Stagefright 2.0 Exploits Android Vulnerabilities

Newly found vulnerabilities in the way Android handles media files can allow attackers to compromise devices by tricking users into visiting maliciously crafted Web pages.

The vulnerabilities can lead to remote code execution on almost all devices that run Android, starting with version 1.0 of the OS released in 2008 to the latest 5.1.1, researchers from mobile security firm Zimperium said in a report published Thursday.

The flaws are in the way Android processes the metadata of MP3 audio files and MP4 video files, and they can be exploited when the Android system or another app that relies on Android’s media libraries previews such files.

The Zimperium researchers found similar multimedia processing flaws earlier this year in an Android library called Stagefright that could have been exploited by simply sending Android devices a maliciously crafted MMS message.

Those flaws triggered a coordinated patching effort from device manufacturers that Android’s lead security engineer, Adrian Ludwig, called the “single largest unified software update in the world.” It also contributed to Google, Samsung and LG committing to monthly security updates going forward.

One of the flaws newly discovered by Zimperium is located in a core Android library called libutils and affects almost all devices running Android versions older than 5.0 (Lollipop). The vulnerability can also be exploited in Android Lollipop (5.0 – 5.1.1) by combining it with another bug found in the Stagefright library.

The Zimperium researchers refer to the new attack as Stagefright 2.0 and believe that it affects more than 1 billion devices.

Since the previous attack vector of MMS was closed in newer versions of Google Hangouts and other messaging apps after the previous Stagefright flaws were found, the most straight-forward exploitation method for the latest vulnerabilities is through Web browsers, the Zimperium researchers said.

Zimperium reported the flaws to Google on Aug. 15 and plans to release proof-of-concept exploit code once a fix is released.

That fix will come on Oct. 5 as part of the new scheduled monthly Android security update, a Google representative said.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/stagefright-2-0-exploits-android-vulnerabilities.html

Stanford Develops Carbon Nanotubes

Researchers at Stanford University have demonstrated the first functional computer constructed using only carbon nanotube transistors.

Scientists have been experimenting with transistors based on carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, as substitutes for silicon transistors, which may soon hit their physical limits.

The rudimentary CNT computer is said to run a simple operating system capable of multitasking, according to a synopsis of an article published in the journal Nature.

Made of 178 transistors, each containing between 10 and 200 carbon nanotubes, the computer can do four tasks summarized as instruction fetch, data fetch, arithmetic operation and write-back, and run two different programs concurrently.

The research team was led by Stanford professors Subhasish Mitra and H.S. Philip Wong.

“People have been talking about a new era of carbon nanotube electronics moving beyond silicon,” Mitra said in a statement. “But there have been few demonstrations of complete digital systems using [the] technology. Here is the proof.”

IBM last October said its scientists had placed more than 10,000 transistors made of nano-size tubes of carbon on a single chip. Previous efforts had yielded chips with just a few hundred carbon nanotubes.

Source

Hacker Writes Trojan For Apple’s Mac

As Apple’s popularity continues to increase, so too does the malicious interest of hackers in their famed products. Researchers at Sophos say they’ve uncovered a new Trojan horse program written for the Mac.

It’s called the BlackHole RAT (the RAT part is for “remote access Trojan”) and it’s pretty easy to find online in hacking forums, according to Chet Wisniewski a researcher with antivirus vendor Sophos. There’s even a YouTube video demo of the program that details what its capable of doing.

Sophos hasn’t seen the Trojan used in any online attacks -it’s more a bare-bones, proof-of-concept beta program right now – but the software is pretty easy to use, and if a criminal could find a way to get a Mac user to install it, or write attack code that would silently install it on the Mac, it would give him remote control of the hacked machine. Read More….