21,000 Customer's Bank Details Hacked| TalkTalk |

TalkTalk is one of the biggest broadband and phone service provider in the United Kingdom. A few days earlier it suffered a major breach of information when its servers were hacked and the data belonging to its over 4 million customers was compromised. In connection with this hack, the police arrested a 15 year old buy on whom the hacking was pinned to.

He was arrested after a police raid on a house in Liverpool that led to the arrest of the boy from the Antrim County in Liverpool. The company suffered a major blow due to this hacking incident and its shares in the stock exchanges in the UK fell significantly after the customers as well as investors displayed their concerns about the security measures taken by such companies.

Initially it was thought that the incident of the data security breach compromised the information of the all the 4 million users of the company. However, the company was soon to refute these claims stating that the attack was significantly less intense and damaging to the company then thought. In an official statement, the company stated that the information leaked was less significant and not useful to hackers. Information such as credit card numbers had been stored as “xxxx” in parts instead of completely storing them in numbers.

The company has now declared the actual number of affected users. It has been stated that bank account details around 21,000 of the customers of the company were stolen. In addition, debit and credit card details of around 28,000 customers were stolen and the names, email addresses and the phone numbers of 1.2 million customers were leaked.

TalkTalk has been a victim of such attacks twice earlier in this year. It faced similar attacks in February and then again in August. The three attacks pose serious security concerns about the company’s initiatives to tackle them.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 1 novembre 2015 0 commentaires

UK ISPs block several pirate domains

Piracy is a global concern and the entertainment industry world over has been fighting the menace of the pirated stuff that adversely impacts their business. Despite their attempts to keep piracy at bay, piracy is only becoming more common. There, however seems some relief for the makers of the original thing, at least in the United Kingdom.

Since April 2012, several of these producers of the original works such as the BPI, MPA and book publishers have been successfully obtaining court orders getting the ISPs block various pirated sites. Premier League is the latest entrant and ah successfully got Row Sports blocked. As per the court ruling in April 2012, Pirate Bay was the first website to be blocked. Since then there have been 100s of ISPs that have been subsequently blocked.

The latest blocking order has mandated the various Internet Service Providers, including the six major ISPs of the United Kingdom to block 90 more domains. The domains blocked under this order and also the previous ones belong to torrent sharing websites, pirated and illegal video streaming websites and unauthorised broadcasting services.

The order also mandates blocking of duplicate and mirror websites of the originally banned websites. The entertainment industry majors who have got these blocking orders against such websites can add domain names to the list and the ISPs have to block them.

Every year entertainment industry loses out on millions of dollars globally and has to suffer due to piracy. The requirement to take stringent steps against such illegal mediums such as pirate websites is high and it is about time when such court orders are taken seriously by the ISPs.

But, the entire process has a catch. Several times the domains are blocked without proper notification to the users who are bemused to suddenly see these websites being blocked on their screens when they try to access them.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ mercredi 21 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

One Of The Most Common Passwords In The World Is 123456 | Ashley Madison |

Ashley Madison is a popular dating website that has been frequently accused of enticing married individuals to cheat on their partners and find partners on the website for dating. On 19^th August 2015, “The Impact Team” a hacking group penetrated the website and extracted information about the users of the website of Ashley Madison.

They posted details of who the users are on online forums. Apart from this information they also posted login ids and passwords of 11.7million Ashley Madison users. The list of the users leaked online included regular people with some of them in very high position.

These people were negatively affected by the leak and now have their reputation tarnished. Among the passwords posted on the online forums, there are some very common and easy to guess passwords. These passwords were cracked using MD5 algorithm. It also shows that among 11.7 million users, just 4.86 million had used unique passwords. Others used very simple passwords that 

can be cracked easily by using various brute force methods.

These passwords include:

·         123456

·         12345

·         password

·         DEFAULT

·         123456789

·         qwerty

·         12345678

·         abc123

·         pussy

·         1234567

These passwords are some very common passwords and therefore it is very easy to crack them by using the trial and error methods used by brute force techniques.

It shows that these users took their security lightly and were not bothered to use more secure passwords.

The incident brings to light two important points – the safety of the passwords used by people commonly and how safe are websites like Ashley Madison?

