The Play Store hasn't been the most secure place for apps lately. A quick Google search for "Play Store malware" will give you a taste of some of the malicious apps that snuck their way onto Android's official app store. Google is aware of the problem and they're tying to fix ...more
Coronaviruses are common viruses, and most of us catch one at some point — they cause about 30% of all common colds. A new accidental discovery could help fight these viruses, even the deadlier, emerging ones. Coronaviruses are the cause of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (M ...more
Young girls, especially those who live in areas where HIV is epidemic, like sub-Saharan Africa, are particularly vulnerable to becoming infected with HIV. A vaginal ring containing the antiviral agent dapivirine has been shown to decrease the chance of developing HIV-1 in adul ...more
Let's say you got a little careless while installing apps from unknown sources, and now your Android device has been infected by malware. Or perhaps your friend has come to you for help after they had haphazardly installed random apps until their phone was filled with popups a ...more
When it comes to antivirus software, you don't want some fly-by-night developer having access to the sensitive data that these apps can scan. Luckily, most of the longest-tenured antivirus companies from the realm of desktop computers offer complete security suites for Android ...more
One of the things that sets a seasoned hacker apart from the script kiddies is the ability to effectively sneak past antivirus defenses when executing an attack. One way to do this is to use custom shellcode in an exploit. Not everyone is an expert at writing shellcode, but lu ...more
How can a drug used to treat cancer be effective against viruses, too? The answer lies in the drug's shared target — specifically, cellular components that control the activity of genes. A new research study showed that one such type of drug, histone methyltransferase inhibito ...more
Do you own an HP printer? If so, it may be vulnerable to malware attacks. Researchers at Columbia University discovered that 25% of Hewlett-Packard printers have significant vulnerabilities that put your printer in danger from hackers—even your home. With a budget of just $2,0 ...more
Most of us have some sort of malware scanner or antivirus program on our computers, but what about our smartphones? A lot of people don't realize that computers aren't the only devices that are susceptible to malicious software and apps—they can follow you on your smartphone o ...more
Even though HIV rates declined 18% between 2008 and 2014, 1.1 million people in the US are living with the infection. Part of that is because HIV is treatable, but not curable. HIV attacks the very cells of the immune system that should kill off the infection, and our bodies ...more
Activating the body's own immune system to fight cancer is the goal of immunotherapy. It's less toxic than chemotherapy and works with our body's natural defenses. The trouble is, it doesn't work for most patients — only about 40% of cancer patients get a good response from im ...more
Since Apple launched iOS 13, we've seen four major updates for iPhone, each of which added some cool new features. Between iOS 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, and all the minor updates in between, there's never been a better time to be on iOS. And now, we've got even more positive cha ...more
Results of an early-stage clinical trial of an HIV vaccine could mean a hoped-for breakthrough in the battle against AIDS. It was in 1981 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first reported on a rare lung infection in a young, healthy man who was gay. In ...more
Welcome back, my budding hackers! I've written several listener guides on creating a malicious PDF or malicious Word document that would carry in it a payload with the Meterpreter, or reverse shell enabling you to own the system. One of the hurdles to using these techniques i ...more
Our quest to find novel compounds in nature that we can use against human diseases —a process called bioprospecting — has led a research team to a small frog found in India. From the skin slime of the colorful Hydrophylax bahuvistara, researchers reported finding a peptide — a ...more
The presence of certain bacteria can indicate whether the vaginal tract is healthy or not. It could also impact the likelihood of acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases, like HIV, a new study suggests. Lactobacillus is the type of bacteria found most commonly and mos ...more
Microsoft.com is one of the most extensive domains on the internet with thousands of registered subdomains. Windows 10 will ping these subdomains hundreds of times an hour, making it challenging to firewall and monitor all of the requests made by the operating system. An attac ...more
Smartphones are like high tech buckets that collect our personal information through constant use. This has some obvious benefits, like getting a more personalized experience with our devices. On the other hand, this data is a tempting target for bad actors looking to make a b ...more
You know it's crazy out there when governments start blocking social websites like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. But that's what happened in Egypt, when tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets on Tuesday (January 25th) in hopes of ending Presi ...more
Mechanical locks have been around since ancient Egypt, with the oldest known artifact found in the ruins of Nineveh, an ancient city in Assyria, Mesopotamia, which is just across the Tigris River from what is now Mosul, Iraq. It was a forerunner to our modern-day pin tumbler ...more
