#cellphone hacking

THN Weekly Roundup — 15 Most Popular Cyber Security and Hacking News Stories

We are once again here with our weekly round up based on last week’s top cyber security threats and challenges. I recommend you to read the entire thing (just click ‘Read More’ because there’s some valuable advice in there as well). Here’s the list: 1. Reminder! If You have not yet, Turn Off Windows 10 Keylogger Now Microsoft is very powerful in tracking every single word you type or say to its…

Techie Police Officer Builds a Sniffing Tool to Track Stolen Devices (based on War-Driving)

Ever wonder, How can you Track your Stolen Smartphone, Laptop or any Smart Device? …With IMEI Number? …Or IP address? …Or may be some special types of equipment? Well, Not required, because now it is possible to track stolen devices just by scanning their MAC addresses. Yes, Just MAC addresses, which is assigned to each device on a unique basis by the IEEE, but crooks can modify it in an attempt…

New Rules Require FBI to Get Warrant for Spying With ‘Stingrays’ Cell Phone Trackers

Remember StingRays? The controversial cell phone spying tool, known as “Stingrays” or “IMSI catchers,” has been used by authorities to track criminal suspects most of the times without obtaining court orders. But now, the Federal law agencies will have to be more transparent about their use of Stingrays to spy on cell phones. Thanks to the new policy announced Thursday by the US Department of…

Your GPS Location and Calls Can be Spied Using Network Vulnerability

Yes, you heard it right. It’s the dirty truth that’s featuring what is being called the largest privacy breach ever. Billions of cell phone users are at risk of a vulnerability in the SS7 inter-carrier network that allows hackers and spies agencies to track locations and intercept all voice calls from anywhere in the world. This is something we already know from the last year’s Snowden leaks that…

New Post http://i-hls.com/2014/09/hacking-gmail-92-success/

Hacking Gmail with 92% Success

Illustration

A team of researchers, including an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, have identified a weakness believed to exist in Android, Windows and iOS mobile operating systems that could be used to obtain personal information from unsuspecting users. They demonstrated the hack in an Android phone – see the clip below.

The researchers tested the method and found it was successful between 82% and 92% of the time on six of the seven popular apps they tested. Among the apps they easily hacked were Gmail, CHASE Bank and H&R Block. Amazon, with a 48% success rate, was the only app they tested that was difficult to penetrate.

Authors of the paper are Zhiyun Qian, of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UC Riverside; Z. Morley Mao, an associate professor at the University of Michigan; and Qi Alfred Chen, a Ph.D. student working with Mao.

iHLS Israel Homeland Security

The researchers monitor changes in shared memory and are able to correlate changes to what they call an “activity transition event,” which includes such things as a user logging into Gmail or H&R Block or a user taking a picture of a check so it can be deposited online, without going to a physical CHASE Bank. Augmented with a few other side channels, the authors show that it is possible to fairly accurately track in real time which activity a victim app is in.

There are two keys to the attack. One, the attack needs to take place at the exact moment the user is logging into the app or taking the picture. Two, the attack needs to be done in an inconspicuous way. The researchers did this by carefully calculating the attack timing.

“By design, Android allows apps to be preempted or hijacked,” Qian said. “But the thing is you have to do it at the right time so the user doesn’t notice. We do that and that’s what makes our attack unique.”