With every new Galaxy flagship release comes the age-old dilemma: do I choose great hardware or great software? For years, Samsung has given users the best components available on any smartphone. The problem is the software is an acquired taste. But there is something you can ...more
Smartphones are more like computers than actual telephones. Unfortunately, thieves, hackers, and other bad actors know this and are always looking to make money off your personal data. Thankfully, your Galaxy S20, S20+, or S20 Ultra has tools to combat these threats — as long ...more
When it comes to sniffing Wi-Fi, Wireshark is cross-platform and capable of capturing vast amounts of data. Making sense of that data is another task entirely. That's where Jupyter Notebook comes in. It can help analyze Wi-Fi packets and determine which networks a particular p ...more
So far, iOS 13's major point updates have all been pretty exciting for iPhone. We've seen iOS 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3 come and go, offering more than 60 new features and changes combined to that very first version of iOS 13. While iOS 13.3.1 was a minor update, its successor, iOS ...more
Router gateways are responsible for protecting every aspect of a network's configuration. With unfettered access to these privileged configurations, an attacker on a compromised Wi-Fi network can perform a wide variety of advanced attacks. Brute-Forcing Router Logins with Pat ...more
There's a new trend on Instagram Stories: People are making viral AR filters where images of popular characters from TV shows, movies, and other mediums shuffle above your head until one sticks. The filters range from Disney and Pokémon characters to Harry Potter and Friends, ...more
There are times when physically interacting with your iPhone is less than ideal, like when you're cooking or driving. Fortunately, iOS 13 has you covered regardless of the circumstance you may find yourself in. With the new Voice Control feature, you can control pretty much ev ...more
Apple released iOS 13.0 on Sept. 19 and announced on the same day the release of iOS 13.1 on Sept. 30. But that deadline was pushed up to Sept. 24, and that's why we have 13.1 just five days after 13.0. But that's good news since we don't have to wait any longer for some of th ...more
Apple's iOS 13 for iPhone includes new features in Safari that make browsing the web a little bit better when compared to iOS 12. Some changes are small while others add functionality that just wasn't there before. Plus, there are more security enhancements. While Safari didn ...more
Some Android phones have had scrolling screenshots for years, but now that Apple added the feature to iOS 13 for iPhones, it should be standard on all phones. Thankfully, if your Android didn't come with the ability to take long, vertical screenshots, you can download an app t ...more
Smartphone technology has become as ubiquitous as automobiles. In Austin, Texas, a city that is widely known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," smartphones have been embraced by the music community not just as a way to document and promote, but to create music. A rock ...more
When it comes to texting, Google's Messages app for Android is absolutely top-notch. The app gives you the ability to block those annoying spam text messages that have been plaguing us for so long, send messages from a computer, and can even provide RCS features if your carrie ...more
Whether we like it or not, our personal information and smartphones are tied together at the hip. The former needs the latter to deliver a personalized experience that matches our individual needs. This personal data, however, makes your phone a prime target for thieves of all ...more
A relay is an electrical component that works like a light switch, where it's turned on or off with an electrical signal. By connecting a relay to a Wi-Fi connected microcontroller like an ESP8266, you can build a connected switch that can be controlled from the web browser of ...more
It's common for IoT devices like Wi-Fi security cameras to host a website for controlling or configuring the camera that uses HTTP instead of the more secure HTTPS. This means anyone with the network password can see traffic to and from the camera, allowing a hacker to interce ...more
Out of the box, Apple's digital assistant could be a godsend or a nuisance, depending on your daily interactions it. No matter which camp you fall into, Siri can always be better suited to your personal needs with a little customization. You can make Siri a powerhouse not to b ...more
Many popular IoT devices have terrible security. For instance, a hacker who's on the same Wi-Fi network as a Sonos speaker can assume direct control over the device's behavior. If an IoT device doesn't secure the messages used to control it over a network, it's easy for somebo ...more
The gym can be pretty distracting. With the slamming of weights and pieces of equipment, loud music blasting through the speakers, and plain old grunting, it can be challenging to focus on your workout. However, with your just your phone, you can not only eliminate these distr ...more
Computers all over the world rely on a program called "libssh" to use the SSH communications protocol, which allows trusted users to log in and administer computers remotely. Due to a flaw in libssh, fooling a computer into granting SSH access is as easy as telling it you alre ...more
Smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices send radio signals called probe frames to locate nearby wireless networks, which makes them easy to track by listening for their unique MAC address. To show how this kind of tracking works, we can program a NodeMCU in Arduino to snif ...more
Ever since the announcement of the Razer Phone, a wave of gaming smartphones started to hit the market. With ASUS being such a big name in gaming, it made sense for them to throw their hat in the ring. The result is the ROG Phone. And with this first try, ASUS has topped the r ...more
You know your infant is advanced. Maybe you want to give her or him a head start at learning things like writing code to develop the next big Fortnite game. Or maybe you just want to play Fortnite with your infant. But the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages screen time ...more
The iPhone XR offers a discounted experience compared to the expensive iPhone XS and XS Max. However, that lower price tag comes with some caveats, such as "Haptic Touch" in lieu of 3D Touch. If you think these two "touch" features are the same, think again. Before you get an ...more
If you're on the hunt for a profitable side-gig, or even a completely new way to to make money, you'll want to take a look at Upwork, a leading freelancing platform that connects skilled freelancers with clients from all over the world. Upwork allows you to build your own onl ...more
Due to weaknesses in the way Wi-Fi works, it's extremely easy to disrupt most Wi-Fi networks using tools that forge deauthentication packets. The ease with which these common tools can jam networks is only matched by how simple they are to detect for anyone listening for them. ...more
As we enter the second half of 2018, rumors for the second season of flagships have started to emerge. On the Android side, this means the latest iterations of the Google Pixel, Galaxy Note, LG V series, and Huawei Mate. Thanks to FunkyHuawei and XDA, we now have some solid ru ...more
Russian cyber disinformation campaigns have many missions, but one of particular interest is using technology to monitor, influence, and disrupt online communications surrounding culturally sensitive topics or protests. The ability to watch these events, and even filter positi ...more
Hacking Wi-Fi is a lot easier than most people think, but the ways of doing so are clustered around a few common techniques most hackers use. With a few simple actions, the average user can go a long way toward defending against the five most common methods of Wi-Fi hacking, w ...more
If you're using a mobile device, it's a pretty safe bet that your apps are sending lots of information back and forth from their servers. To make sure there is no inappropriate data collection going on, it's worth setting up a web proxy to spy on this traffic, so you know exac ...more
The easiest way around a security policy is to find users who don't follow it. The Have I Been Pwned database identifies accounts with information breached by major third parties like Yahoo and LinkedIn. With Maltego, hackers can locate breached accounts created using company ...more
Believe it or not, there are a variety of ways to customize app icons in iOS. While iOS 12 made gave us an unofficial built-in way to do it, and iOS 13 improved it, and iOS 14 made it the best it could possibly be, there's still another option if you don't like using the Short ...more
Update: Google's new Pixel models have been released! Check out our full guides on the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL to see all the details, but we'll leave the rumor roundup intact below for posterity. Although marked by initial scandals, many regard the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL as s ...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
Design flaws in many routers can allow hackers to steal Wi-Fi credentials, even if WPA or WPA2 encryption is used with a strong password. While this tactic used to take up to 8 hours, the newer WPS Pixie-Dust attack can crack networks in seconds. To do this, a modern wireless ...more
It's easy to have your password stolen. Important people like executives, government workers, journalists, and activists face sophisticated phishing attacks to compromise their online accounts, often targeting Google account credentials. To reduce this risk, Google created the ...more
While iOS 11.3 doesn't have as many new features as iOS 11.2, there's still a lot to love about Apple's latest update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, even if some of the best features we were expecting didn't make the cut. Apple released the iOS 11.3 beta on Jan. 24, and ju ...more
For almost a decade, projector phones have tried to entice consumers with their convenience as media machines. While these devices are alluring, they've never really taken off with mainstream success. The latest effort, Moviphone, sounds tempting if you watch a lot of films an ...more
The internet is constantly under siege by bots searching for vulnerabilities to attack and exploit. While conventional wisdom is to prevent these attacks, there are ways to deliberately lure hackers into a trap in order to spy on them, study their behavior, and capture samples ...more
Millions of travelers pass through airports each day without understanding how powerful and insecure a boarding pass can be. Anyone can scan the boarding pass barcode with a mobile app, allowing access to frequent-flyer accounts and even a passenger's temporary airline account ...more
Virtual private networks, or VPNs, are popular for helping you stay anonymous online by changing your IP address, encrypting traffic, and hiding your location. However, common IoT devices, media players, and smart TVs are hard to connect to a VPN, but we have a solution: Turn ...more
