In my last hack blog on crashing your roommates Win7 system, we started looking at client- side attacks. As promised, we will be looking at some more client-side attacks. As web server and OS’s have become hardened and living behind significant perimeter defenses, hackers hav ...more
Some phone lines make it nearly impossible to get past the busy tone, whether it's a viral call-in giveaway, your state's unemployment office, your local post office during the holidays, or the repair office for a broken warrantied product you have. Thankfully, there are apps ...more
Microsoft Office files can be password-protected in order to prevent tampering and ensure data integrity. But password-protected documents from earlier versions of Office are susceptible to having their hashes extracted with a simple program called office2john. Those extracted ...more
Although the Magic Leap One: Creators Edition is currently officially available in only six US cities, those living outside of Magic Leap's designed US cities now have a roundabout way to order the device. Residents in over 110 countries can now place an order for a Magic Lea ...more
You know that sinking feeling you get when know you've just done the unthinkable? It's the worst. Sending that ridiculous text message to the wrong number or posting a shameful tweet during a weekend bender. These are just a few of those instances when you wish you could roll ...more
On July 20, 1969, humans set foot on the moon for the first time. But some say our microbes beat us there. With the Space Age came new questions about microscopic invaders from outer space and concern about where we are leaving our microbial footprints. The questions are even ...more
Are you someone who always struggles to wake up in the morning, no matter how much you've slept? For most, the thought of getting out of bed any earlier sounds horrific. Yet dragging yourself out of bed and towards the coffee maker a few hours earlier each day can have benefit ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! Now that nearly everyone and everyplace has a computer, you can use those remote computers for some good old "cloak and dagger" spying. No longer is spying something that only the CIA, NSA, KGB, and other intelligence agencies can do—you can l ...more
In the last decade, the number of people working remotely in the US has increased dramatically, and so has their need for technology and software to supplement that remote work. Whether you work from home or a coworking office space, the requirement for highly compatible and h ...more
Microsoft Excel is one of the most powerful programs for modern businesses. By allowing you to manage, sort, and analyze large collections of data, Excel provides an essential service for any company interested in using the power of data science to its advantage. The Complete ...more
When you're trying to pioneer a brand new category of technology, sometimes it's not enough to just have great tech. You also need to be able to tell a great story. You need to be able to capture the imagination. Along those lines, a new Microsoft HoloLens 2 promotional spot ...more
In a previous article, we learned how to take advantage of a feature, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to run malicious code when a Microsoft Word document is opened. The biggest challenge of this attack is that it requires getting the user to agree to a pop-up prompt. Fortunately ...more
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the de facto wireless protocol choice by many wearables developers, and much of the emerging internet of things (IoT) market. Thanks to it's near ubiquity in modern smartphones, tablets, and computers, BLE represents a large and frequently insecur ...more
We are most certainly not machines. We all need some downtime every once in a while to set our sanity scales back in balance, which in turn, makes us more productive workers. This is a premise that several forward-thinking employers fully understand, but these types of compani ...more
Chances are your hearing isn't the same as the person next to you. Personally, I have moderate hearing loss, so I tend to turn the volume nob towards the loud side. For others, it may be that one ear is slightly better or worse than the other, not only in perceiving volume, bu ...more
Everyone has that one friend who just can't help but send multiple texts in rapid-fire succession, when they just as easily could have been consolidated into one easy-to-read message. Alert after alert, this becomes extremely annoying as your phone shoots notification sounds a ...more
April Fool's Day, aka National Screw with Your Friends Day, is finally here. You can always pull a conventional prank, like strategically placing a whoopee cushion on your mom's chair, but that joke has been exhausted generations before smartphones were around. We live in a d ...more
There are a number of ways to give your productivity a kicktstart, from taking a break from your distracting smartphone to just taking a break, plain and simple. Yet finding the motivation to start working doesn't require any effort at all—just a little bit of green. Bring Na ...more
If you work at a large office or have a multi-story home, you're probably familiar with Wi-Fi range extenders. Since one hotspot isn't always enough to cover an entire area, Wi-Fi repeaters are generally set up in larger areas to capture and rebroadcast the original signal. U ...more
