Usb Boot Key

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

In order to increase the security and harden the integrity of an email account and its content, you'll want to use PGP on your Windows, macOS, or Linux computer. This is usually the first thing security analysts do to protect communications with encryption, and everyone else s ...more

With great power comes great responsibility, and when it comes to modding Android, nothing is more powerful than TWRP custom recovery. As easy as it is to replace your phone's entire OS with a custom ROM, when things go awry, you can also be left with no operating system at al ...more

The hatred is almost universal—by now, even late night TV hosts are bashing Apple's move to ditch the headphone jack in the iPhone 7. It's not like the disdain is baseless, either, because there are plenty of problems that come along with removing the iPhone's only analog soun ...more

Sony's Xperia Z, which has generated quite a deal of excitement since its launch at the CES in Las Vegas last month, is already sold out in France with its expected U.S. release to be sometime in March. It's 5-inch, 1080p display puts it up there with some of the best smartpho ...more

For 2019, Sony is trying to shake its failures of the past and start fresh. Following the unsuccessful Xperia XZ series, Sony is changing the name of their flagship to a single number: Xperia 1. With the name change comes a few upgrades, one of which is its new look. Secondly, ...more

The latest Star Wars movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story, has grossed almost $350 million worldwide during its first month in theaters. This is a good opportunity to discuss how hackers can use media hype (in this case, Hollywood movie hype) to disarm an unsuspecting Windows user i ...more

Ransomware is software that encrypts a victim's entire hard drive, blocking access to their files unless they pay a ransom to the attacker to get the decryption key. In this tutorial, you'll learn how easy it is to use the USB Rubber Ducky, which is disguised as an ordinary fl ...more

When it comes to modding Android, there's no better tool than Team Win's TWRP custom recovery. You can use it to root your phone, flash mods like Magisk or Xposed, and even replace the entire operating system with a custom ROM like LineageOS — honestly, there's not much this u ...more

In the past, updating a rooted Samsung Galaxy device has always involved the complicated process of downloading the proper firmware for your variant, installing device drivers, then sideloading the update with Odin. Luckily, though, with the release of the Galaxy S6, Samsung ...more

You don't need to be a hardcore modder to know the importance of booting your S10 into either recovery mode or download mode. In fact, these pre-boot menus are something everyone should be familiar with. The former can help you get out of soft bricks, while the latter lets you ...more

The Moto G7 Power is a phone that screams battery life. From its display resolution to the massive battery, it was designed for those who hate to recharge each night. But unlike other battery-focused smartphones, it comes at a price almost anyone can afford. Lenovo, Motorola' ...more

Welcome back, my future hackers! After my first tutorial about doxing, I decided I would dive a little bit deeper into the world of social engineering. In this tutorial we will learn some basic social engineering techniques to get into a company building, find out more informa ...more

Although the Essential PH-1 got off to a rocky start, thanks to steady updates, it has slowly become one of the best Android phones to come out in recent years. For $499, the Essential Phone is a cheaper Pixel, receiving updates almost as soon as the Pixel lineup does. What's ...more

The rumors are flying everywhere about the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 getting updated to Jelly Bean 4.2, but as of now, we have no freakin' idea when. Among all of the features sported in the update, Photo Sphere is one of the more popular, allowing you to snap incredible and immer ...more

Google's music offerings have been on a roll lately. First they announced a new music video streaming service called YouTube Music Key, offering ad-free playback with background listening. Then they stated that the new offering would be rolled in with their Google Play Music s ...more

It's been known for a while that Google was opening up their Android N preview to OEMs, but we didn't think any manufacturers would actually take advantage. Well, we were wrong. Sony had just announced that Xperia Z3 owners will be able to install and run the N preview build. ...more

There is no SD card support on the Nexus 7, so managing internal storage can be tricky. There are ways to free up space, but the biggest space hog on my tablet is music, and that's not something I'm willing to delete just yet. I could add more storage space with a USB drive, ...more

The Files app received a big update in iOS 13. Before, it was limited to local and cloud-based files, but now you can access data from external storage devices, including SD cards and USB drives. But before you try to connect your favorite card or drive to your iPhone, there a ...more

Have a PC but hate Windows? Maybe you've just heard a ton about the new Mountain Lion OS X and want to see if it lives up to expectations. Either way, you can install Mountain Lion on your Intel-based PC in a few easy steps. All you need is a copy of the OS X and an 8 GB USB f ...more

It's been little over a month since the official release of LG's latest flagship phone, the LG V20. Despite a few minor hiccups, the V20 has been attracting attention from all over for being an amazing phone. But like with most Android phones, there's no better feeling than ro ...more

