The new iOS 10 won't be released to the public until September 13 via an OTA update, but the Gold Master edition is available right now. Essentially, it's the same version that Apple will release on the 13th, but only for developers so they can get their apps up to snuff befor ...more
Welcome back, rookie hackers! We recently began an exploration of ways to hack using the Bluetooth protocol. As you know, Bluetooth is a protocol that connects near field devices such as headsets, speakers, and keyboards. Its minimum range is a 10-meter radius (~33 feet) and ...more
One of the first orders of business after purchasing a new smartphone is to load up your shiny new toy with phone numbers, email addresses, and general contact information for all the important people in your life. Don't Miss: Android Basics: Get Started with Your New Smartph ...more
Due to the way Android works, you normally need to be rooted to uninstall the pre-loaded system apps, aka bloatware, that came with your device. This is because the underlying files for these apps are stored on your system partition, which can only be modified with root-level ...more
If you're using iOS 10 or lower, there is no built-in way to record an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch screen, and Apple doesn't allow any third-party apps to screen record either. If malicious, an app could theoretically continue recording even after you think it's off, allowing ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Sometimes, we don't have a specific target in mind, but rather we are simply looking for vulnerable and easy-to-hack targets anywhere on the planet. Wouldn't be great if we had a search engine like Google that could help us find these targe ...more
An attacker can repurpose public MyBB forums to act as command-and-control servers. It only takes a few lines of code to configure a MacBook to fetch commands and send responses to any website the attacker desires. Before you keep reading, know that this project is not geared ...more
Since we wouldn't have Android without Google, everyone has come to realize that the Pixel smartphones are a prime example of what an Android smartphone should be. With so many unique software related features, no wonder people want that Pixel experience. OnePlus offers its O ...more
So, you rooted your Pixel 2 or 2 XL and everything seems to be working quite well. However, a month passes, and you get a notification to install the monthly security update. Like clockwork, Google has been pushing out OTA security patches every single month for a while, but t ...more
Apple's latest mobile operating system for iPhones, iOS 12, was released to everyone Monday, Sept. 17, and it's the same exact build that developers and public beta testers received as the "golden master" on Sept. 12, the day of Apple's 2018 special event. Install it to start ...more
While hackers adore the command line, working with the GUI (graphical user interface) of an operating system has some advantages. This is especially true when it comes to post-exploitation. When we can control the mouse and keyboard of a remote computer, we can truly say we ha ...more
Smartphone manufacturers do their best to keep you tied down to their ecosystem, but the reality is that there's not much keeping you from switching. Transfer some files, install a few apps here and there, and all of a sudden, you're knee-deep in a new operating system. Don't ...more
Smartphone users often wish for a privacy, where no one is able to poke his/her nose in their personal stuff. Unfortunately, none of the smartphones have been able to guard their privacy in this fashion. Smartphones usually come up with none or almost negligible built-in secur ...more
When it comes to cybersecurity, one layer isn't enough. A complex password (or one created with a password manager) does a good job of protecting your data, but it can still be cracked. Two-factor authentication strengthens this by adding a second layer of security, giving you ...more
With the files on our devices getting more important as the years go by, the need to keep things organized continues to rise. The longer you have a device, the messier the internal storage might become. Having a file manager would be extremely useful in this situation. You cou ...more
In Apple Music, loving and disliking songs is a great way to teach Apple's subscription service what type of tunes you like and which you don't. While it also seems like it should be an excellent way to keep track of songs you enjoy in the wild, there's no clear way to view al ...more
When you can't think of a way to respond in Messenger with words, emojis and stickers will do the trick. Since Facebook is all about the "likes," which use a thumbs-up icon, there's a shortcut to the symbol just to the right of the chat field. It's always there to send a quick ...more
When your iPhone goes missing, it's serious business. Depending on your usage, your whole life might be connected to your iPhone, not the least of which includes debit cards, credit cards, and Apple Pay Cash stored in Apple Pay. While it's nearly impossible for someone to use ...more
You can mod every aspect of your phone's software with root, but if you want to make changes at the hardware level, you'll need a custom kernel. If you've looked into custom kernels before, one name undoubtedly kept coming up: ElementalX. It's easily the best custom kernel out ...more
For some Android users, this guide is sacrilege — but for others, iOS is just an attractive operating system that can be admired without feeling like you've betrayed your own phone. If you're one of those Galaxy Note 9 owners that have peeked across the aisle and desired an in ...more