The first point about the safety of the passwords shows that people are not bothered and do not think that they can be affected. It is the reason why websites make it mandatory to use alpha-numeric and character combinations for the passwords which was clearly missing in the case of Ashley Madison.

The second point shows the vulnerability of sites like these and hence people must avoid using them.

Meet Hackers
Www.meethackers.com

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ vendredi 16 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

Anonymous Says It’s World War 3 Are They Sure ? | Anonymous | World War 3 |

In a video posted on YouTube by the hacktivist group Anonymous, it’s been said that the current global geo-political turmoil is nothing else but World War 3. Anonymous might have nailed it and their arguments sound logical.

Anonymous has made several claims in its video and has backed it with evidences such as interviews of former top officials and other scientific facts that cannot be simply ignored. The hactivist group has said that there are major political powers behind the origin of instabilities in many parts of the world and especially in the Middle-East.

The video shows an interview of Hilary Clinton stating how the US governments have in the past funded rebels in countries like Afghanistan. These rebels then turned into jihadists and attacked USA and American forces. Taliban is an example of this where the US governments supported the rebels against the former USSR. United States wanted to control the Middle-East and South-East Asia and at the peak of Cold War in the 80s, it was the focal point of the government to reduce the influence of the USSR in this region and exert its own control.

But, soon after these rebels supported by the US turned their weapons (given to them by the US government) on to their former masters. The attack on the twin towers on 9/11 is an example. But the video also claims the validity of the attack. According to one conspiracy theory stated in the video, it has doubted the claim that the burning jet fuel of the planes hitting the twin towers melted the steel body of the buildings. The video claims that the heating point of jet fuel is much lower than the melting point of the steel.

There are various conspiracy theories doing the round. But one fact cannot be denied is that the disturbance caused by groups like Taliban and ISIS and the problems between countries such as Russia-Ukraine, Iran-Iraq, Israel-Palestine and other countries could be flashpoints of a larger global war – World War 3.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ mercredi 14 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

Apple announces a bounty of $3 million for identifying bugs in iOS 9 | IOS 9 | Iphone | Apple |

Apple has released the latest version of its coveted operating system for mobile devices iOS. The latest version of the iOS is iOS 9 and it is already being touted as the most secure and save version of the operating system that powers iPhones and iPads, the mobile devices of Apple.

Apple has introduced rootless technology in iOS 9 which makes it impossible to jailbreak the devices that run iOS 9. Since there is no root, rooting is impossible and therefore jailbreaking is also improbable.

There have been several reported incidents of bugs and malware that have affected Android and iOS users. Among the attacks faced by Apple, XcodesGhost is one of the most sophisticated and unique attacks that Apple has ever faced. The malware affects not just the Apple apps but rather its Xcodes so that it goes unnoticed. When developers use this bugged XcodesGhost to develop apps, the malicious codes get loaded into the apps. Several of such apps were uploaded on Apple App Store and affected various devices.

Jailbroken Apple devices have also been hit by several bugs. It is because of these factors Apple has made certain technological innovations in its latest version of the operating system iOS 9. Even popular jailbreakers are finding it impossible to jailbreak iOS 9. Apple has challenged anyone who can jailbreak iOS 9 with a bounty of US$3 million.

A famous hacker Tem PanGu has stated that the beta version of iOS 9 has been jailbroken and hackers are working on jailbreaking iOS 9.1. However, no official statement has been announced about the jailbreaking of iOS 9.1.

Jailbreaking iOS 9 is not impossible but very difficult. It is very complicated and would be very 

expensive for anyone trying to jailbreak. A bounty of $3 million is aptly priced for such as huge challenge.


Meet Hackers
www,Meethackers.com

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ samedi 10 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

Edward Cryptickiller Creates The Biggest Wordlist Containing 4.9 Million Passwords | Wordlist | Hacking |

Online threats, it seems despite all the security measures have only been increasing. Although there are significant efforts from the various governments and also the fact that the world now has more cyber security experts than ever before, the security threats only seem to increase exponentially.

In recent times we have seen a lot of hacks on government websites and other social media websites where the cyber criminals have posted millions of ids and passwords online. A very recent threat has been the creation of the biggest wordlist ever created. It has been created by Edward Cryptickiller and has very 4.9 million passwords in the list.