Developed by Open Whisper Systems, Signal is a free, open-source encrypted communications app for both mobile and desktop devices that allows users to make voice calls, send instant messages, and even make video calls securely. However, a vulnerability was recently discovered ...more

You probably already know by now that a custom Android ROM can change your user experience and give you what feels like a new OS on your device, and there's no shortage of them out there to try out. A great perk of being a Nexus 5 owner is that devs tend to commit resources t ...more

The new Android 4.3 Jelly Bean has been out for a while already, and most of you already have it installed on your Nexus 7 tablets. Many of you softModders have also probably rooted your tablet so you can take advantage of some of the more popular root-only softMods, like spee ...more

If you live in the US, it's pretty simple: The Google Pixel 4a is the best phone for rooting and modding in 2020. Its price keeps the risk-reward ratio nice and low, and its unlockable bootloader makes it easy to modify virtually any aspect of Android. But recent updates to A ...more

Let's get one thing straight: CyanogenMod is one hell of a ROM. They've got a great community, a great product, and getting it on your HTC One couldn't be easier with their CyanogenMod installer, which does all the hard rooting and bootloader unlocking for you. If at all you ...more

Kali Linux has come a long way since its BackTrack days, and it's still widely considered the ultimate Linux distribution for penetration testing. The system has undergone quite the transformation since its old days and includes an updated look, improved performance, and some ...more

Rooting, bootloaders, custom ROMs, CyanogenMod, ClockworkMod... it's all pretty confusing, isn't it? You're not the only one having trouble with this. Many users in the Nexus 7 SoftModder forum have been scratching their heads at these many terms. First, let's cover the terms ...more

One of the most played-up features of Windows 8 is that it's so much faster than previous versions. So fast, in fact, that Microsoft had to change the way that users access the BIOS because 200 milliseconds just isn't enough time to hit the right key. It may take some getting ...more

Software issues occur more frequently on jailbroken iPhones, though, they're usually minor bugs that can be fixed easily with a respring. But if your device freezes up, restarting is the only way to get back to normal, which also means having to re-enable your jailbreak. There ...more

Thanks to Magisk, you don't have to lose root when updating to Android 11. The popular systemless rooting tool already achieved superuser access on Google's latest OS, even before the official release. It's currently in its experimental stages so the process is trickier than u ...more

Apple's macOS operating system is just as vulnerable to attacks as any Windows 10 computer or Android smartphone. Hacker's can embed backdoors, evade antivirus with simple commands, and utilize USB flash drives to completely compromise a MacBook. In this always-updated guide, ...more

Over the past month, we've spent significant time covering Samsung's Oreo Beta program, and the detailed list of features in Oreo is extensive for the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Many of you were upset when the Galaxy Note 8 was left out of the official Oreo beta program entirely, but ...more

If you need a tiny, flexible attack platform for raining down human-interface-device (HID) attacks on unattended computers, the USB Rubber Ducky is the most popular tool for the job. By loading the Ducky with custom firmware, you can design new attacks to be effective against ...more

Semi-untethered jailbreaks are here to stay, as evidenced by iOS 11's Electra method, Chimera for iOS 12, and even the new bootrom-based Checkra1n tool for iOS 13. While not as convenient as fully untethered, re-enabling a semi-untethered jailbreak is still pretty easy once yo ...more

When it comes to the user interface, you're pretty much limited to the stock one that comes on your Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch—a carousel of large black and white icons representing the features and applications on the watch. In the world of Android devices, this doesn't ...more

Last week, an update was released for second- and third-generation Apple TVs. The update included stability and performance improvements along with support for the Up Next feature in iTunes 11. A lot of users have been reporting issues upgrading, saying that the update failed ...more

Put yourself in Google's shoes: You know that business is becoming increasingly mobile, but the mobile operating system you maintain is wide open by design, and it's garnered legions of loyal fans that love to explore and exploit every aspect of it. There's a clear conflict of ...more

Mac keyboards are great when listening to music or watching a movie, since you can control what's playing without going back into iTunes or QuickTime Player. However, when you're using an app like Photoshop that uses the F7, F8, and F9 as shortcuts, it gets pretty annoying to ...more

Think back to when you last wanted to transfer some music or videos to your friend's smartphone and how difficult and slow it was. As powerful as our phones are, the default file sharing options are limited. There are, fortunately, some better options which make moving files e ...more

App-locking apps have been around for a while, but none have had quite the panache of developer Fazil Kunhamed's latest offering, Oops! AppLock. While others use a PIN or password to restrict access to apps that are installed on Android, AppLock uses a stealthy volume button c ...more