Google, Amazon, and Facebook are always listening. But what's worse? Hackers are listening, too. Windows PCs are particularly vulnerable, but with a few simple commands, a remote attacker can even take over the microphone on someone's Mac computer, streaming audio and listenin ...more
We've been able to download our Facebook data onto our computers for a while now, but now you can do so right from the comfort of your iPhone or Android phone. With it, you'll be able to integrate your data into other apps that support it or even just download it before you de ...more
Smartphones are still "phones," which means communicating with others is usually a primary use. Ranging from a simple "hi" to a more personal conversation and even sharing passwords, our messages should remain private so that only the intended recipient sees their content. Whi ...more
When I'm with my friends on the weekend, we always end up Snapping shots of one another, adding in whatever stickers and lenses we've accumulated over the last week. But these filters are fleeting, so it's always a challenge to keep up with the best new ones. If you want to ge ...more
It's always a pleasure when your activity syncs across all of your devices. Herein lies another reason to use Samsung Internet — the app natively syncs with your open tabs on desktop Firefox. Anything you do on your computer can be easily accessible from your smartphone. Now, ...more
If you have a Mac, you can use Apple's Handoff feature to open one of your Safari desktop tabs in Safari on your iPhone. But if you prefer to use Google Chrome as your desktop browser, whether or not that's because you have a Windows PC, you can't "hand off" open tabs from Chr ...more
Apple just released the third beta for iOS 11.3 on Tuesday, Feb. 20, which comes exactly two weeks after the release of iOS 11.3 beta 2 that brought battery health data and performance-throttling controls. At first glance, iOS 11.3 beta 3 seems to be mostly under-the-hood impr ...more
Typos are a constant annoyance that we all deal with thanks to the cramped touchscreen keyboards on smartphones. For many, nothing beats the feel of a good old physical keyboard when it comes to typing fast with minimal errors. Fortunately, WhatsApp has an awesome feature whic ...more
Research group OpenAI, a research institute co-founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, says it is possible to trick driverless cars' neural networks into mistaking images for something else. In a blog post published on OpenAI's website, Anish Athalye, an undergraduate studying comput ...more
Hackers are good at what they do—some can even use the way you move your phone to guess a 4-digit PIN in five attempts or less. That's why most of us with compatible hones use the fingerprint scanner. It's just much more secure. Or is it? Researchers from Michigan State Unive ...more
The OnePlus 3 and 3T are two of the most modder-friendly devices to be released in 2016. Not only that, but they're both extremely solid phones which happen to sport a very reasonable price tag. Among the things that make these devices such a joy for tinkerers is the fact that ...more
Android O has finally arrived—well, it's technically a beta version, but that isn't stopping Android enthusiasts from going crazy about it. The first Developer Preview was released earlier today and is available right now to install on Nexus and Pixel devices. While Android O ...more
Jailbreaking gives iPhone users almost unfettered access to their devices, offering a slew of customizations, new features, and improved apps that you just can't get elsewise. Unfortunately, Apple has clamped down hard on the latest iterations of iOS, making jailbreaking extre ...more
The '90s were a great decade to be alive. Before the internet became a high-availability service, we were untethered from the bombardment of media present in today's culture. Children ran through the streets with levels of physical exertion beyond what's required to capture fi ...more
Kodi, formerly known as XBMC, is one of the most versatile media players available. With it, you can play virtually any internet and media file in a large variety of formats, and it can be used on practically every single operating system out there, including iOS 10. Kodi, an ...more
Google has already issued a few updates to Android 7.0 Nougat. There aren't many headlining features, as these minor updates are mostly bug fixes and performance improvements. But there's a few security enhancements as well, so staying up-to-date with the latest patches is imp ...more
The newest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 10, has been out for about a month now. But like every year beforehand, some of you who updated will not be happy with the latest and "greatest" iOS version. If that happens to be the case for you, you've still got a ...more
We're already glimpsing the future when we look at mixed reality through a headset, but is the real evolution of this technology something that will exist as part of our bodies? As intense as that may sound, TechCrunch's Jay Donovan offers compelling reasons why it's not such ...more
This tutorial is one technique to use the full functionality of your Pi. The small size makes it ideal for inside hacks, but still has the capabilities of a average desktop or computer. I should mention that a tutorial that OTW has done, but I'm gonna take it a step further. O ...more
Social engineering is a pretty important item in a hacker's toolkit. In Mr robot there was a time, we saw Elliot using social engineering to gain access to his therapist's boyfriend's email and bank accounts by calling him and pretending to be someone from his bank, then Elli ...more
