Vincent's Tech Blog

A former employee of Russian search engine Yandex allegedly stole the source code and key algorithms for its search engine site and then attempted to sell them on the black market to fund his own startup. Russian publication Kommersant reports that Dmitry Korobov downloaded a type of software nicknamed "Arcadia" from Yandex's servers, which contained highly critical information, including the source code and some of the "key algorithms," of its search engine. Korobov then tried to sell the stolen codes to an electronics retailer called NIX, where a friend of his allegedly worked, and on the dark underground market in search of potential buyers. But What's the Punchline? The funniest part is that Korobov requested only $25,000 and 250,000 rubles (a total of almost $29,000) for Yandex's source code and algorithms, which actually cost "Billions of Rubles," or somewhere near $15 Million USD. However, Korobov was arrested by Russia...

I don't know about your part, but I make heavy use of tabs. I currently have 200+ tabs open in my Google Chrome Web browser. And sometimes the number is even more. For me it's a daily thing, as I regularly open new tabs because of my habit of reading lots of stuff online, including cyber security updates, hacking news, knowledgeable articles of various categories, new recipes to cook something delicious and, of course, funny viral videos. Browsers — Everything for us, But Biggest Memory Eaters! I think you’ll agree with me when I say: It’s really hard to manage so many tabs on Chrome — and Firefox too. But worse still is the obstruction in the performance of your computer, as the tabs continue to run background processes and feed on your system’s memory. It gets difficult to sort through them, everything slows down, and sometimes it crashes the browser itself. Doesn’t it? But, I really don’t face any issue while surfing on 200+ tabs at one time with 4GB RAM com...

Raise your hands if you want Free Video Calling feature in WhatsApp. I am in, and I think most of you people. And the good news is that it looks like WhatsApp's much-awaited Free Video Calling feature is on its way, according to the recently leaked screenshots. Free Video Calling Feature in WhatsApp German technology blog Macerkopf.de has posted what it claims are screenshots from an unreleased version of the popular messaging client WhatsApp for iOS. The screenshots are from an unreleased version of the software ( version 2.12.16.2 ), which is currently being tested internally, but at present it is not clear whether or not those screenshots are legitimate. But, if the leaked screenshots are real, and WhatsApp adds the Free Video Calling feature, then the company could take an enormous bite out of some of its top rival. WhatsApp Video Calling feature will allow you to make video calls to your friends and family anywhere in the world for free as long as you have...

Hyatt Hotels Corporation is notifying its customers that credit card numbers and other sensitive information may have been stolen after it found malware on the computers that process customer payments. "We recently identified malware on computers that operate the payment processing systems for Hyatt-managed locations," the company announced on Wednesday. "As soon as we discovered the activity, we launched an investigation and engaged leading third-party cyber security experts." What type of information? The company didn't confirm whether the attackers succeeded in stealing payment card numbers, neither it say how long its network was infected or how many hotel chains were affected in the malware attack. But as the payment processing system was infected with credit-card-stealing malware, there is a possibility that hackers may have stolen credit card numbers and other sensitive information. What happened? Hyatt spokeswoman Stephanie Sheppard said the...

What would require crashing the wildly popular WhatsApp messaging application? Nearly 4000 Smileys. Yes, you can crash your friends' WhatsApp , both WhatsApp Web and mobile application, by sending them not any specially crafted messages, but just Smileys. Indrajeet Bhuyan , an independent researcher, has reported The Hacker News a new bug in WhatsApp that could allow anyone to remotely crash most popular messaging app just by sending nearly 4000 emojis to the target user, thereby affecting up to 1 Billion users. Bhuyan is the same researcher who reported a very popular WhatsApp crash bug last year that required 2000 words (2kb in size) message in the special character set to remotely crash Whatsapp messenger app. After this discovery, the company patched the bug by setting up the limits of characters in WhatsApp text messages, but unfortunately, it failed to set up limits for smileys send via WhatsApp. "In WhatsApp Web, Whatsapp allows 65500-6600 characters, b...

