a console fit into the picture?

-Source (Cut of Mac, Forbes, Rumor) 

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Facebook Application For iOS & Android Have Security-Hole Which Allows Identity Theft

Facebook Application For iOS & Android Have Security Hole Which Allows Identity Theft 

Facebook users again under risk.  Recently a new security vulnerability found in Facbook application for iOS & Facebook application for Android. Researcher app developer Gareth Wright, who discovered the issue, said it comes down to Facebook’s native apps for the two platforms not encrypting your login credentials, meaning they can be easily swiped over a USB connection, or more likely, via malicious apps. Facebook has responded that this issue only applies to compromised or jailbroken devices. Means if you are using a jailbroken iOS device or a rooted Android device then your identity can easily be theft. Wright copied the hash and tested a few FQL queries. "Sure enough, I could pull back pretty much any information from my Facebook account. As of the 1st of May 2012 these tokens run out after 60 days but aside from that a simple .Net tool could easily snaffle this info and grab a fair whack of confirmed email addresses and marketing info.
“Not good, but then I had to wonder what the Facebook app stored. Popping into the Facebook application directory I quickly discovered a whole bunch of cached images and the com.Facebook.plist. “What was contained within was shocking. Not an access token but full oAuth key and secret in plain text. Surely though, these are encrypted or salted with the device ID. Worryingly, the expiry in the plist is set to 1 Jan 4001!" 

“Facebook’s iOS and Android applications are only intended for use with the manufacture provided operating system, and access tokens are only vulnerable if they have modified their mobile OS (i.e. jailbroken iOS or modded Android) or have granted a malicious actor access to the physical device,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We develop and test our application on an unmodified version of mobile operating systems and rely on the native protections as a foundation for development, deployment and security, all of which is compromised on a jailbroken device. As Apple states, ‘unauthorized modification of iOS could allow hackers to steal personal information … or introduce malware or viruses.’ To protect themselves we recommend all users abstain from modifying their mobile OS to prevent any application instability or security issues.”
As for the USB connection scenario, Facebook says there’s no way to fix this problem. Note that in this case it doesn’t matter if your device is jailbroken or not, because whoever is doing the deed has physical access to your phone or tablet.

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Flashback Trojan Infected Over 600,000 Mac-OS Users, Apple Pushes Out Fix Again

Flashback Trojan Infected Over 600,000 Mac-OS Users, Apple Pushes Out Fix Again 

Russian anti-virus vendor Dr. Web spotted a Trojan affecting nearly 600,000 Macs around the world. The near immune image of the Mac OS X has simply crumbled. So much for Macs being relatively safe against malware attacks. That idea took a punch to the stomach this week when the news broke about the Flashback trojan affecting more than half a million Macs worldwide. Flashback is essentially the malware equivalent of a smash-and-grab thief. Exploiting a Java vulnerability, the code installs and runs when the user visits a compromised or malicious website, intercepting private data, like passwords, and sending it back out over the internet. According to Doctor Web, sources claim that “links to more than four million compromised web-pages could be found on a Google SERP [search results] at the end of March. In addition, some posts on Apple user forums described cases of infection by [the latest variant] BackDoor.Flashback.39 when visiting dlink.com.” The trojan, Backdoor.Flashback.39, can infect computers via an infected web page. The vulnerability itself lies in Java, a product which is not Apple’s
About 57% of infected machines were in the US, 20% in Canada, 13% in UK and 6% in Australia. Apple has already issued patches that curb the vulnerability, but it does not necessarily mean that all users have applied the security patch on their Macs. Even Mozilla has block listed all the older and vulnerable Java plug-in from Firefox. Users are recommended to install the recent Apple Java update to close the hole which allows malicious web pages to drop the trojan onto a system and to always check which application is actually asking for your password when requested.

Update: To detect if a system is infected with Flashback, run each of the following commands in the Mac OS X Terminal:-
defaults read ~/.MacOSX/environment DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
defaults read /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment
defaults read /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/Info LSEnvironment

If all these commands respond with "The domain/default pair of ... does not exist", then there is no Flashback infection. Otherwise consult the F-Secure advisory for manual removal instructions.

If you’re running Mac OS X v10.6.8, Mac OS X Server v10.6.8, OS X Lion v10.7.3 and Lion Server v10.7.3, be sure to hit up Software Update in your System Preferences.

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