The list is pretty comprehensive and is very useful for cyber criminals who can easily download the list from the website of Edward Cryptkiller and use if for brute force attacks. The list contains frequently used passwords and it cans easily crack even the most complicated and encrypted of the ids.

A brute force attack tries several passwords in an automated manner one after the other till it inserts the right password in the password field. At this point, the password is cracked and the attacker gets an access to the login credentials of the users.

There seems to be an immediate need to counter such threats. With the growing use of the internet, more than half of the world’s population is online. It also means that their confidential and sensitive information is also online and its security is threatened by such cyber criminals.

The rising threat of terrorism has resulted in a kind of cyber terrorism who are much more dangerous than the regular cyber criminals. They target not just individuals but also governments. The need of the hour is to counter this threat immediately and take corrective steps to reduce the menace they create.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 4 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

10,000 routers hacked and have become more secure | Wifi-Hacking |

In a surprising and unprecedented incident, 10,000 home based routers have been hacked and in a surprising turn of events, these routers have become more secure. It seems that the malware has been implemented by a White Hat hacker who intends to identify vulnerability in the routers and prompt the users to address the security related issues and change their passwords. According to Symantec, the application cleans the routers of any suspicious malware and then asks the users to change their password to something more complicated.

Malware is a term that is generally has a negative connotation and hence a malware capable of improving security of a system is something unheard of. The name of the application is Wifatch software and gets installed on Linux operating system based routers. It works through a peer to peer network and when it detects a Telnet port which is vulnerable, the application shuts down the port. Telnet ports generally have easy to crack passwords and are therefore highly vulnerable to attacks.

Wifatch updates the firmware of the routers and asks the users for changing the passwords. It also has a module for detecting common malwares and therefore efficiently identifies them and eliminate them. The application is highly effective against DDoS or distributed denial of service attacks carried out by other malwares.

A signature included in the email belongs to Richard Stallman, a supporter of free software. It does seem that the authors of the code intentionally did not hide it so that everyone can look at the code. Mario Ballano, a Symantec researcher has however stated that although Wifatch has good intentions, the methods used by it is similar to that of a malware and therefore they will consider the application as a malware although unlike other malwares, it does not breach the security but enhances it.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ samedi 3 octobre 2015 0 commentaires

Special Interview of India's Famous White Hat Hacker Rahul Tyagi | Lucideus

First of all we would like to say thanks for accepting our request for this interview. Today we will talk with one of the famous, loved and most inspiring information security speaker in India.

In this interview we asked some questions which we think can never be answered in such a good manner.

So lets first know who is Rahul Tyagi.
Rahul is a post-graduate with majors in Computer Science and has conducted to his account, more than a hundred training sessions globally in past 7 years. Being a cyber space researcher himself, rahul can claim to have found critical vulnerabilities on websites of VMware, Intel, Sony, HP, Discovery Networks, TED and many more. He is also listed in BlackBerry Hall of Fame for his contributions to the organization. A Published Author of two books - Hacking Crux 1 & 2 - both on information security. He has been covered extensively by the global media and is one of the most followed Indian Information Security Expert on various social media platforms.



MeetHackers : So, when did you decided to become a hacker and how did it all start?

Rahul Tyagi : Well i never decided to become hacker, and i appeal to every reader never try to become a hacker. Not this answer may be shocking to you , but we must understand first what do you mean by a hacker. Hacker is a person who knows the technology in depth and hence once you know all about any device, technology or a computer science term then only you will be able to see the flaws and people who discover and exploit those flaws are known as hacker. So be a good computer science students first then think to become a hacker.


MeetHackers: How old were you when you started learning hacking?
Rahul: Don't remember the age but professional life starts in 2008 after entering Lovely Professional University.

MeetHackers: There are so many hacking crews in the world and one of the famous hackers’ group is "Sea" which is currently offline any comments?

Rahul Tyagi: See the problem in India is that we are busy in reading what is hacked, who hacked and when hacked, we must change this attitude , attitude should be how it can be secured and we have to secure. So i don't really have time to know which crew is down or up, but on the other hand i have huge regards and respect towards all crews which initiate operations for the sake of goodness.

MeetHackers: Which hacking group do you like the most?