Now that we have our payload hosted on our VPS, as well as Metasploit installed, we can begin developing the webpage which will trick our "John Smith" target into opening our malicious file. Once he has, we can take over his computer. This part is more involved, but the first ...more
Few things are more important than being well-versed in data analytics and interpretation when it comes to succeeding in today's increasingly data-driven world. As a data scientist, these skills are the key to a high-paying career. For hackers, there's no better way to defeat ...more
One of the worst-kept secrets in the tech world is Apple's plans for consumer-grade AR smartglasses, still unconfirmed publicly and only recently corroborated through a leaked account of an internal employee meeting. In addition to Apple's AR team, assembled through acquisiti ...more
It might sound odd to call interior decorating exciting, especially if you're not a professional within that industry. But that's exactly what it is when combined with augmented reality. I recently found out just how fun it can be when I downloaded the new Sotheby's Curate ap ...more
It turns out that the video Magic Leap released earlier today was indeed a teaser for the public release of the Game of Thrones experience for meant for all Magic Leap One users. Available now for download in the Magic Leap World section, the app is a free download that allow ...more
Election Day is like the Super Bowl for network and cable TV news, so ABC News is breaking out the big guns with a new augmented reality experience to win over eyeballs of viewers. With all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 seats in the Senate, and 36 governor off ...more
Face ID is possibly the iPhone X's make-it-or-break-it feature. Apple is asking previous iPhone owners to put a lot of faith into their home button replacement, and so far, the results seem pretty good. That is until CNN tested the security feature with identical twins. It's ...more
After Ford's CEO Mark Fields' three-year tenure failed to keep up with the driverless industry and resulted in a 40% drop in shares since Field's took over in 2014, Ford is going in a new direction. Jim Hackett, who was previously chairman of Ford's self-driving division, has ...more
Tuesday gave us what I am dubbing a "patent dump." Can you blame me? The U.S. Patent Office released 56 patents from Apple. 56! Among them, there are patents confirming Apple is working on embedded Touch ID, edge-to-edge displays, and a 3D camera system (surprise, surprise). S ...more
Microsoft has the HoloLens and Google has their money on Magic Leap (as well as their own Tango and Cardboard, among others), but we've heard next to nothing about how Apple plans to enter the virtual/augmented/mixed reality space. A new patent offers some clues. Apple could ...more
The Null Byte community is all about learning white hat hacking skills. In part, this is because I believe that hacking skills will become the most valuable and important skill set of the 21st century. This week, The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed my belief by announcin ...more
Keeping your online data and identity private is an uphill battle, but with the anonymity network Tor, you have a pretty decent line of defense from prying eyes. But while Tor is great for desktop users, since they can simply install a Tor browser or plugin, it's a bit more c ...more
Brought to you by Berocca® Video: . Sometimes 24 hours a day just isn't enough time to accomplish everything on your list. In an ideal world, you would never have to sacrifice a fitness session because of too much on your plate, but this isn't always the case. If this sounds t ...more
This is the first installment in a new series that I am calling "Hacker Hurdles." These are things, methods, techniques that make our job as hackers more challenging and difficult. Don't misunderstand me, these items don't make our task impossible, but rather more challenging ...more
One thing that's always important to have in your home office is a bulletin board, because they let you quickly display papers that you need to see every day, such as schedules, notes and memos. That's not the only thing a bulletin board is useful for, though. You can also pi ...more
In a surprising twist of expectation management, Magic Leap managed to not only ship but deliver the Magic Leap One I ordered on Wednesday by 4 p.m. PT on the same day. After spending about an hour with the headset running through set up and poking around its UI and a couple ...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
This year, like every year before it, Black Friday sales are starting earlier than ever. A lot of stores will be opening their doors as early as 5pm on Thanksgiving to get a head start on the madness (and it really is madness). As we've discussed in the past, one of the keys t ...more
You might have missed it, but the virtual keypad you use to enter phone numbers in your smartphone's dialer and contacts app isn't all numbers. Take a closer look, and you'll notice a few mysterious buttons you've likely been tuning out unconsciously. But it's time to stop ign ...more
Everybody knows not to store sensitive information in unencrypted files, right? PDFs and ZIP files can often contain a treasure trove of information, such as network diagrams, IP addresses, and login credentials. Sometimes, even certain files that are encrypted aren't safe fro ...more
Best known for its mobile phones and television sets, South Korea's LG has had a quieter presence in the US compared to the country's homegrown efforts. Now, the company is leveling up its augmented reality capabilities with 3D advertisements that spring from home televisions ...more
