Have you ever wondered how credit card numbers work? I mean, how they really work? How do they come up with the numbers? Credit cards actually follow a very specific pattern. Let's take a look at how they're set up. Example of a Credit Card Number 4485 3151 5882 2849 These ...more
Looking for an easy way to make certain that your sensitive personal information is secure? With Identity Finder, it's easy! So easy, in fact, that this home-computing how-to from the folks at TekZilla can present a complete overview of the process in just over three minutes. ...more
When I see the words "free trial," I know I'm probably going to have to whip out my credit card and enter in the number to "not get charged." Then I end up forgetting about the trial and want to kick myself in the ass when I see my statement at the end of the month. In order ...more
Think credit card numbers are just a meaningless jumble of digits? A sort of number soup? Think again! Your credit card number isn't even number at all but rather a composite of four separate numbers, each of which plays an important, fixed role. Because of these roles, you c ...more
A magic tutorial for how to do the number 13 card trick. The demonstrator tells you what to say and how to do the trick.
As you might guess, one of the domains in which Microsoft Excel really excels is finance math. Brush up on the stuff for your next or current job with this how-to. In this tutorial from everyone's favorite digital spreadsheet guru, YouTube's ExcelIsFun, the 39th installment in ...more
For years, you could only make purchases with your Apple Cash balance on your iPhone using Apple Pay, but a new update gives you the power to set up a virtual card number you can use just like a debit or credit card. Using a virtual card number for your Apple Cash account is ...more
As hard as you try to protect your valuable information with strong passwords and anti-doxing measures, there's nothing you can really do when someone else gives up your goods. And that is the case with the recent Global Payments breach. Global Payments is just one of the mid ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! As nearly everyone has heard, Target Corporation, one of the largest retailers in the U.S. and Canada, was hacked late last year and potentially 100 million credit cards have been compromised. Happening just before Christmas, it severely da ...more
Samy Kamkar, the security researcher known for the MySpace Worm and his combination lock cracking skills (using an online calculator), is back—and this time, he's after your credit cards! Well, not really, but his latest project, dubbed MagSpoof, can spoof any magnetic stripe ...more
Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Finding vulnerabilities in systems can be one of the most time-consuming tasks for a hacker. There will be times, though, when you'll find yourself in a position that you know that a particular port represents a vulnerable application or se ...more
Identity theft typically occurs when someone uses your personal information such as social security numbers, credit card numbers or account information to perform various misdeeds, and you are left to clean up the mess. Identity theft affects about 9 million victims a year, bu ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! In a previous tutorial on hacking databases, I showed you how to find online databases and then how to enumerate the databases, tables, and columns. In this guide, we'll now exfiltrate, extract, remove—whatever term you prefer—the data from ...more
In the realm of internet security, it's becoming clear that augmented reality is not immune to the increasing wave data breaches plaguing users. On Friday, furniture retailer Houzz, an early adopter of ARKit, revealed details of a data breach that occurred in December 2018. ...more
You saw our post on the 18 coolest new features of iOS 7, but now that you've had a chance to play around with your updated iPhone, it's time to lock it down. There are a surprising number of new privacy and security-related issues in iOS 7's default settings, from allowing A ...more
Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a " ...more
Are you constantly traveling? Well, as a Hilton HHonors member, you can enjoy special treatment at all of their hotels and resorts. It's free to register, but the difficulty lies in climbing up their membership level. To reach Gold elite status, Hilton HHonors requires that yo ...more
If thieves, hackers, law enforcement, or other would-be enemies should ever gain entry to your smartphone, they could also access conversations you've had in Signal Private Messenger. To better secure your encrypted communications, you can password-protect the whole app and it ...more
Unless you've been living under a rock with no internet connection, it's safe to say that you've heard of the Heartbleed flaw that allows practically anyone with the right knowledge to steal your personal information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, and e-mail addresse ...more
In the weeks before Apple officially released iOS 8, consumers were abuzz over rumors that a new feature would password-protect your photos and text messages from prying eyes. Unfortunately, this ended up being untrue, though we did cover some alternatives to protecting your i ...more
Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself ...more
This weekend, hackers broke into the servers of the popular shoe shopping site Zappos, giving them access to the personal information of 24 million Zappos customers. The user data taken included names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, the last fo ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! The Golden Fleece of hackers is to develop a zero-day exploit, an exploit that has not been seen by antivirus (AV) software or and intrusion detection system (IDS). A zero-day exploit is capable of skating right past these defenses as they do ...more
This is second post in my series of posts for finding hacked accounts online. Please do read the part 1 of the post at http://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/find-hacked-accounts-online-part-1-0164611/ In this post we will explore more about finding hacked accounts online, w ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! A short while back, I began a new series on database hacking, and now it's time to continue and extend your education in that field. As you know, the database contains all of the most valuable info for the hacker, including personally identifi ...more
Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! Those of you who've been reading my tutorials for some time now know that I am adamant regarding the necessity of learning and using Linux to hack. There is no substitute, period. In this tutorial, though, we will be setting up a system to ...more
Many online users worry about their accounts being breached by some master hacker, but the more likely scenario is falling victim to a bot written to use leaked passwords in data breaches from companies like LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr. For instance, a tool called H8mail can ...more
Using a keylogger to intercept keys pressed on an infected computer can circumvent encryption used by email and secure chat clients. The collected data can often reveal usernames, passwords, and potentially compromising and private information which hackers abuse for financial ...more
In most cases, when the free trial of software is over, that's it—you're left to either pay for it or find an alternative. But what happens if the trial wasn't long enough to sell you on the product? It'd be nice if there was a way to test it out again without having to whip o ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! Most often, the professional hacker is seeking protected information from the target system or network. This might be credit card numbers, personally identifiable information, or intellectual property (formulas, plans, blueprints, designs, etc ...more
Welcome back, my hackers novitiates! As you read my various hacking tutorials, you're probably asking yourself, "What are the chances that this hack will be detected and that I'll land behind bars, disappointing my dear mother who already thinks I'm a loser?" In this tutoria ...more
Welcome back, my amateur hackers! In this tutorial, we will follow up on a previous tutorial on MySQL. In that tutorial, I showed you the basics of running a MySQL server on BackTrack. In addition, you might want to take a look at my tutorial on the basics of databases, if yo ...more
Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! Although there is a multitude of different hacker types, the one target they all share is the database. I often refer to the database as the hacker's Holy Grail, or the ultimate prize for an effective hack. That's because the database—alm ...more
Will the predicted apocalyptic date—December 21st, 2012—really be the end of the world? In this ongoing five-part series, we examine what would happen if zombies, nuclear weapons, cyber wars, earthquakes, or aliens actually destroyed our planet—and how you might survive. End ...more
In October of 2017, Mathy Vanhoef released "Key Reinstallation Attacks: Forcing Nonce Reuse in WPA2." This paper demonstrates a way to decrypt traffic on practically any WPA2 network, the most commonly used form of wireless security (seeing as all other forms of Wi-Fi encrypti ...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
It has been a long while since I last came here to write an article. Graduate school keeps you busy. After I looked over what I had written previously, I decided that I should introduce another fun topic from cryptography. In this case, steganography. In this article, I will ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Recently, I asked the Null Byte community what subject they would most like me to cover in future tutorials. Many of you cited scripting, and I decided it's best to cover this subject soon, so here goes. Any self-respecting hacker must be ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use ...more
Enter a password into a password field, and it's a sure bet that black dots or asterisks will obscure the characters. Nearly every website you visit in Safari on your iPhone will do it, but sometimes it helps to see what you're typing or what was auto-filled with iCloud Keycha ...more
It's official — the newest version of Google's mobile operating system is called Android 8.0 Oreo, and it's in the process of rolling out to many different devices. Oreo has plenty of changes in store, ranging from revamped looks to under-the-hood improvements, so there's tons ...more
