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Android 11. Google Pixel Phones Technology

Android 11 is here: check out the new features and your phone's compatibility with the new Android

 

Google has been teasing the Android 11 release for quite some time now and it's finally here. The new OS was released on September 8 but will reach India in the upcoming weeks.




The new OS will be available for Indian users in the next few weeks given your phone is compatible, various smartphone makers like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, One Plus, Nokia are backing their new models with Android 11. Google Pixel smartphones of course already have as Android 11 was released on the new Pixel phone.

New Features

Android 11 has rolled out with several interesting new features encompassing conversations, privacy and security, accessibility, device control, content capture, and predictive tools. Some of these are- 

Bubbles (Chat while multitasking)

This feature will pin your conversations to the screen and you can converse without leaving the application your working in. 
 "Bubbles keep the conversation going—while you stay focused on whatever else you’re doing. Access the chat anytime or anywhere. Then carry on doing you.", Android.inc released on their blog.

Get all your messages in one peace

Now you can better manage your conversations in one place. You'll get message notifications from multiple message apps at one place from your priority people. 

Content Capture

Android has finally integrated a built-in screen recording feature. Another quirk with the new OS is that it allows you to copy text as well as pictures and move them wherever you want. 

Smart Reply

The Google Keyboard comes with default smart replay, which gives suggestive replies life 'sound good'. "Replies are intelligently suggested based on what’s been said in the conversation—so the words you need and the perfect emoji are always at your fingertips." 

Privacy 

This Android update comes with more privacy to the user- the user can select data and permissions to be granted to the app and only once not the traditional permissions that apps ask for every time you open the app.

Device and Voice Control

Android 11 welcomes better ease of access that is voice control even offline voice command and connected device control like managing house appliances.

There are other security and privacy updates that are aptly needed and provide a better experience compared to the Android 10 version. Various smartphones are compatible with the new update, namely- 
  •  Google Pixel Phones: Pixel 3, 3A, 4, 4A
  •  Oppo phones: Oppo is testing the feature on their Find X2 series and Reno 3 Series (4G).
  •  One Plus: One plus is also testing open Beta of its Oxygen OS 11 update for OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. 
  •  Realme Phones: Realme X50 Pro
  •  Xiaomi phones: They posted on Twitter that their Mi10 and Mi 10 Pro will be the first to have the 11 updates.
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Stock market
Cyberattack DDoS DDOS Attacks Stock market

NZX Underwent Power Outage Caused Due to Multiple Cyberattacks, Trading Halted


New Zealand’s stock market exchange came to an abrupt halt after being hit by cyberattacks multiple times over a week, blocking the access to its website and resulting in a major power outage caused due to a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack from overseas, state-backed adversaries.

The unknown attackers put to work a group of computers and bombarded the NZX website with requests to connect by commanding these computers, which resulted in overloading the exchange’s servers and shutting down its website.

The systems harnessed to instigate the attack probably belonged to innocent businesses that would have been exploited by the malware earlier. The owners of these compromised computers have most likely stayed oblivious to the fact that they have been hijacked to facilitate a cyberattack.

On Wednesday, the Wellington-based NZX exchange issued a statement wherein they explained how the Tuesday attack affected their websites and the market announcement platform. Blaming the attack on overseas adversaries, the NZX said that it had “experienced a volumetric DDoS attack from offshore via its network service provider, which impacted NZX network connectivity”.

“A DDOS attack aims to disrupt service by saturating a network with significant volumes of internet traffic. The attack was able to be mitigated and connectivity has now been restored for NZX,” the exchange further said.

While commenting on the matter, Dr. Rizwan Asghar, from the school of computer science at Auckland University told that it was difficult to trace the source of such a cyberattack as the threat actors exhibited a tendency to hide their IP addresses.

To combat the attacks, New Zealand’s spy agency, The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) was sought by the NZX; by Friday GCSB constituted a group to investigate the matter which concluded that the motivation of the DDoS attack seems to be financial rather than political as claimed by few.

