Tag Archive for: Phones

Hacking attempt targets govt officials’ phones


An attempt to hack the mobile phones of senior government officials and acquire sensitive information has been uncovered by security agencies, the government said on Friday.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a statement advising officials to remain vigilant in light of the threat. According to the PMO, the hackers used phishing methods by posing as senior government officials in their attempts.

The statement read, “The involved elements, in the name of senior government officials, made the nefarious attempt to obtain sensitive information from state officials and the bureaucracy.”

The hackers attempted to obtain information through WhatsApp by sending mobile-hacking links.

The PMO has instructed all state officials to stay alert and disregard any suspicious messages received. They have also been urged to immediately notify the Cabinet Division upon receiving such messages.

The PMO statement concluded by stating, “Pakistan’s security agencies are fully alert on this matter.”

Read Hackers targeted Pakistani ‘generals, politicians’

Measures are being taken to ensure the safety and security of government officials and to prevent any further breaches.

It is worth noting that back in September of last year, a series of audio recordings were leaked, featuring conversations among key government figures in the Prime Minister’s Office. These included phone recordings of then-premier Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz besides members of the federal cabinet.

The incident highlighted the need for enhanced cybersecurity measures

Earlier this year, the federal government sent a cybersecurity advisory to all its ministries as well as the provincial departments to take necessary measures to prevent the official data from being hacked or put on the dark web, a media report said.

The advisory had suggested several steps, including the application of two-factor authentication on all email, social media and banking accounts; avoiding installing untrusted software and unnecessary plugins on browsers and never forwarding, or clicking a link shared on email or WhatsApp by unknown sources.

The dark web, or darknet, is a part of the internet that lies beyond the reach of…

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Phones that emit the most – and least


The FCC says the radiation coming from your cellphone is no big deal. A cancer surgeon friend told me he begs to differ.

While public health experts continue to debate the issue and the public’s own worries may be overblown, perhaps the best approach is ‘better safe than sorry.’ 

That’s certainly been the approach of the attorneys for the manufacturers, who have helped craft their mobile phone’s manuals and legal notices. 

Modern iPhones, including the 14 Pro Max and the iPhone SE, recommend that their customers ‘use a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones or other similar accessories’ to ‘reduce exposure to RF [radio frequency] energy.’

These radio frequency exposures, according to Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation, can be exceptionally high from some mobile devices — with a few energetic Android phones topping the list. 

You have to wonder: What do the manufacturers know that we don’t?

A chart of cell phone radiation exposure rates from the Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz) compiled by the Digital Information World last year
the New iPhone SE suggests using ‘a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones or other similar accessories’ to ‘reduce exposure to RF [radio frequency] energy’
iPhones manuals published a decade ago recommended users keep their phones 10 mm away

‘People are addicted to their smartphones,’ according to Joel Moskowitz, a researcher in the University of California Berkeley’s School of Public Health.   

‘We use them for everything now, and, in many ways, we need them to function in our daily lives,’ Moskowitz said. ‘I think the idea that they’re potentially harming our health is too much for some people.’

As the director of Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health, Moskowitz has made studying the biological effects of the radio frequency energy on the human body a research priority since 2009

About Kim Komando 

Kim Komando hosts a weekly call-in show where she provides advice about technology gadgets, websites, smartphone apps and internet security. 

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Android Phones Shipping with Pre-Installed Malware – Global Village Space


Trend Micro, a cybersecurity research firm, has discovered a supply chain attack that has infected millions of Android devices with infostealer malware before they even leave the factory. The majority of the affected devices are budget smartphones, but the attack has also spread to smartwatches, smart TVs, and other smart devices. Senior Trend Micro researcher Fyodor Yarochkin and his colleague Zhengyu Dong spoke about this issue at a conference in Singapore, noting that the root of the problem lies in the fierce competition among original equipment manufacturers.

The issue stems from the fact that smartphone makers are not building all of the components themselves. For example, firmware is being built by third-party firmware suppliers. However, as the price of mobile phone firmware continued to drop, the providers were unable to charge money for their products. As a result, Yarochkin explained, the products started coming with an unwanted extra in the form of “silent plugins.” Trend Micro found dozens of firmware images looking for malicious software and 80 different plugins. Some plugins were part of a wider “business model” that was sold on dark web forums and even marketed on mainstream social media platforms and blogs.

These plugins are capable of stealing sensitive information from the device, stealing SMS messages, taking control of social media accounts, using the devices for ad and click fraud, abusing traffic, and more. One of the more serious problems is a plugin that allows the buyer to take full control of a device for up to five minutes and use it as an “exit node.”

Trend Micro says that close to nine million devices worldwide are affected by this supply chain attack, the majority of which are located in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. The researchers did not name the perpetrators, but they did mention China a few times.

This supply chain attack is a worrying development in the world of cybersecurity. It highlights the need for companies to be vigilant when it comes to their supply chains and to ensure that all components are thoroughly vetted before they are used in their products. It also underscores the importance of using…

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Millions of Android phones come with pre-installed malware, and there’s no easy fix


Why it matters: The Google Play Store is notorious for harboring apps that contain malware, adware, or some flavor of spyware or fleeceware. A little-known fact is that hackers are increasingly turning to pre-installed apps to do their misdeeds, but researchers are once again trying to raise attention to this growing trend. Millions of affordable Android phones come with a large number of pre-installed apps, and hackers only need to subvert one. Solving this problem, however, is a much more difficult task compared to dealing with rogue apps that make it into the Play Store.

Last month, we learned that malware had been discovered in 60 Android apps with over 100 million downloads – another black eye for the mobile operating system that has an estimated three billion active users worldwide. Malicious developers regularly exploit various loopholes in Google’s app vetting process to create apps that steal login credentials or fleeceware that squeeze as much as $400 million per year from users by tricking them into signing up for expensive in-app subscriptions.

However, researchers at Trend Micro are sounding the alarm about the growing trend of Android devices that come with malicious software pre-installed. While you can easily remove an app you’ve downloaded from the Play Store, dealing with malware baked into system apps or device firmware is a much more difficult task.

Android’s open nature allows manufacturers to create a wide range of phone models and target price-conscious consumers with more affordable options, but it also opens the door for hackers to sneak in malicious code before those devices even leave the factory floor. And this risk also applies to other Android devices – everything from smartwatches to tablets, set-top boxes, and smart TVs.

Senior Trend Micro researcher Fyodor Yarochkin says pre-installed malware has become a lot more common in recent years partly because of a race to the bottom among mobile firmware developers. Once it became unprofitable to sell firmware, many of them started offering it for free.

As you’d expect, there’s a catch to this new business model – many of the firmware images analyzed by Trend Micro contained bits…

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