Samsung's new Galaxy S8 can turn into a PC with its DeX dock, but while that may sound like the future of mobile computing on the surface, there are definitely a few issues with the entire setup. The Samsung Desktop Experience (DeX) dock was debuted alongside the Galaxy S8 on ...more

Google's long awaited 4.3 Jelly Bean update is officially out, only it has not been pushed out to some of our Nexus 7 tablets yet. Although there aren't really any new UI changes, most of Jelly Bean 4.3's magic is under the hood, meaning user's can expect better performance an ...more

Sense appears on over forty Android devices, but HTC's notorious GUI was actually designed with a completely different mobile OS in mind—Windows. HTC first built Sense to fill in missing functionality of Windows Mobile, the predecessor to Windows Phone 7. When it was ported o ...more

Something went wrong and your Nexus 7 is freaking out on you. Maybe you flashed a bad ROM or ZIP file, or maybe it's just bugging, and it's time to restore your tablet back to a working condition. Thankfully, you've already made a backup of your Nexus 7! Note: If you don't ha ...more

If you ever consider modding your Galaxy Note 20 or Note 20 Ultra, you'll need to know about recovery mode and download mode. Even if that isn't your thing, knowing how to how to boot into these modes can help save your phone from a soft brick. Without the dedicated Bixby but ...more

When Stardew Valley launched back in 2016 on Steam for PC, it was instantly deemed a success for steering the RPG farming simulator genre back on the right track. Before its release, we hadn't seen too much in this particular field of games that caught the eye of the general p ...more

There were some new hurdles to clear, and then there were a few more, but legendary root developer Chainfire has created a fully-functional root method for Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagships. Like past devices, this method relies on the SuperSU ZIP, but now, there's an addi ...more

Welcome back, my budding hackers. So many of you are interested in hacking Wi-Fi that I have decided to revisit my Wi-Fi Hacking series with some updated and more in-depth material. I strongly suggest that you look at some of my earlier posts, such as "Getting Started with Te ...more

When people first learn that their Android device is capable of dual-booting different operating systems, e.g. Linux, they almost universally respond with, "That's so cool." And for those of us ambitious enough to actually try one out, we are typically filled with glee as we s ...more

One of the most heated topics in the Android community now (and probably forever) is stock Android, with lots of users requesting the ability to use it rather than the manufacturer's skin. That's why Google has been offering phones like the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Mot ...more

Welcome back, my hacker novitiates! Many of you have written me that you're having difficulty installing and running Metasploit on a variety of platforms. No matter if you're using Mac, Linux, or Windows, I strongly recommend you install BackTrack as your secondary OS, a virt ...more

When was the last time you restarted or shutdown your Mac? In the post-iPhone era, most devices are now powered on almost constantly. For better or for worse, the computing landscape has accommodated this "always on" trend, but you still need to periodically restart your devic ...more

Without admin privileges, installing additional software, or modifying the Windows 10 firewall, an attacker can alter a router and perform a variety of exploits. It's accomplished by forwarding requests from Kali through a backdoored Windows computer to the router gateway with ...more

Keystroke injection attacks are popular because they exploit the trust computers have in human interface devices (HIDs). One of the most popular and easily accessible keystroke injection tools is the USB Rubber Ducky from Hack5, which has a huge range of uses beyond simple HID ...more

Except for the second-generation iPhone SE, all new iPhone models omit the Home button. In its place, the Side button takes charge, taking care of tasks like pulling up Siri, activating AssistiveTouch, and opening Apple Pay. If you swap your older Home button model for an iPho ...more

Clumsiness is the great equalizer when it comes to smartphones — it makes no distinction between the most expensive flagship handset and cheaper mid-range models. A hard drop onto pavement will usually result in a shattered screen, regardless of how pricey your device is. And ...more

If you had a phone in 2004, there's a pretty good chance it was a Motorola RAZR. The iconic phone is the tenth highest-selling of all time, and it marked the height of the flip phone era. Now that the technology has caught up, Lenovo (Motorola's parent company) is bringing it ...more

Your smartphone stays with you everywhere you go, so it's only a matter of time before you spill coffee all over it or drop it on the ground. For some of you, it has already happened, perhaps even multiple times. That's why we thought it was important to find out which flagshi ...more

The OnePlus 5 had been in the hands of the public for a meager twenty hours before developers on XDA released a custom recovery image for it, and the 5T had a similar trajectory. The installation process is simple enough, but it can be somewhat confusing if you're new to moddi ...more