The findings of the investigation denied the involvement of state-backed agents in the attacks by stating that, "The nature of this tends to be a criminal activity rather than state-backed. You can't rule it out but it's more likely than not to be criminal activity."
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National Cyber Security
Bank Cyber Security Belarus Cyber Security Cyber Attacks Hackers News National Cyber Security

Hackers threaten to bring down the tax, energy and banking system of Belarus

A group of hackers threatens to bring down the tax, energy and banking systems of Belarus if the head of state Alexander Lukashenko does not comply with the ultimatum

The union of hackers and IT-developers of Belarus has threatened President Alexander Lukashenko to bring down the tax, energy and banking systems if security forces continue to detain protesters.

The statement of attackers was published in the Telegram channel "Cyber Partisans". They demand that Lukashenko stop the arrests by September 13, go out with a loudspeaker and publicly apologize to the population, as well as leave his post. And if this does not happen, "Belarus will forget what taxes are."

"Alexander Lukashenko, we are addressing you personally. It will be very painful, first, the tax system will break down, then the electricity in the country will run out, then the banking system will break down… Do you need it?" the hackers asked the President of the Republic. In addition, the hackers stressed that they are able to "kill the ruble" and start blocking the bank accounts of people from Lukashenko's inner circle.

Recall that after the announcement of the election results in Belarus, mass protests began. The protesters are demanding Lukashenko's resignation and new fair elections. In addition, citizens report violence by the security forces.

The European Union refused to recognize the victory of Lukashenko, and the Kremlin, on the contrary, congratulated the permanent leader of the Republic on the next term.

An interesting fact is that during the elections and in the following days, the Internet stopped working several times in the country. The Belarusian authorities called the cause of the failure a cyberattack from abroad, but later it became known that the equipment for blocking local state security agencies was provided by the American company Sandvine.

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TikTok
Cyber Security Microsoft Oracle TikTok

TikTok owner Chinese company clarifies to Microsoft that it would not be its new owner

 

Following President Donald Trump's executive order that labeled the video-sharing application TikTok as a "national emergency", its owner has a September 15 deadline decided to either sell the app to a US company or see the service banned completely banned from the US market.

Be that as it may, Microsoft had already stepped in the race before the official announcement came from the president, saying it was interested in taking up TikTok and incorporate "world-class security, privacy, and digital safety protections" to the app if it did. 

By uniting with Walmart to co-bid for the Chinese company's US, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand operations. 

Microsoft authorities dubbed the conversations as "preliminary", highlighting that it was not planning to give any further updates on the discussions until there was a definitive result. ByteDance, the Chinese multinational internet technology, said it would exclude TikTok's algorithm as a feature of the sale, as per a South China Morning Post report, and further clarified to Microsoft that it would not be its new owner.

Sunday's blog post emphasized what Microsoft has expressed right from the beginning - that the potential procurement would have required "significant changes" to the application's present status. 

The company moreover explained in a blog post, "ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft, we are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok's users while protecting national security interests." 

"To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement.." 

Nonetheless, following Microsoft's bid, Oracle has also started holding discussions with ByteDance, indicating its interest in the video-sharing application. 


The Wall Street Journal on Monday morning revealed that Oracle would soon be announced as TikTok's "trusted tech partner" and that the video-sharing platform's sale would not actually be organized as an acquisition. 

Meanwhile, Tik Tok affirms that it would launch a lawsuit against the US government concerning its ban. Any possible lawsuit, however, would not keep the company from being constrained to auction the application in the US market.
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Technology
Microsoft Office 365 Phishing Mails Security Feature Technology

Microsoft Office 365 users will now be able to view their quarantined phishing messages

 

Microsoft Office 365 will now let users view their phishing messages that are automatically screened by Exchange Online Protection (EOP) filter. 



Through this new venture, users will now be able to reclaim that had been unwittingly marked as spam or phishing by EOP. (EOP- a cloud-based filtering service that scans messages and restricts malicious emails like spams, phishing emails, malware attachments from reaching to the end-user) 

"We understand that managing false positives is important to ensuring an email is delivered appropriately, and in the past, end-users weren't granted access to the quarantine to view messages," Microsoft debriefs on the new feature.

However, the new feature will be available as "read-only" access but the user can request a particular message to be dropped in the inbox that might have been accidentally quarantined. This new Office 365 ATP Request Release feature will be available to all users with the Advanced Threat Protection plan this month. 