Meet an all-new Hacker’s Search Engine similar to Shodan – Censys . At the end of last month, security researchers from SEC Consult found that the lazy manufacturers of home routers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have been re-using the same set of hard-coded cryptographic keys, leaving around 3 millions of IoT devices open to mass hijacking. But how did the researchers get this number? Researchers uncovered these devices with the help of Censys – a new search engine that daily scans the whole Internet for all the vulnerable devices. Censys Maintains Complete Database of Everything on The Internet Censys is similar to hacker's search engine Shodan, which is designed specifically to locate any devices that have been carelessly plugged into the Internet without much attempt at preventing unauthorized access. However, Censys employs a more advanced method to find vulnerabilities in the devices and make the Internet a safer place. Censys is a free search engine tha...

Yes, it's time to shift from Wi-Fi to Li-Fi — an alternative technology that is 100 times faster than the average speeds of Wi-Fi. Scientists have just field-tested the new wireless technology called Li-Fi for the first time and achieved marvelous wireless speeds that are 100 times faster than current WiFi speeds. What is Li-Fi Technology? Li-Fi is a new wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using light (i.e. Visible Light Communication or VLC) rather than radio bands. In short, Li-Fi is a Super-Fast alternative to Wi-Fi. Earlier this year, scientists achieved mind-blowing speeds of 224 gigabits per second (Gbps) in the lab using Li-Fi. It's believed that this technology has the potential to change everything about the way we use the Internet today. And Yes, it will. Test Results: Li-Fi is 100 times Faster than Wi-Fi An Estonian startup company called Velmenni took the technology out of the laboratories and into the real-world offices, and in...

Some of Bitcoin’s Core developers have left the Bitcoin project and started building their separate cryptocurrency called DECRED . Decred aims to prevent the issues Bitcoin is currently facing regarding project governance and development funding. CEO of 'Company 0', Mr. Jacob Yocom-Piatt, who has funded Bitcoin development since early 2013, said the actual development of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency is funded by external entities that forms a conflict of interests between the groups and the project's core developers. According to Bitcoin's developers, these group puts limitations on input in Bitcoin's governance, selecting options that are favorable to their own interests only, and generally ignoring the developers' and project's best interests. "The Bitcoin software is controlled by a small group of people who decide exclusively what can and cannot be changed," Jacob says in a press release. "This is in part due to a lack of mechani...

Breaking News: A 23-year-old Bahamian man has been arrested and charged with hacking into the email accounts of 130 celebrities and stealing the unreleased movie and TV scripts, sex tapes, explicit images and even the upcoming album of a famous A-List Celebrity. The hacker named Alonzo Knowles contacted a famous radio host to sell the stolen scripts for the first six episodes of a hit television drama currently being filmed. The unnamed host informed about it to the Homeland Security that cooked up a sting operation and had the radio host put the hacker in touch with an undercover investigator posing as an interested buyer. The LOSE Among the items he offered to sell were: Scripts for three comedy films A hip-hop biopic Another television show Social Security numbers for actors and professional athletes Emails and phone numbers of at least 130 celebrities Sex tapes of celebrities The hacker was arrested on Monday in Manhattan, a day after arriving from the Bahamas...

  Do you know? Microsoft has the power to track every single word you type or say to its digital assistant Cortana while using its newest operating system, Windows 10. Last fall, there was a report about a 'keylogger' that Microsoft openly put into its Windows 10 Technical Preview saying the company 'may collect voice information' as well as 'typed characters.' It was thought that the company would include the keylogger only within the Technical Preview of Windows 10, just for testing purpose. But, the thought was Wrong! The keylogger made its ways to Windows 10 public release offered by Microsoft for free due to which Windows 10 gained millions of adoption in just a few days after its first roll out back in July – but the free upgrade is not always free. Yes, besides various privacy issues, there is a software component that tracks your inputs using your keyboard, voice, screen, mouse, and stylus, however, it is a bit more complicated than you thou...

Microsoft's Windows 10, the latest version of Windows Operating System, has been creating waves since it rolled out, and reached to 110 million devices within just 2 months. If you are a long-time Windows user, you may remember a trick called, 'God Mode'. God Mode is an inbuilt, but hidden feature of Windows that provides additional customization options for the operating system. With Windows 10, all the Settings of the operating system are kept under Settings App, and categorized between System, Devices, Network & Internet, Personalization, Update & Security, Privacy and more. Enabling God Mode, also known as 'Windows Master Control Panel Shortcut', in Windows 10 essentially unlocks a backdoor of the OS to access 260+ additional settings from a single folder. How to Enable God Mode in Windows 10? Follow the steps given below to enable the God Mode in your Windows 10: Create a new folder on your Windows desktop (New > Folder) and save it...