Tired of sniffing your health away? Are your sinuses driving you mad? Well this video will show you how to create a Master Tonic to live for. This stuff fixes cold, flu, respiratory problems, immune booster, anti allergy, anti bacterial, anti fungal, anti anything that can hur ...more
A lot of different places have computers with controls on them for several things; some have controls for installing software, some for running software, blocking websites, opening certain file formats, etc. Obviously, not all places use the same methods, and not all of the m ...more
You're sitting in front of your grandmother's Windows XP machine that has the worst infection you've ever seen. Safe mode? No dice. Restore points? They're compromised. Even worse, all of the files are hidden and none of the executables will run! This leaves her computer in a ...more
Oh, LifeHacker, we love you. You've brought us so many handy HowTo's: Hack Wireless Internet, Bypass Blocked Websites, Convert a Laptop Into a Projector, Watch TV & Movies on the Web For Free, 10 Must-Know Google Privacy Settings, and more. And now, another great one: LifeHac ...more
No doubt you've seen some of the hack logs being released. One part that stands out over and over again is the heavy database usage. It used to be early on that virus and hackers would destroy data, usually just for lulz. However, with the explosive commercial growth of the In ...more
In the first part of this series, we learned about darknets, as well as how they came about. But these patches of forgotten Internet are not the oasis of free information you might think. Despite being hidden—or just harder to come across—these networks are no more safe then a ...more
You Want White Teeth Without Expensive Over-The-Counter Products? Here's An Inexpensive, Effective Solution. Everywhere you look there are products for whitening teeth. You could spend a fortune on products you have to use everyday. This tutorial will show you a natural, inex ...more
Natural remedies used through the ages abound, especially in Asian medicine. The willow-leaved justicia plant, found throughout Southeast Asia, has traditionally been used to treat arthritis, but scientists have just discovered it contains an anti-HIVcompound more potent than ...more
In late June, the biggest measles outbreak to strike Minnesota since 1990 seemed to be winding down. Today, public health officials announced a new confirmed measles case in the area. Since the outbreak started in April of this year, public health officials estimate more than ...more
Windows 10 passwords stored as NTLM hashes can be dumped and exfiltrated to an attacker's system in seconds. The hashes can be very easily brute-forced and cracked to reveal the passwords in plaintext using a combination of tools, including Mimikatz, ProcDump, John the Ripper, ...more
Joe McKenna died when he was 30 years old. A young married man with his future ahead of him, he was cleaning up the station where he worked as a fireman. Struck by a piece of equipment fallen from a shelf, Joe complained of a sore shoulder. Over the next week, Joe worsened and ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! One of the most common questions that Null Byte readers ask is: "How can I evade detection by antivirus software on the target?" I have already talked about how AV software works, but to obtain a deeper understanding, what better way is there ...more
Lock screen exploits are becoming increasingly common in the mobile world. Four weeks ago there was the iPhone 5 passcode bug (which just got fixed yesterday...kinda). Then there were a couple lock screen bugs on the Samsung Galaxy S3 two weeks ago. Now that GS3 lock screen b ...more
Apple announced upcoming changes today to prevent third-party tracking of users and prevent autoplay, on Safari. Safari will prevent the recording (by anyone other than Apple) of users' browsing behavior, and by doing so prevent advertisers from targeting ads based on individu ...more
It seems like every day now that we see a new headline on a cyber security breach. These headlines usually involve millions of records being stolen from some large financial institution or retailer. What doesn't reach the headlines are the many individual breaches that happen ...more
Identifying security software installed on a MacBook or other Apple computer is important to hackers and penetration testers needing to compromise a device on the network. With man-in-the-middle attacks, packets leaving the Mac will tell us a lot about what kind of antivirus a ...more
Welcome back my precious hackerians. Today i would like to promote an OS which i have been using for the past couple months. I'm not talking about Backtrack 5 or Kali Linux. Something even more promising: Bugtraq 2 Black Widow I'm not going to show you how to install it beca ...more
As the COVID-19 virus continues to spread, counties, cities, and states are closing down businesses, events, and schools that aren't absolutely necessary. Some companies around the US are recommending or requiring employees to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic. If ...more
Working from home is going to be a reality for more people than ever. With Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announcing that his employees will be working remotely for an extended period of time (and even permanently, in some cases), the workforce is rapidly changing. More companies are ...more
Hi I am a new member of null byte(although I am reading this website from the beginning) and this is going to be my first post. Let me introduce myself first ! I am from Greece, I am working as a network engineer and I am into system and network administration but definitely ...more