If maintaining privacy is an ongoing battle, the front line is your smartphone. Apple included several new security features in iOS 10, but at the same time, some of the best new functionality comes with potential privacy trade-offs that everyone needs to understand. New feat ...more
This time it's serious. Really. The largest web security vulnerability of all time went public on Monday, April 7th, 2014, resulting in widespread panic throughout the Internet as system administrators scrambled to secure their websites from the OpenSSL bug known as Heartblee ...more
Anonymity is something that doesn't exist today. Everything you do in the world is tracked, from the purchases you make to surfing the internet—even taking pictures on your iPhone. Everything you have ever said and done on the internet is still there—somewhere. This is called ...more
There's always an iPhone in our list of top phones for privacy and security, due in large part to advanced security measures like Face ID, consistent iOS updates, and easy ways to prevent unwanted access and excessive data sharing. However, some of those options actually do th ...more
With a simple web-based tool, you can hide secret messages for family, friends, and fellow spies inside of plain text communications, and anyone that intercepts the messages will be none the wiser. Steganography is the art of hiding secret messages comprised of text, code, au ...more
On an iPhone, it's easy to blur or cross out faces and sensitive information found in your images — just use Apple's Markup tool for all your obfuscation needs. Things aren't as simple when it comes to videos. There are no built-in iOS features to blur, redact, or otherwise ob ...more
These days, most images we post online or share with others come from our smartphones. Whenever personal data is in them, such as debit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information, it's easy to jump into your iPhone's markup tools to blac ...more
Over the years, we've seen security breach after security breach, as well as high-profile data scandals where collected personal information was misused by companies. Apple makes customer privacy a priority, so there have been few issues to worry about when it comes to its ser ...more
Privacy is a growing concern in the tech industry, but Apple has fallen behind many of its peers when it comes to email security. Fortunately, iOS 15 changes that. Your email address is the key to a vast amount of personal information, not to mention a stepping stone into your ...more
The last iOS software update was a modest one, but iOS 17.4 has a lot more for your iPhone, including changes to emoji, Podcasts, security, Safari, widgets, Apple Cash, CarPlay, and more. Many of the exciting changes in iOS 17.4, as well as iPadOS 17.4, apply to users in the ...more
Gas prices across the United States have skyrocketed, with today's national average for regular unleaded gas at $3.51 a gallon, with California leading the pack at $3.90 a gallon. AAA reports that last week's national average was just $3.37. That's a $0.14 increase in just one ...more
Over the years, I have enjoyed playing with Asterisk. I have found Asterisk to be extremely powerful and fun to play with. There are several books and many scattered how to articles out there, but most are outdated and the information required to build Asterisk from beginning ...more
Thanks to online music services like eMusic and iTunes, compact discs are becoming a far distant memory, turning local music shops around the country into desolate wastelands. The once mighty movie rental store Blockbuster is now bankrupt because of online streaming services l ...more
This coming Friday, November 11th, 2011 is Veterans Day and everybody's celebrating! But only veterans and active military personnel can get the great deals being offered at restaurants and retail outlets across the country. If you need help locating some of those deals, below ...more
In order to play the game Risk, begin by setting up. Name a banker. Players choose a color. The number of players determines the number of armies. Remove the jokers from the country card packs. Shuffle the cards. Deal them face down. Players may not get an equal number. Each ...more
Plastic Jungle.com offers an awesome service in which you can sell your unused gift cards for cash, other gift cards, and even Facebook credits! You can visit their website and create an account then trade in your gift cards for cash and browse other gift cards that you can b ...more
With all the documents ready, we need to fill our wallet with money for the travel. This video discusses various ways of filling the pocket. That is how to prepare the money for international travel. Over the years credit cards have been widely used by many travelers, which is ...more
This is a video that demonstrates how a card trick is done. It shows a trick in which the presenter does a card trick and then explains how it is done. The trick is one where the person guesses a card and it deals with a red deck and a blue card. The person guesses a number in ...more
Identity theft is a huge problem and one of he fastest growing crimes in America. A number of credit card companies now issue credit cards with embedded RFIDs (radio frequency ID tags), with promises of enhanced security and speedy transactions. But, on today's episode of Bo ...more