Rahul Tyagi : There are many hacking crews in the world but i am not the person who know much about it with huge regards there are few crews whom i call research groups with i am attached and one of the best group is garage4hackers. Instead of hacking into this and that they share pure knowledge which is actually far away from nonsense hacking and actually helping young generation to learn and research towards genuine information security.

MeetHackers: Are these hacking crews have enough skills to breach the security?

Rahul Tyagi : See breaching is not a big deal these days at least, i want that people should understand this , if a person finds a ZERO day whatever the security you have deployed they will hack you. Hence yes hardcore skills and mastery in your field is required but that does not mean we should stop doing any security  countermeasure ,  we must give 100% effort to secure things around cyber space.  

MeetHackers: Do you support Black Hat hacking?

Rahul Tyagi : Ha ha, i don't support black hat, grey hat or white hat hacking, i support healthy hacking which  means any hacking attempt which secure the society somehow i support that, no matters with respect to which country but if any hacker who try his level best to secure his nation's cyber security either from Pakistan , India or any other country.

We should respect this, but security does not mean you will be defacing innocent citizens websites without any reason, idea should be creating secure cyber space and i hope all will be agree on this part.Now i know what you want to ask me so the answer is Big NO, i don't support black hat hacking.

MeetHackers: Several people have queries about how to become a hacker. Can you tell them how could they start?

Rahul Tyagi :There are 4 things only to become a hacker, JUST 4 simple things and time it will take minimum one year.

1. PHP: Learn PHP in depth (Or any language in which ur comfortable)

2. SQL : Learn SQL because understanding backend is the most important thing to understand how things are saved.

3. Linux : Without Linux you are like a body without a soul. Linux any distribution (Ubuntu) good to start with. 

4. Assembly   : You must understand at least the basics of assembly required in standalone application testing aka software testing. 


MeetHackers: Is Indian cyberspace secure enough? If not then please suggest how can it be more secure?

Rahul Tyagi :See when we say Indian Cyberspace then we are talking about Private Organizations, Govt. Agencies, personal websites and knowledge sharing online points like your website. So if i ask you is your website is hacking proof? Your answer will be yes and no both. :) That means there is no meter to measure is our cyber space secure enough. But yes within my  experience capacity as now we have done a long range of VAPT projects for the corporate website security and govt website .

We found that security is there but not up to date. For example Windows is installed but automatic updated for security patches are off. These are very small things which we should correct and with these small things we can create a big impact. So the bottom line is that we have the top most resources which a secure nation needs but the problem is with the people , they think deploying firewall on the website will save them , but they must understand we have to change the security of the firewall with respect to our organizations attack vector instead of running it as default.So we must give proper training and aware as much as we can to minimize such kind of mistakes.

MeetHackers: Last thoughts which you want to share with our readers.


Rahul Tyagi: In India there are having over 1.25 billion people and out of them millions of so called hackers. Now we all must understand learning hacking hacking and hacking and hacking.... so on will not lead us anywhere. If we are aiming to become actually digital India , we must also know how to make it secure too.

Instead of learning and searching for hacking this and that you must learn how to protect too, and from last 7 years me and my organization(Lucideus) trying our level best to aware students, corporate and other Govt. departments about cyber security, so that together we can build not only Digital India but a Secure Digital India.

If truly we want to make India a Secure Digital India a hardcore information security experience has to happen to every person and IT IS POSSIBLE. #JaiHind

                                         Talk To Rahul Tyagi : Facebook , Twitter

MeetHackers: Thank You So Much for such a wonderful interview hope our readers will learn from this and make the best use of information security in their life.

Note: Dear Readers we hope after reading this interview , you want to share your thoughts please feel free to comment below.   Also do share this interview to support and help other students who want to be a white hat hacker like Mr. Rahul Tyagi

Thanks

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ mercredi 16 septembre 2015 0 commentaires

Release of Kali Linux 2.0 announced and it much more powerful than ever before!

The version 2.0 of the Debian based Linux distribution has been released and offers a much more efficient and effective user interface, updates and powerful tools. This version of Kali was released by offensive Security, who in the past have released ‘Swiss Army Knife’ a powerful tool for security researchers, ethical hackers and penetration testers.