Kali Linux is the obvious first choice of an operating system for most new hackers, coming bundled with a curated collection of tools organized into easy-to-navigate menus and a live boot option that is very newbie-friendly. But Kali isn't the only distribution targeted at pen ...more
Every time you make a call or send a text, you're giving the recipient your phone number. This can be quite the security vulnerability, opening yourself up to scammers, spammers, and the feds. In this how-to, we'll look at what a burner phone is, why you might want one, and ho ...more
Word games fit perfectly with the on-the-go nature of mobile gaming. They're easy to pick up whenever you feel like exercising your brain, but they're also fairly easy to put down when you need to get back to the real world. The main draw of word games is that they're great f ...more
Our smartphones are full of personally-identifiable information. So much of what we do with these devices is tracked and recorded to make our experience more streamlined and personalized. For many users, that's a fair trade — but for privacy-minded folks, it's a raw deal. And ...more
Surveying a target's Wi-Fi infrastructure is the first step to understanding the wireless attack surface you have to work with. Wardriving has been around since the '90s and combines GPS data and Wi-Fi signal data to create accurate, in-depth maps of any nearby Wi-Fi networks ...more
In our first part on software-defined radio and signals intelligence, we learned how to set up a radio listening station to find and decode hidden radio signals — just like the hackers who triggered the emergency siren system in Dallas, Texas, probably did. Now that we can hea ...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
Greetings all. Today I intend to append a new series to my mini-collection of posts. This series will consist of informative guides for the purpose of depicting certain aspects of the White Hat profession that I believe are of profound importance. Furthermore, I will keep thi ...more
Have you ever used an open wifi, which after you connect displays a website to enter your credentials to get internet? That website is called captive portal and widely used in airports, hotels, universities etc. Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone would set up ...more
While you may not have loads of secret files hiding on your computer, there might be one or two items that need a little extra security, like a file of website logins or a folder of risqué photos. Mac OS X does have FileVault as a good security option, which uses XTS-AES 128- ...more
The older I get, the more my Friday nights involve watching Netflix at home with a bottle of Maker's Mark and a box of Oreos. Netflix is a big part of my life, and I'm not alone. YouTube and Netflix make up over 50% of all activity on the Internet, so it might be worth your ti ...more
Despite the security concerns that have plagued Facebook for years, most people are sticking around and new members keep on joining. This has led Facebook to break records numbers with over 1.94 billion monthly active users, as of March 2017 — and around 1.28 billion daily act ...more
Apple Maps keeps getting better and better for all the hikers in the world. The latest update gives you access to thousands of detailed trail maps within U.S. national parks and topographic views, but it also lets you create your own walking and hiking routes. You can create ...more
When you download files from certain apps like Safari and Chrome on your Mac, those files are tagged with the "Where from" metadata attribute. Depending on where the file was downloaded from, this attribute may refer to the host's URL, a sender's email address, or another piec ...more
The app with the most significant update on iOS 17.5 is, by far, Apple News. While there are a few changes in Books and Settings, as well as minor changes in apps like Podcasts, Apple News has at least 11 new features and changes you should know, some of which are worth gettin ...more
There seems to be no end to all the viral TikTok sound bites and trending TikTok songs, and there's a good reason why they are ingrained in the fabric of our pop culture. TikTok's short audio clips can evoke laughter, tears, and a wide range of other emotions, and many of them ...more
While Apple Maps didn't receive as huge of an update on iOS 17 as other apps such as Safari, Camera, Photos, Notes, Weather, and Messages, there are still some very important new features and changes you need to know about. The latest software update for Apple Maps adds a muc ...more
Offline maps help you get around an unfamiliar area whenever you anticipate encountering bad cellular reception and no internet connectivity. Google Maps and other map apps have had offline maps for a while now. But Apple Maps only had a little-known caching workaround to prod ...more
Whether you subscribe to Apple TV+ or not, the TV app on your iPhone is a great place to watch movies and TV shows. On the surface, it looks like a pretty straightforward app, but hidden features are lurking in the shadows that can enhance how you use it. First, there are the ...more
While Google's generative AI wallpapers for Android won't be out until the fall, you can take advantage of emoji backgrounds and cinematic wallpapers on your Pixel smartphone right now. Throughout its history, Android has earned a reputation for giving its users the freedom t ...more