Before you sell your old iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to a buddy or a company like Gazelle, it's vital that you wipe the entire device of all its content; including sensitive material like contacts, messages, pictures, and videos. There are two easy ways to wipe your iOS device ...more
You need a good microphone on your computer in order to make audio recordings, voice chat, or use speech recognition. However, not every computer comes with a built-in mic, and not every built-in mic works great. You can purchase a cheap computer microphone on Amazon for as l ...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
Live Photos is an interesting new feature introduced by Apple on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus models that captures the moments immediately before and after you snap a picture in the Camera app, resulting in a GIF-like animation. But unlike a conventional GIF file, a Live Photo d ...more
While password cracking and WPS setup PIN attacks get a lot of attention, social engineering attacks are by far the fastest way of obtaining a Wi-Fi password. One of the most potent Wi-Fi social engineering attacks is Wifiphisher, a tool that blocks the internet until desperat ...more
Accidentally deleting important files can happen as easily as swiping left on something and watching it disappear into the ether. Of course, Apple allows automatic backups through iCloud, which ensures that your data is always stored safely in the cloud in case of emergency. ...more
Hackers have stolen over 225,000 Apple user's account information from countries all over the world—including the United States, China, and France—in what many are reporting to be the biggest known Apple hack in history. Using a type of malware dubbed “KeyRaider,” hackers hav ...more
On an Android device, you can download almost any file type into a neat and tidy "Downloads" folder, and those files can then be accessed with an appropriate app, shared via email, or transferred over to your computer. On an iPhone, there is no such folder, and saving files fr ...more
Google recently announced the beta release of a developer tool called ARC Welder for Chrome, which allows developers to run and test their Android apps on any computer with the Chrome browser installed. Outside of developers, ARC Welder can be run by everyday users to bring A ...more
Google's Chrome browser is evolving into a very powerful platform. Not only can it be used to view your favorite website or mirror tabs to your Chromecast, but now that it has an App Engine, more powerful tools can be run within Chrome. Android developer Koushik Dutta has jus ...more
Thanks to a couple of photoshopped images that made rounds across Twitter last year, iPhone users were duped into thinking that iOS 8 included a security feature that would lock individual apps. Of course, none of it ended up being true, but we covered other features and apps ...more
Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all provide built-in features that allow you to save your username and password for your favorite sites, making the process for entering your credentials a breeze when you revisit them. While this automation does make your life a little easier, it ...more
Cases and stickers are always great, but they aren't the only way to customize an iPhone. The software on your device is full of customization options, from a better-looking home screen and cooler lock screen wallpapers to app icon changes and a system-wide dark mode. There's ...more
There are many tools out there for Wi-Fi hacking, but few are as integrated and well-rounded as Bettercap. Thanks to an impressively simple interface that works even over SSH, it's easy to access many of the most powerful Wi-Fi attacks available from anywhere. To capture hands ...more
The USB Rubber Ducky is a famous attack tool that looks like a USB flash drive but acts like a keyboard when plugged into any unlocked device. The Ducky Script language used to control it is simple and powerful, and it works with Arduino and can run on boards like the ultra-ch ...more
Apple's Gatekeeper security software for macOS (Mac OS X) is vulnerable to remote attacks up to version 10.14.5. An attacker that's anywhere in the world can exploit MacBooks and other Mac computers by sharing a single ZIP file. The vulnerability was discovered by Filippo Cav ...more
So, you're on the way back from a restaurant and realize you left your iPhone there, but you're late for a meeting and can't go back yet. You may as well kiss that iPhone goodbye, right? Not yet, as long as the right person gets their hands on it first. But that potential do-g ...more
The Raspberry Pi Zero W and Pi 3 Model B+ include integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and more than enough power to run Kali Linux. They sound like perfect all-in-one penetration testing devices, but the lack of support for monitor mode and packet injection usually meant b ...more
Despite its rocky start, the Essential PH-1 has a lot going for it. Not only does it get consistent security patches and system updates hours after the Pixels, but like the Google-developed lineup, it's also great for rooting. Not only is your warranty not void with rooting, b ...more
It's easy to run Kali Linux from a live USB on nearly any available computer, but many publicly accessible laptops and desktops will be locked down to prevent such use. School, work, or library PCs can be secured with a BIOS password, which is often an easily recovered default ...more