Office also released a similar feature not too long ago - Application Guard which opens all files from unsafe locations in a secluded sandbox. This isolated sandbox doesn't allow malicious files to corrupt the device and software by not letting the file download any data, file, or extension from the attacker's server. 

Upcoming ATP security features and tools- 

Office 365 is alluding to enhance their security in the third quarter of the year with various new security features in the charts- 

  •  Improving Office 365 ATP Threat Explorer 
To elevate it's distinguishing ability to sort between malicious, spam, or phishing emails.

  •  Disable default email forwarding to external recipients
In order to prevent data theft and "automated malicious content blocking" to all users despite their custom settings.

  •  More transparency through email pathways-
Office ATP users would get more information on the route incoming emails take through Office's EOP (Exchange Online Protection) filtering system and they would know more about the "effectiveness of any security configuration changes" according to bleepingcomputer.com.

  •  New Configuration Analyzer 
This new feature is suspected to release in Q3 and would make it easier to compare your security policies settings efficacy to Office's recommended settings.
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Russian Cyber Security
Cyber Security National Cyber Security Russia Russian Cyber Security

Russian cloud storage will protect user data before elections


The creation of the Russian cloud services will allow protecting confidential data of not only ministries or departments, but also of ordinary Internet users, said political analyst Yuri Samonkin.

MTS group of companies announced the launch of a cloud service with an increased level of protection. It is assumed that the new service will be in demand among government organizations, ministries, departments and private companies that carry out government orders, said Oleg Motivilov, Director of MTS cloud business. According to him, the new system meets all the requirements of the law on personal data protection.

Russia is one of the leaders in the development of Internet technologies, said Yuri Samonkin, President of the Eurasian Institute of Youth Initiatives. He believes that the current realities of the Internet dictate the need to create new digital solutions, such as cloud storage.

According to him, many Russians use Western social networks and other Internet resources. Therefore, the issue of protecting their personal data, which is often "leaked", is very relevant.

On the eve of the upcoming elections, the issue of cyber defense is becoming even more acute. It is necessary to protect from external interference not only the personal data of the voters themselves but also the servers of the relevant departments.

"State and municipal portals should be located not on Western servers, but on domestic ones. This will avoid information leakage and hacking", concluded Mr. Samonkin.

Earlier, E Hacking News reported that Russia has worsened its position in the ranking of countries with the most stable segments of the national Internet, dropping from 11th to 13th place. 

Read more »
Technology
Bluetooth Flaw Bluetooth-enabled devices Exploits Technology

A New Security Vulnerability Discovered in Bluetooth technology


Two teams of security researchers have discovered a new vulnerability in Bluetooth technology that has been confirmed by The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), the bloc responsible for Bluetooth interests. The flaw could potentially allow a hacker to take complete control of a user’s Bluetooth enabled device without authorization.

Bluetooth is a short-range, low powered, high-speed open wireless technology that uses the Internet of Things (IoT) for transmitting fixed and mobile electronic device data. Bluetooth replaces the cables that people conventionally used to connect devices, with an added purpose of keeping the communications secure. However, with convenience and productivity, Bluetooth also presents major security threats.

Devices using the Bluetooth standard 4.0 through 5.0 are vulnerable to a flaw called ‘BLURtooth’ in Cross-Transport Key Derivation (CTKD) - it allows an attacker to manipulate the CTKD component and overwrite authentication keys on the victim’s device. The Bluetooth 5.1 standard released by the Bluetooth SIG in January 2019 contains features that provide security against BLURtooth attacks.

Earlier this year, in May, academics from Italy and Germany identified yet another new type of attack ‘Spectra’, it was reported to break the separation between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth running on the same device. While relying upon the fact that transmissions happen in the same spectrum, the attack works against "combo chips".

In a blog post published on their website, the company told that for CTKD attack to be successful “an attacking device would need to be within wireless range of a vulnerable Bluetooth device supporting both BR/EDR and LE transports that supports CTKD between the transports and permits pairing on either the BR/EDR or LE transport either with no authentication (e.g. JustWorks) or no user-controlled access restrictions on the availability of pairing. If a device spoofing another device’s identity becomes paired or bonded on a transport and CTKD is used to derive a key which then overwrites a pre-existing key of greater strength or that was created using authentication, then access to authenticated services may occur. This may permit a Man In The Middle (MITM) attack between devices previously bonded using authenticated pairing when those peer devices are both vulnerable.”