The latest version of Kali, also code named Kali Sana is an open source platform useful for testing several security vulnerabilities in a computer network. Kali 2.0 packs several hacking, forensic, reverse engineering and penetration testing tools into a single powerful Linux distribution package.

The Linux distribution system is based on the open end Debian. Debian is an operating system and distribution system for Linux and is based on UNIX. The latest version of Kali comes packed with a much snappier and crisp user interface, powerful tools and rolling updates. The rolling updates are available not just for Kali but also for the individual tools. It means that if you are using this Linux distribution system and its power tools, you will always have the latest updates available to you. 

What it will ensure it is that users always work on the cutting edge tools when using Kali.

The user interface is highly epigrammatic, user friendly and intuitive. It has all the tools docked onto the side of the screen instead of them being arranged as a menu item which is otherwise tiring to browse.

Kali Linux 2.0 runs on Linux Kernel version 4.0, uses full Gnome 3 Desktop, supports 2.0 version of Ruby and includes a horde of highly sophisticated wireless penetration tools. Kali also supports various desktop environments, displays desktop notifications for updates for the tools and has a bundled screen recording tool enabling users to record their desktops. 

meet hackers
www.meethackers.com

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ samedi 15 août 2015 0 commentaires

Most wanted cybercriminal by the FBI is also responsible for spying on the US government

One of the most notorious cybercriminal who uses the alias Slavik is also linked with the Russian espionage of the US government agencies. Slavik is one of the ‘Most Wanted’ cybercriminal by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In the summer last year, Slavik, whose real name is Evgeniy Bogachev was linked with infecting thousands of computers around the world with his botnet ‘Gameover Zeus’. The cyber gang that Slavik operated siphoned of millions of dollars from around the world through several cybercrime attacks using the botnet created by Slavik.

This included theft of over US$ 100 million from several banks from around the world and US$ 27 million in ransom. The gang used several methods such as the phishing attacks, online extortion of money, various types of online scams, fraudulent money making scheme and other such methods to steal the bank account details of thousands of people. They also infected computers of over 250,000 people around the world and demanded ransom to be paid for releasing control over their computers. This is how they collected over US$ 27 million in ransom. This malware was termed as the Cryptolocker Ransomware.

The network was eventually brought down in June 2014 after FBI and the United States Justice Department partnered with several law enforcement agencies from several nations in a bid to bring down this notorious network of cybercriminals and hunt down their kingpin Evgeniy Bogachev alias Slavik. Once the cryptolocker of Slavik was shut down and further investigations were conducted, it was identified that Slavik and his gang as well as his clients were hunting for information about government agencies of several countries including US.

It is believed that Slavik was doing this on the behest of the Russian government. A bounty of US$ 3 million has been announced on information that will lead to the arrest of Slavik.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Apple releases iOS 8.4.1 and has fixed issues relating to Apple Music

On August 14^th announced the release of its iOS 8.4.1. This latest update to the coveted operating system that powers Apple iPhones, iPads and iPod touch has fixed the issues with Apple Music. Apple Music is the streaming service for music files and was bundled with the launch of iOS 8.4 in the month of June this year.

Since its launch, Apple Music has had few issues with its services. The music service faced problems with turning on of iCloud Music Library. Another issue pertaining to the added music files has also been resolved. These files were not visible earlier since Apple Music was intended to display only offline music files.

Also, previously users were unable to add a song to a playlist if there were no existing playlists. This issue is now resolved and in such instances, users can choose to create a new playlists and add songs to them. There were also issues related to the display of an album’s artwork when displayed on other devices. Artists previously also faced problems while they tried to post to Connect. Also, there were unexpected errors while with regards to tapping Love while listening to Beats 1.

All of these issues have been resolved since they resulted in the inconvenience to the users while using this music streaming service of Apple. This comes at the right time since 8.4.1 could be the last update to the iOS version 8.4. Apple has announced the launch of its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and these two phones could have iOS 9 as the operating system for these two phones.

The fixing of issues with Apple Music will also be beneficial for the future versions of iOS, including iOS 9 in the instance it is launched as the operating system for iPhones 6S and 6S Plus.

meet hackers
www.meethackers.com

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

FBI arrests the hacker who was its own informant

In a bizarre incident, the FBI has arrested 70 hackers in an operation to bust a hacking forum. Out of the 12 Americans against whom the charges were filed, one of them is actually an informant who worked with the FBI to help them gain access to the hackers’ forum.

