Top 10 Stories

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego have found a way to wirelessly hack thousands of vehicles by exploiting the on-board diagnostics (or OBD) devices that insurance companies use to monitor speed and location. In a video posted to YouTube, they were able to activate the windshield wipers and engage or disengage the brakes of a 2013 model Corvette by sending an SMS message to the OBD dongle's cellular radio. More details about...

According to an official of the US intelligence, Chinese hackers have accessed the private emails of “many” top members of the Obama administration. The news was reported by the NBC News which obtained a top secret document demonstrating it. The access to the email has been doing so since at least April 2010, the US intelligence initially codenamed the cyber espionage operation “Dancing Panda,” later it was identified with the name “Legion Amethyst.” It is important...

While Hacking Team’s story continues to roll, we are hearing more and more about private companies who are merchants of hacks. One of the newest players in the field is a startup called Zerodium. And as it name suggests, it specializes in acquiring zero-day exploits, and then selling them off. It works very simply by offering 3 times the price that companies would usually pay for finding holes & exploits in their products. It will...

You may have seen news that US Food and Drug Administration is now “strongly encouraging” hospitals not to use a leading brand of drug pump over hacking fears. The BBC story is here for more details. John Smith, Principal Solution Architect at Veracode commented on the FDA issues warnings to hospitals over hackable drug infusion pumps. John Smith, Principal Solution Architect at Veracode :  It is unsurprising that the FDA is urging healthcare facilities to switch from...

BlackBerry has denied rumors that its software might have played a role in the infamous "Jeep hack," saying it's "unequivocally" not true. In July, security researchers revealed that certain cars built by Fiat Chrysler were vulnerable to potentially life-threatening remote attacks, thanks to a flaw in the automaker's uConnect in-vehicle infotainment system. The underlying operating system that powers uConnect is QNX Neutrino, a real-time OS that's made by a BlackBerry subsidiary. On Friday, investment website...

A security researcher has developed an algorithm that exploits a flaw in a Facebook default privacy setting to obtain cell phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts and then get information associated with those accounts. After discovering that the Who Can Find Me? feature on Facebook, which helps someone find a member of the social media company's community by typing in a phone number, defaulted to a public setting, software engineer Reza Moaiandin, co-founder of SALT.agency,...

Many users totally ignore that LTE/3G modems built into new business laptops and tablets have a dedicated processor and operating system that could be exploited by threat actors to maintain persistent access to a compromised device. The security researchers Mickey Shkatov and Jesse Michael from Intel’s security group in a talk at the DEF CON security conference in Las Vegas demonstrated how a malware that infect a machine could rewrite the firmware of a popular Huawei LTE...

The DarkHotel global advanced threat actor group is targeting suit-wearing types with an old-school HTML application stuffed with the Adobe Flash exploit borrowed from stolen Hacking Team data. The flaws were quickly patched after the Hacking Team goring in July, but DarkHotel appears to have started targeting the exploits before the fixes landed. The group's efforts target the HTML application (.hta) to attack executives in at least nine nations, from Bangladesh, to North Korea and...

The UK's data watchdog is "making inquiries" after Carphone Warehouse said the personal details of up to 2.4 million of its customers may have been accessed in a cyber-attack. The attack was discovered on Wednesday, and made public on Saturday. The encrypted credit card details of up to 90,000 people may have been accessed, the mobile phone firm said. The Information Commissioner's Office, which examines data breaches, confirmed it was aware of the incident. Carphone Warehouse says...

Note: Tesla has already patched many of the vulnerabilities discussed here in a recent patch. It is very difficult and to hack a Tesla Model S, but it's not impossible. Last week, researchers Kevin Mahaffey and Marc Rogers demonstrated that they were able to remotely unlock the Model S' doors, start the vehicle and drive away. They were also able to issue a "kill" command to a Model S to shut down the vehicle's systems, bringing...