“The Bluetooth SIG is also broadly communicating details on this vulnerability and its remedies to our member companies and is encouraging them to rapidly integrate any necessary patches. As always, Bluetooth users should ensure they have installed the latest recommended updates from device and operating system manufacturers,” the blog further read.
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Minecraft
Cybersecurity Discord Fortnite Minecraft

Hackers Attack Gaming Industry, Sell Player Accounts on Darkweb


Generating a tremendous revenue of $120.1 billion in 2019, the gaming industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors. But this success comes at a high cost as it attracts hackers as a potential target. However, cyber-attacks in the video game industry are hard to trace, making the sector vulnerable to cybercriminals in recent times.



About the attacks
As per recent research, there exist covert markets that trade stolen gaming accounts. These trades can generate an unbelievable amount of $1 billion annually with this business. The Fortnite and Minecraft together amount to 70% of what these underground markets make. According to reports, Roblox, Runescape, Fortnite, and Minecraft are responsible for generating $700 annually. Experts at Night Lion security say that hackers selling stolen Fortnite player accounts are making up to $1 million annually.

 Recent developments 
Hackers are now operating as a hierarchical organization, appointing designations for different work. The structured enterprise has positions like developers, senior managers, project managers, sales, and public relations to sensationalize their services.

  • The actors are using open cloud services and digital platforms to conduct their business. 
  • The hackers steal in-game inventories like skins, crates, and coupons from player accounts and sell them on the black market for a lower price. 
  • These hackers often target top gaming accounts and steal player profiles to trade them for lower prices in the underground market. 

Recent attacks 

  • Last month, experts found a game named "Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout," which contained malicious javascript API. It stole data from target players' discord and browser. 
  • In June 2020, around 1.3 million Stalker Online players' accounts were stolen and sold on the dark web later. 
  • In July 2020, a Nintendo leak revealed the game's details before they were officially launched in the market. 


The gaming industry now faces a bigger challenge to protect its community from the rising attacks. A proactive and multi-layered approach can help gamming companies protect their customers, along with products and services. However, gamers should be careful, too, avoiding re-use of the same password on other platforms.
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Technology News
Antidrone Drone Technology Technology News

The Antidrone system and a new platform for online voting were created in Russia

The Antidrone system will allow detecting drones that fly up to any object, said Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of the Kaspersky Lab. Depending on the model of the drones, the program can either land it, send it back, or stun it.

"This is necessary at sporting events, at airports, and for private businesses. Do I want someone's drones flying around our office? I don't want. This is the case when simultaneous sales will probably go both in Russia and in Europe," said Eugene Kaspersky.

Another startup of the Kaspersky Lab is an online voting system based on blockchain. According to Eugene Kaspersky, it can only be hacked by infecting a specific device. However, it will be difficult to infect a lot of devices.

"If you infect a thousand devices, it will not affect big elections in any way, but if you infect a million devices, it will be immediately noticeable. Of course, the elections will be disrupted, but we will see it," said Eugene Kaspersky.

The development also includes a process for monitoring online voting.

"If you want to observe the elections, put the server in the blockchain. So we simultaneously increase the blockchain, that is, the number of machines that calculate all this, and give access to observers. That is, if you want to be an observer, come with your computer,” explained the expert.

Also, during the pandemic, the company created its own travel accelerator "Kaspersky Exploring Russia". The program is designed to help tourism startups overcome the crisis and create the basis for further implementation of their projects. During the selection stage, the Kaspersky Lab received more than 500 applications from 47 countries.

Mister Kaspersky also said that Russia trains the world's best programmers, but this sometimes leads to the fact that the world's best hackers also speak Russian.

Read more »
Trump
Chinese Hackers Cyber Security Iranian hackers Microsoft Russian Hackers Trump

Microsoft Confirms Cyber-Attacks on Biden and Trump Campaigns

Microsoft reports breaching of email accounts belonging to individuals associated with the Biden and Trump election campaigns by Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state-sponsored hackers. 