Hello, Hackers/Viewers! My name is nullf0x, and I have 4 years of experience as a hacker. You might see everyday that one of your friends or acquaintances get a new virus in their computer. You might think, How cool would it be if I made a virus? or How cool would I be if i c ...more
Hi! Let me get started on this subject as it is a very "touchy" subject. We all want to "hack" these days, and that's logical. Te be real honest here, i was inspired once by the words someone from the Null byte community said. In the (near) future, wars will be ended by comput ...more
When it comes to your security, you want the best of the best. Why settle for mediocre service with something as valuable as your protection? Malware continues to make its way onto the Play Store, leaving millions of devices vulnerable. You need an app that will shield your de ...more
Code execution in Microsoft Word is easier than ever, thanks to recent research done by Etienne Stalmans and Saif El-Sherei. Executing code in MS Word can be complicated, in some cases requiring the use of Macros or memory corruption. Fortunately, Microsoft has a built in a fe ...more
As if the swollen, painful joints of rheumatoid arthritis weren't enough, the disease is the result of our immune system turning against cells of our own body. Ever since this realization, scientists have worked to find the trigger that sets the immune system off. Scientists b ...more
Heart disease is the leading cause of death of men and women in the US. Over half a million Americans die from it annually. Atherosclerosis — a build up of plaque in the arteries — is a common feature of heart disease and can be caused by smoking, fats and cholesterol in the b ...more
Montezuma's revenge, the runs, the trots, or just diarrhea — everyone gets it sooner or later. What exactly is diarrhea good for, if anything? The basic description of diarrhea is loose, watery, stools. It can be explosive, frequent, acute, or chronic — but the bottom line is ...more
Look no further than Flint, Michigan, to discover the serious consequences of contaminated drinking water. Around the world, water polluted by pathogens and toxins sickens people or cuts them off from safe drinking water. Looking for a solution, researchers created tiny, swimm ...more
Viral infections have been the focus of attention in the development of autoimmune diseases—diseases where the body's immune system reacts to the body's own cells—because they trigger the immune system into action. In a study published in Science, led by senior author Dr. Ban ...more
Maternal infection with genital herpes, or other pathogens, during early pregnancy could increase risk of autism, or other neurodevelopmental disorders, says a new study. Scientists looking for an association between maternal infections and risk of autism studied blood plasma ...more
You know the signs—sneezing, fever, nagging cough, no energy, no appetite. It's the flu, but this time, it's your dog who's down and out. Yes, dogs get the flu, too. However, a team from the University of Rochester Medical Center and their collaborators have developed a new va ...more
Over 1.2 million people in the US are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—and one out of eight of them don't know it. Even after decades of intense research into the virus, there's still no cure for it. One of the big problems is that the virus hides out in certai ...more
Encrypting payloads and encoding stagers are more effective against macOS than one might think. It's very easy to evade VirusTotal and macOS antivirus software using a few simple tricks. The goal of this project was to locate a known and easily detectable macOS payload, then ...more
Like humans, cats can suffer infections caused by ticks, and too often, the disease is fatal. Learn about tickborne diseases that affect cats and what you can do to protect Fluffy from an untimely demise. Across the US, tickborne diseases are on the rise. With warmer winterti ...more
Nineteen days ago, several hundred people could have been exposed by a traveler with measles in Nova Scotia, Canada. The next day, someone flying from Minnesota to Nebraska may have spread the measles to other passengers. A couple weeks ago, it's possible that a man and his si ...more
Smartphones are almost always connected to the internet, so it stands to reason that they can be hacked remotely. Or perhaps a jealous boyfriend or girlfriend got hold of your device physically, in which case they could've potentially installed a keystroke logger, a virus, or ...more
If you somehow forgot the pattern, PIN, or password that locks your Android device, you might think you're out of luck and are destined to be locked out forever. These security methods are hard to crack by design, but in many cases, it's not entirely impossible to break into a ...more
In case you didn't know, Android has an awesome hidden settings menu called "Developer options" that contains a lot of advanced and unique features. If you've ever come across this menu before, chances are you just dipped in for a minute so that you could enable USB debugging ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! As hackers, we often are required to get past antivirus (AV) software or other security measures. To do so effectively, we need to have some understanding of how AV software works. In this tutorial, we will take a cursory view of how AV so ...more
A powered-off Windows 10 laptop can be compromised in less than three minutes. With just a few keystrokes, it's possible for a hacker to remove all antivirus software, create a backdoor, and capture webcam images and passwords, among other highly sensitive personal data. The ...more