Kaspersky experts have uncovered new versions of the advanced malicious surveillance tool FinSpy. The new implants work on both iOS and Android devices, can monitor activity on almost all popular messaging services, including encrypted ones, and hide their traces better than before. The tools allow attackers to spy on all device activities and exfiltrate sensitive data such as GPS location, messages, pictures, calls and more. FinSpy is an extremely effective software tool for targeted surveillance that has been observed stealing information from international NGOs, governments and law enforcement organisations all over the world. Its operators can tailor the behavior of each malicious FinSpy implant to a…
ISBuzz Team
The Apple Watch Walkie-Talkie app has been disabled after Apple found a vulnerability that could let people listen in on other iPhones, the company tells TechCrunch. Apple isn’t aware of the vulnerability having been used, and hasn’t provided any details of how it works beyond saying that “specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it.” https://twitter.com/rapplerdotcom/status/1149250147861323776 Experts Comments: Gavin Millard, VP of intelligence at Tenable: “This is the second major vulnerability affecting apps based on FaceTime this year, the previous issue disclosed back in January also enabled remote snooping of conversations. Apple are generally good at addressing flaws once discovered,…
It has been reported that as many as 25 million Android phones have been hit with malware that replaces installed apps like WhatsApp with evil versions that serve up adverts according to Check Point. Dubbed Agent Smith, the malware abuses previously-known weaknesses in the Android operating system, making updating to the latest, patched version of Google’s operating system a priority. The malware has spread via a third party app store 9apps.com, which is owned by China’s Alibaba, rather than the official Google Play store. Most victims are based in India, where as many as 15 million were infected. But there are more than 300,000 in the…
ESET researchers have recently discovered and analyzed a 0-day exploit deployed in a highly targeted attack in Eastern Europe. The exploit used a local privilege escalation vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. ESET immediately reported the issue to the Microsoft Security Response Center, which fixed the vulnerability and released a patch. The exploit only has impact on limited versions of Windows, because in Windows 8 and later versions, a user process is not allowed to map the NULL page, which is required for the attack in question to be launched and successful. This specific Windows win32k.sys vulnerability, like others, uses the pop-up…
The UK privacy watchdog has ruled that any police force or private organisation using live facial recognition technology is processing personal data and needs to pay attention to data protection laws. Live facial recognition (LFR) technology that can scan crowds and then check large databases for matches in seconds is processing personal data, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). This is a key preliminary finding of an ICO investigation into police trials of the technology and comes just days after an independent report into the application of the technology by a UK police force found that the use of LFR by…
In response to the news that Alexa will be used by the NHS to give health advice, please fine below comments from experts as part of our experts comment series. https://twitter.com/davidicke/status/1148925122805469184 Experts Comments: David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky: “We know that people are relying on these devices more and more, and their popularity is growing. They do have their benefits, and they are convenient, however, they are, at their core, smart listeners and have made headlines in recent times because of this – leaving a scepticism around them. “We also know that Amazon is storing and analysing data that these devices…
Security researchers have publicly disclosed a serious zero-day vulnerability for the Zoom video conferencing app on macs. According to the researchers, this vulnerability in the Mac Zoom Client allows any malicious website to enable your camera without your permission. The flaw potentially exposes up to 750,000 companies around the world that use Zoom to conduct day-to-day business. https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1148709668782559239 Experts Comments: Boris Cipot, Senior Security Engineer at Synopsys: “All software has the potential to be vulnerable, and we can’t expect a company that provides proprietary software to be able to fix vulnerabilities immediately. The good thing is that once researchers disclose a vulnerability, they usually try to…
Yesterday, Microsoft published its monthly roll-up of security updates known as Patch Tuesday. This month, the company patched 77 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days — security flaws that were being actively exploited in the wild. The two zero-days are CVE-2019-0880 and CVE-2019-1132, and both are privilege escalation issues. They don’t allow hackers to take over users’ computers remotely, but are used after the hacker has gained access to a system to elevate access rights to a high-privileged account. Satnam Narang, Senior Research Engineer at Tenable: “This month’s Patch Tuesday release contains updates for nearly 80 CVEs, including fixes to address two zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2019-1132, CVE-2019-0880)…
Marriott faces a $124 million fine for failing to protect customer data. Here is the summary of the news: The hotel chain said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office intends to impose a £99 million ($124 million) fine under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) The regulator said that the penalty stems from a Marriott data breach that exposed 339 million guest records globally, including 30 million Europeans. Marriott has said the hack began in 2014 but was only discovered in November 2018, shortly before it reported the breach. It’s the second major fine proposed by the regulator this week. On Monday, the…
5G is being touted as revolutionary due to the massive download speeds that consumers can expect when it is rolled out at full strength. Samsung is calling it “wireless fiber” and in addition to providing smartphone users with better networking, it will permit for improvements in IoT devices like connected cars and other futuristic smart city developments. However, the ability to download a movie in three and a half seconds while moving around a city in an autonomous car is just one side of this technology. The way that it functions means that 5G is also a highly sophisticated tracking…