Internet shutdowns aren’t limited to Africa, it’s a global problem

After protests broke out over a sharp fuel price hike this week, Zimbabwe’s government ordered a three-day internet shutdown — with police also firing tear gas at demonstrators from a helicopter and arresting dozens. According to NetBlocks, which estimates the cost of internet shutdowns worldwide, the three-day outage could cost the country’s already shaky economy …

Researchers find a new DarkHydrus APT malware type that uses Google Drive as its server

C ybersecurity researchers have now spotted a new malware attack campaign linked to the notorious DarkHydrus APT group that uses Google Drive as its command-and-control (C2) server. DarkHydrus first came to light in August last year when the APT group was leveraging the open-source Phishery tool to carry out credential-harvesting campaign against government entities and …

West African Banks & financial firms hit by four different hacking campaigns in 2018

According to a report published today by US cyber-security giant Symantec. Organizations in Cameroon, Congo (DR), Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast have been hit, Symantec said today. The attacks, which haven’t yet been attributed to any hacking group, in particular, have used low-end malware strains and applications natively found on Windows systems (a …

14 iPhone apps covertly talking to suspect Golduck malware server

Security researchers say they’ve found more than a dozen iPhone apps covertly communicating with a server associated with Golduck, a historically Android-focused malware that infects popular classic game apps. The malware has been known about for over a year, after it was first discovered by Appthority infecting classic and retro games on Google Play, by …

$1 million may have been stolen from the Ethereum Classic blockchain in a “51%” hack attack

An attack on the Ethereum Classic blockchain may have helped hackers steal around $1.1 million worth of the currency from other users, according to popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Ethereum what? Ethereum Classic is the original Ethereum blockchain. In 2016, to counter another, different kind of attack, Ethereum’s developers created a new version of the transaction history that returned …

Google announces Play Store policy to prevent intrusive Android apps accessing user call log and SMS data on devices

According to Google, only an app that has been selected as the phone’s default app for making calls or sending text messages will be able to access call logs and SMS data via the SMS and Call Log permissions. The new policy entered into effect yesterday. Android app developers have 90 days to update their …

Hackers force Thousands of Google Chromecast Devices, Smart TVs to play PewDiePie Videos

Thousands of Google’s Chromecast streaming adapters, Google Home smart speakers and smart TVs with built-in Chromecast technology were targeted by hackers Wednesday, who forced the devices to play a video of controversial YouTube star PewDiePie. The hack attack, which began Wednesday morning, took advantage of badly configured routers to find streaming devices exposed to the …

Microsoft releases Internet Explorer update to counter remote code execution flaw

Microsoft today issued an out-of-band security update to patch a critical zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser that attackers are already exploiting in the wild to hack into Windows computers. Discovered by security researcher Clement Lecigne of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8653, is a remote code execution (RCE) flaw …