Tom Burt, Corporate VP for Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft, revealed the occurrences in a detailed blog post after Reuters announced about a portion of the Russian attacks against the Biden camp. 

"Most of these assaults" were recognized and blocked, which is what he added later and revealed in the blog post with respect to the additional attacks and furthermore affirmed a DNI report from August that asserted that Chinese and Iranian hackers were likewise focusing on the US election process.

 As indicated by Microsoft, the attacks conducted by Russian hackers were connected back to a group that the organization has been tracking under the name of Strontium and the cybersecurity industry as APT28 or Fancy Bear. 

 While Strontium generally carried out the spear-phishing email attacks, as of late, the group has been utilizing 'brute-force' and password spraying techniques as an integral technique to breaching accounts. 

Then again, the attacks by Iranian hackers originated from a group tracked as Phosphorous (APT35, Charming Kitten, and the Ajax Security Group). 

These attacks are a continuation of a campaign that began a year ago, and which Microsoft recognized and cautioned about in October 2019. At that point, Microsoft cautioned that the hackers focused on "a 2020 US presidential campaign" yet didn't name which one. 

Through some open-source detective work, a few individuals from the security community later linked the attacks to the Trump campaign. 

What's more, only a couple of days back Microsoft affirmed that the attacks are indeed focused on the Trump campaign, yet in addition unveiled a new activity identified with the said group. The attacks were likewise identified by Chinese groups. 

While presently there are several hacking groups that are assumed to work under orders and the security of the Chinese government, Microsoft said that the attacks focusing on US campaigns originated from a group known as Zirconium (APT31), which is a similar group that Google spotted not long ago, in June. 

Microsoft says it detected thousands of attacks coordinated by this group between March 2020 and September 2020, with the hackers accessing almost some 150 accounts during that time period.


Read more »
Web Skimming
Card Skimming Malware Cyberfraud E Skimming Web Skimming

Online Credit Card Skimming on a Continual Rise – Here's How to Prevent it


Credit card skimming has already been on a rise prior to the pandemic and the trend is most likely to develop in the near future as online shopping has seen a dramatic jump due to the confinement measures imposed in various nations – giving cybercriminals more opportunities to bank upon than ever.

Popularly known as, 'Magecart' moniker, web skimming is the practice of compromising online stores and stealing payment card data in the process. In March, web skimming soared by 26%, as per the data by MalwarebytesLABS.

Credit card skimming is a form of credit card theft where crooks steal victims' credit card credentials and other sensitive information through a skimmer which is a small device constructed to steal information stored on credit cards when victims carry out transactions at ATMs. Lately, the terminology has been expanded to include malicious code that targets payment card data filled on e-commerce websites while making purchases. By either means–hardware or software, skimming attempts to achieve the same goal of performing fraudulent transactions by using the stolen data.

As various nations upgraded their cybersecurity by moving to chip-enabled cards, crooks have also continually adopted new and sophisticated methods to avoid detection. Certain skimming devices are designed to fit into the card reading slot – known as "deep-insert." They are intended to read data from the chips on chip-enabled cards.

Consumers are advised to stay extra cautious as there is not just a single way to fall in the trap of skimming, security experts recommend looking for signs of tampering like chunks of metal or plastic that seem off in dispositions, strange holes, or constituents, not in alignment with the rest of the ATM.

To prevent online skimming, there is not much one can do directly as they can't control the affected software. However, consumers can constantly monitor their card statements to look out for unauthorized transactions. They can use virtual card numbers to make online purchases if the bank offers of can also pay with smartphones; services such as Google Pay and Apple Pay that uses tokenization, replacing the real number with a virtual one, assures a great deal of security for real number by not exposing it. Another way to ensure safety is by making use of an alternative e-wallet service like PayPal.

Recent skimming attacks include a data breach disclosed by Warner Music Group, The American Payroll association's report wherein cybercriminals installed skimming malware on the login page of their website as well as the checkout section by exploiting a vulnerability in the company's CMS. Magecart skimmers also employ Telegram as a means for sending stolen credentials back to its C2 servers.
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