The operation is termed to be the largest till date and involved bringing down a forum named Darkode. It is an online forum protected by passwords and was used as a medium by hackers to sell sensitive information such as the passwords, tools and methods to hack computers as well as was used to share and sell malware applications.

Darkode, according to the authorities is the largest malware sharing forum in the world and involved trading of botnets. Botnets are the computers that are infected with the malware and the access to these computers are sold to hackers who can then become botnet operators by acquiring the access to these computers. The operation to bring down Darkode was christened ‘Operation Shrouded Horizon’ and was initiated a year and half ago. Rory Stephan Guidry, a 28 year old man from Louisiana has worked with the FBI in the past and hence he was approached by the FBI to help them bust Darkode.

The process to become a member of the forum required hackers to be invited by an existing forum member after which the invited members had to display their hacking skills. To prove his efficiency and to gain the trust of other forum members, Guidry stole the botnet of Lizard Squad that brought down PlayStation and Xbox live networks on the Christmas Day last year. Guidry supplied this code to the forum to gain their trust and get onto the inside from where he helped the FBI.

Despite this, Guidry himself was charged and arrested by the FBI claiming that that he shared malware and allowed the other forum members to gain an access to the botnet. Despite working for the interests of the FBI, Guidry is behind the bars and this will deter other hackers in the future to trust the federal agencies such as the FBI.

meet hackers] www.meethackers.com

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Bharti Airtel launches 4G services

Bharti Airtel announced the launch of its 4G services on 6^thAugust and has introduced its Infinity Plans in 296 cities in India. Reliance Jio has planned for the launch of its 4G services in December, but Airtel has taken the lead by launching it months before Reliance.

The objective of the company for the launch of the 4G service on such a large scale is to reduce the burden of revenue generation from its Voice Services. Voice Services currently account for 75 percent of the total revenue of Bharti Airtel and the company seems to have planned to increase its market share in the internet segment by launching the 4G services. This is expected to increase the revenue of the company considerably.

For the existing customers of Airtel in these 296 cities, upgrading to 4G is fairly easy. They will by default receive an SMS allowing them to upgrade to 4G. If they do not receive an SMS, they can visit Airtel 4G SIM swap webpage and apply for the SIM card. The company claims that the new SIM card will be delivered to the address of the applicant in about 4 hours.

Once the new SIM is received, the users have to send a text message to 121 and mention the 20 digit number printed on the back of their new SIM. They will instantly receive an SMS with the settings for the new SIM and activation of their 4G service.

There are four Infinity Plans that are available to the subscribers. The basic one starts at Rs.999 and offers unlimited Airtel to Airtel calls along with 3GB of data. The other plans are – Rs.1499 with 5GB data and unlimited calls, Rs.1999 with 7GB data and unlimited calls and Rs2999 with 15GB data and unlimited calls.

meet hackers

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Fixing Windows 10 glitches

The latest version of the Windows operating system, Windows 10 is now available to the users in over 190 countries. This version promises to be way better than any of the previous versions and especially Windows 8 which was a disaster for Microsoft. Windows 10, as claimed by Microsoft will be the last version of the Windows and the users in future will receive updates for their operating system. Earlier Microsoft would release a new version of the Windows every 3 to 4 years; but Windows 10, as claimed by the company will be the last one.

Microsoft is providing free updates to Windows 10 for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 users. These users can upgrade their OS anytime during the next one year. So far those who have used Windows 10 are happy with it and have generally reported a good performance. Microsoft released the beta version last year and since then beta testers reported bugs that were fixed by Microsoft.

Despite this, there a few glitches in Windows 10. For one, it in some cases rejects third party drivers and automatically updates drivers that are already installed. This is creating problems to some extent. The possible solution to this is to allow Windows 10 to update or replace the drivers with other compatible drivers. Another option is to wait for a couple of months before you upgrade to Windows 10 so that Microsoft can rectify this error.