This week, while Apple was the subject of thinly sourced reports that it had canceled development of its oft-rumored smartglasses, the Cupertino was actually laying the foundation for its AR hardware future with a new initiative focused on mentoring Chinese developers in mobil ...more
There are few apps or services better than Slack for keeping a team both communicative and productive. But it also makes it difficult to escape your job — after work hours and weekends should be yours, not Slack's. If you want to stop the barrage of notifications and messages ...more
A federal judge wants answers after an Uber engineer accused of data theft pleaded the Fifth in the ongoing Waymo versus Uber battle. This privilege would protect the accused, Anthony Levandowski, of self-incrimination and handing over specific documents demanded in a previous ...more
With the recent news that New York County's District Attorney's office is trying to get into over 400 locked iPhones for use in criminal investigations, you can see why it's important to keep other people away from your personal data. The fact that it can and will be used agai ...more
A new hack has reopened an 8-year-old iPhone security loophole that Apple thought it had fixed back with iPhone OS 2.2. This is not one of those times when a theoretical attack gets identified and blocked quickly by Apple. On the contrary, it's a hack that actually exists righ ...more
Microsoft enjoyed a few months in the spotlight after releasing the developer version of the very first mixed reality (MR) headset, but now we're starting to see the competition jump in. The Meta 2 is finally out to the world, with the first wave of preorder shipments imminen ...more
Not many people use their phone exclusively for making calls or sending messages today. If you're an Android user, the chances are high that you're using your phone or tablet for work-related activities. However, the basic set of apps and services your device was shipped with ...more
If you forgot about April Fool's Day, you're going to have to get creative if you want to pull off some not-so-predictable pranks last minute. To help you with that, in this video you'll learn how to set up and execute 5 of the best last-minute April Fool's Day pranks. April 1 ...more
Sitting in a cubicle and never seeing sunlight during the workday is unpleasant to even think about—and sitting in a flourescent-light cube can have terrible effects on both our work performance and overall attitude. Yet there are ways to counteract the effects of cubicle sitt ...more
We recently ran into a serious iPhone 6 issue here in the Gadget Hacks office, where the device was stuck in an infinite bootloop with intermittent red and blue screens (of death?) and an unresponsive touchscreen and buttons. From what we can tell, we weren't alone, though som ...more
In an office area, there is a coffee machine and a jar in which people are asked to put voluntary contributions for the coffee they consume. There is a picture above the jar. Each week the picture is changed. Some weeks it is a picture of flowers and other weeks it is a pict ...more
When setting up your home office or giving it a makeover, the desk is the key to making the room a functional workspace. And if you're in there all day, it also has a significant impact on your health. Standing desks can help offset some of the adverse health risks associated ...more
In a stunning end-of-year twist to the Magic Leap versus Nreal legal saga, the China-based startup is now filing a motion against Magic Leap. Documents detailing the motion were filed on Monday with the US Northern District Court of California. Don't Miss: Hands-On with the ...more
With its 3D engine being responsible for approximately 60% of augmented and virtual reality experiences, Unity is continuing to place a premium on tools that not only keep developers working in its development environment but also make their workflows easier. During the keyno ...more
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?" Many of the top names in the industry from the 2018 edition remain the same, but their positions have shuffled. The p ...more
The streaming content vision from Magic Leap recently underwent a quiet but major update, courtesy of AT&T. Previously, Magic Leap's retail and 5G partner AT&T made its DirecTV Now streaming television service available to Magic Leap One users. But now that the company has la ...more
There are more ways to finding your missing iPhone than using Apple's own "Find My iPhone" tool in iCloud. If you just need help tracking down your iPhone in your home or at a friend's house, Find My iPhone isn't necessarily the most convenient thing to do when you've got thes ...more
Having your home and work addresses set in Apple Maps makes them incredibly easy to navigate to no matter where you're located. If you move to a new house, stay in a hotel or resort while vacationing, report to a different office, or have multiple job sites to visit regularly, ...more
Last June, Meta began shipping their Meta 2 mixed reality headset, to the delight of many. In September, it was announced that shipping had been delayed until the end of the year. Then it appeared that Christmas would bring something magical when Meta sent out an email four da ...more
If you ever imagined turning the surface of your desk into one large augmented computer, well the future might not be far off, my friends. Lampix, the company that transforms any surface into a smart surface, is currently working on a portable and quite fashionable lamp to pro ...more