Wireless charging isn't a new concept at all, but to charge your devices you are still required to place your phone on the top of charging pad. Quite annoying sometimes when slightly misaligned of a device caused your phone not to charge. Now, imagine you never have to plug in your smartphones again, or technology that charges multiple devices at one time. This is what Energous Corporation is all set to offer you. WattUp — Wirelessly Charging Technology The technology company Energous Corporation is about to launch WattUp — a wireless charger that will change the way people charge their electronic devices at homes, in the offices, in the car and beyond. "With WattUp, you no longer need to worry about looking for a charge: once you are in a WattUp wire-free charging zone, the battery life of all your devices will simply be managed, seamlessly and intelligently, so you can devote your time and energy to what really matters," the Energous website reads. WattUp ...

Ever wonder how to hack Instagram or how to hack a facebook account? Well, someone just did it! But, remember, even responsibly reporting a security vulnerability could end up in taking legal actions against you. An independent security researcher claims he was threatened by Facebook after he responsibly revealed a series of security vulnerabilities and configuration flaws that allowed him to successfully gained access to sensitive data stored on Instagram servers, including: Source Code of Instagram website SSL Certificates and Private Keys for Instagram Keys used to sign authentication cookies Personal details of Instagram Users and Employees Email server credentials Keys for over a half-dozen critical other functions However, instead of paying him a reward, Facebook has threatened to sue the researcher of intentionally withholding flaws and information from its team. Wesley Weinberg, a senior security researcher at Synack, participated in Facebook's bug bount...

What do you do to earn up to $150,000? Somebody just hacks into airlines and sells fake tickets. That's exactly what a 19-year-old teenager did and made approximately 1.1 Million Yuan (£110,000 or $150,000) by hacking into the official website of an airline and using the stolen booking information to defraud hundreds of passengers. The teenager, identified as Zhang from Heilongjiang, north-east China, hacked into a Chinese airline website and illegally downloaded 1.6 Million passengers bookings details, including: Flight details Names ID card numbers Email addresses Mobile phone numbers Zhang then used this information to successfully defraud hundreds of customers by convincing them that there was some issue with their booking flights, and they had to pay extra fees, according to People's Daily Online. Moreover, the hack caused the airline to lose almost 80,000 Yuan ( $12,365 USD ) as a result of customers requesting refunds. The incident took place from 31 ...

So what would anyone need to bypass password protection on your computer? It just needs to hit the backspace key 28 times, for at least the computer running Linux operating system. Wait, what? A pair of security researchers from the University of Valencia have uncovered a bizarre bug in several distributions of Linux that could allow anyone to bypass any kind of authentication during boot-up just by pressing backspace key 28 times. This time, the issue is neither in a kernel nor in an operating system itself, but rather the vulnerability actually resides in Grub2 , the popular Grand Unified Bootloader , which is used by most Linux systems to boot the operating system when the PC starts. The source of the vulnerability is nothing but an integer underflow fault that was introduced with single commit in Grub version 1.98 (December 2009) – b391bdb2f2c5ccf29da66cecdbfb7566656a704d – affecting the grub_password_get() function. Here's How to Exploit the Linux Vulnerabilit...

Researchers have come up with an all new way to revolutionize the standard computer chip that comes inbuilt in all our electronics. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the University of California, Berkeley among others, have invented a new material that could replace the 'silicon' in conventional chips – built in all electronic devices – making the device's processing speed 1,000 times faster. This means that the new chip made with nano-material could solve complex problems in a fraction of the time our computers take. The brand new chip, dubbed Nano-Engineered Computing Systems Technology (N3XT), takes the landscape from a resource-heavy single-storey layout to an efficient 'Skyscraper' approach, claims a Rebooting Computing special issue of the IEEE Computer journal. Silicon Chip – A Resource-Heavy Single-Storey Layout The standard silicon chips currently used in all electronic devices have one major issue: The silicon chips are arran...