Another chink in the armour for Windows 10 is the sharing of the encrypted Wi Fi passwords over social media sites such as Facebook, Skype and Outlook. To avoid this, users can go to Wi Fi settings and then to Network settings and check off all the boxes under this setting. This will disallow any access to password sharing.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 2 août 2015 0 commentaires

Windows 10 – Release and Review

The much awaited date of 29^th July has come and gone and the Windows 10 operating system is not officially available to all. However, it was available for the last couple of months and for beta testing since last year. The final built is out in the market and the users can get this new version of Windows.

With Windows 8, Microsoft tried to incorporate something new. Microsoft realised the importance of touch screen and accordingly made changes to the Windows 8 version. However, it was not effective enough and the OS had problems with the traditional keyboard and mouse based controls. Windows 8 was almost a fiasco for Microsoft. The company did away with the traditional start menu but this affected the acceptability of the OS among the users. Users since Windows 95 are used to using the Start Menu and have been quite familiar with it. An attempt to eliminate it created problems for Microsoft.

This is evident from the percentage of the computers that run Windows. Still 70 percent of the computers use Windows 7 and Windows XP while only 25 percent run Windows 8. Microsoft also subsequently released Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update hoping that it will change the fortunes but could not succeed much. In the mobile market, Android and iOS dominated and Windows 8 had very limited acceptability.

Microsoft then decided to change the game and declared that they will be releasing the ‘Last Version’ of the Windows OS in Windows 10. According to the company, it will be the last Windows version and henceforth only the updates will be released for Windows 10. Unlike earlier when the company would release a newer version of Windows every few years, there will not be any new version after Windows 10. Existing users of original Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 can get their operating systems updated to Windows 10 for free for the next one year.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Security issues with Smartwatches

Smartwatches are the latest technology trends with even players like Apple foraying into the smartwatch market. Apple Watch was launched earlier this year and Samsung Gear poses a tough challenge to Apple. Wearable from other smartphone manufacturers such as LG are already in the market. The smartwatch market is hot and is only growing exponentially. However, the rising popularity of the smartwatches also make them vulnerable to several security threats from hackers.

Smartwatches mean new doorways for hackers to access personal and professional information of the users wearing these watches. A study conducted by Hewlett-Packard has confirmed it and has proven that the security measures used by smartwatches are inadequate and they are highly prone to hacking and other security breaches.

All of these watches use TLS and SSL encryptions but many of them still use SSL v2 and can be hacked using POODLE attack. Also, these watches have poor user interface and 30 percent of them have web applications that have cloud enabled interface. This means that they can be attacked using account harvesting methods and hackers can make unlimited attempts to guess the passwords. Another major security issue is that 30 percent of these watches do not have two factor authentication and do not get locked even after 5 failed login attempts.

70 percent of these smartwatches do not receive timely firmware updates and that makes them vulnerable to hacking attacks. Apart from regular username and password information and other confidential data, smartwatches store even very personal user data such as health records and heart pulse rate. With the easy manner in which they can be hacked, means that these are vulnerable to several security threats and even the most basic of the data of the individuals are prone to risks of being compromised by hackers who can gain easy access to such information.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Angry Birds 2 is slated to release on 30th July

Angry Bird was launched in December 2009 by the Finnish game development company Rovio. At that point in time, Ravio was just a small sized gaming company. Angry Bird that featured multi coloured birds, slingshots, green pigs and a catchy tune was a cute little game and at that time no one expected it to become the success it actually became.

Now let’s come back to 2015 and what we see is really amazing. Angry Bird has been downloaded more than 3 billion times by millions of users round the globe and the game has seen several spin-offs and mashups. The game has seen collaboration and backing of several A list celebrities making it an amazing mobile game.

However, over the last one year, due to the increased competition from other gaming manufacturers the popularity of the game has decreased and so has the popularity of the game. The company has therefore declared on their blog that they will soon be releasing the newer version of the game – Angry Birds 2! And guess what? It is going to be one of the most awaited sequels of any mobile games. The latest version of the game is slated to the released on 30^thJuly 2015.

However, whether the 2^nd generation Angry Birds will receive as much support and become as popular remains to be seen. Will it earn as much as its predecessor cannot be predicted. The company in the past has tried to forge partnerships with games developers in China and India to get Angry Birds feature in their games. Though it was a bit successful in China, not much success could be achieved in India.

Whether Angry Birds 2 is being released as a true successor to Angry Birds or just an attempt by the company to regain their levels of the revenue that has been rapidly dwindling is a point to consider.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ lundi 20 juillet 2015 0 commentaires

Why iPhone 6 and iOS 8 cannot replace Android

It has been a while now that iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iOS 8 have been released. Until the previous versions of iPhone, the phones had much smaller screens as compared to Android phones that were termed as Phablets since they look a combination of phones and tablets. Now that Apple has launched a larger phone and a more customisable operating system in the form of iOS 8 (as compared to the previous versions of iOS), Apple is trying to bridge the gap that has been created by bigger and better Android Phones.

However despite the new phones from Apple, these still cannot replace the quintessential Android Phones. Android Phones for one have much better resolution and pixel per inch. This makes the images look sharper and therefore the display of several of the Android devices are much better than those of the iPhones.

Secondly, Android phones are much cheaper that iPhones. When it comes to value and utility, Android devices are much cheaper than iPhones. Android phones are much more cost effective and this makes them a better ‘value for money’ proposition. In most of the cases, high specification Android phones come at almost half the price of an iPhone 6.

Batteries of iPhones cannot be removed and if there is any issue with the battery, the process to replace it is much more complex. Similarly, iPhones only sport internal memory and do not have slots for expanding memory by inserting external memory cards. Also, most of the Android phones have more RAM than iPhones.

Customisation is the most important feature of Android phones. Android is open source and it is easy to make applications compatible with Android as compared to iOS. Likewise, due to its open architecture, Android is much more flexible and robust.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

How to locate your lost phone using Google Search engine

Losing your phone can be painful since you not only lose the device but also important data and contact details stored on your phone. However, this is just a small part of a larger problem. It is quite possible that you might have you multiple email accounts configured on your phone or that someone might misuse the phone if you do not find it first.

However, if you use an Android phone, you can be rest assured that finding your lost phone is a walk in the park. All you need to ensure that you have your Google account logged into your phone. Your phone must have locations settings turned on and you have an updated version of Google Search app on your phone.

Once these prerequisites are in place, it is quite simple to find your lost phone. When such an instance takes place, simply type find my phone in Google search from a computer or another device after logging into your same Google account that you were logged into your mobile phone. This will display a location map that is as accurate as up to 16 metres.

This will tell you an approximate location of your Android Phone. Next you can click on the ring option under the search map that will call your phone. Finding your phone will be much easier. However this is useful in the instance you have lost your phone in a place where it can be found or cannot be stolen, like your home, office or under the seat of your car.

If your phone is lost, you must preferably use Android device manager to locate your phone and to lock it as well as wipe out all the data that is stored on your phone.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ 0 commentaires

Malware that can hack Facebook accounts infected over one million users(facebook hacking)

Over one million users were affected by malware that hacked into the Facebook accounts of these users. The malware was a part of two gaming applications and hence the spread reached over a million since these were relatively popular gaming applications.

These games are ‘Cowboy Adventure’ and ‘Jump Chess’. The malware is a Trojan named Android/Spy.Feabme.A and it collected the login ids and passwords of the users who installed it. 

These two applications were used to get the Facebook login credentials of the users and the malware could collect details of around a million accounts before it was detected.

The apps contained malware codes in a subtle way. It means that the gaming applications functioned normally and the users could actually enjoyed playing the game unaware of the fact that the applications contained malware.

The malware used a phishing mechanism to get the user details. It will open a fake Facebook screen asking users to enter their login details. The applications did not ask for account details at the time of installation and hence users would not suspect any malware activity. However, since it would open a face Facebook page, users would login in their details and would get an error that they are unable to login.

However, the details would get captured by the malware embedded in the application which would then be used to log into user accounts. The spread of malware was more than anything similar that has happened before. The applications could successfully get the approval from Google for getting published on Google Play Store.

Since the malware has been detected, the apps have been removed from the play store; however it was done only after affecting around a million Facebook accounts. Also, if someone tries to install these apps from some other store, Google issues a warning to them communicating about the malware in the application.

Read more

by Malik korrich ~ mardi 14 juillet 2015 0 commentaires