Researchers showed a Black Hat audience how femotcell technology, used by phone companies to boost cell phone coverage, can be hacked to intercept cell phone calls, text messages and other data. …read more
Tag Archives: Black Hat
NSA Chief Explains US Spying To Black Hat Hackers
Speaking to an audience of hackers and security professionals at the 16th annual Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander defended the PRISM program and the NSA’s cache of phone metadata as necessary to protect the lives of American citizens and overseas allies. He also said that the programs are tightly monitored and that – in addition to technical tools that limit what analysts can access — all analysts are audited to be sure they have justification for any data they access. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Controls keep NSA spy programs legal, director tells Black Hat audience
A skeptical but mostly respectful crowd of Black Hat security attendees Wednesday listened intently as National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander defended controversial U.S. surveillance programs in a keynote address. …read more
NSA chief faces skeptical, tech-savvy crowd at annual Black Hat hacker convention in Vegas
Heckling at a hacker’s conference didn’t faze the head of the National Security Agency. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
NSA chief to face skeptical, tech-savvy crowd at annual Black Hat hacker convention in Vegas
Hackers will be in the audience when the head of the U.S. National Security Agency makes a scheduled speech before an annual conference at a Las Vegas Strip resort. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
SIM card hack has severe implications for business
It’s amazing it took so long. More than 20 years after its initial development, the SIM card has been hacked. A German cryptographer named Karsten Nohl will be presenting findings to that effect at the annual Black Hat computer security conference at the end of the month.
The impact of hacked SIM cards, one of the few stalwarts in the high-tech industry that has not seen a serious exploit, could be monumental. The exploit involves simply sending a specially configured, hidden SMS to the phone, giving the attacker an easy way around that phone’s built-in encryption. Ultimately this would then give the attacker the ability to do all manner of nasty things, from having the phone send pricy for-pay text messages to recording telephone conversations. While some seven billion SIM cards are in use today, Nohl estimated that roughly half a billion mobile devices worldwide would currently be vulnerable to this type of attack.
Fixes are already in the works, but as any IT manager who’s survived an old-fashioned Windows virus onslaught knows, a fix does not necessarily equal a solution. Even if patches are made available, that’s no guarantee they’ll be universally rolled out in a timely fashion. SIM cards can be updated invisibly over the air by network operators, but that poses a secondary problem. Because users have no visibility into whether their phones are vulnerable to the attack or not, wireless customers won’t know whether or not their devices are safe.
For individuals, the risk of someone hijacking your phone and listening in on calls or making phony purchases is bad enough.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld
SIM cards vulnerable to hacking, says researcher
Millions of mobile phones may be vulnerable to spying due to the use of outdated, 1970s-era cryptography, according to new research due to be presented at the Black Hat security conference.
Karsten Nohl, an expert cryptographer with Security Research Labs, has found a way to trick mobile phones into granting access to the device’s location, SMS functions and allow changes to a person’s voicemail number.
Nohl’s research looked at a mobile phones’ SIM (Subscriber Identification Module), the small card inserted into a device that ties it to a phone number and authenticates software updates and commands sent over-the-air from an operator.
More than 7 billion SIM cards are in use worldwide. To ensure privacy and security, SIM cards use encryption when communicating with an operator, but the encryption standards use vary widely.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld
International Rectifier's IRS2980 LEDrivIR™ IC Named Finalist of 2013 EE Times and EDN ACE Awards
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
International Rectifier’s IRS2980 LEDrivIR™ IC Named Finalist of 2013 EE Times and EDN ACE Awards
EL SEGUNDO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– International Rectifier, IR® (NYS: IRF) , a world leader in power management technology, today announced its IRS2980 LEDrivIR™ IC was named a finalist in the Ultimate Products – Power category of UBM Tech’s EE Times and EDN Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards.
Rated at 600 V, the IRS2980 utilizes hysteretic average current mode control for precise current regulation. The LED buck driver features low-side MOSFET drive with high-voltage internal regulator and high-side current sensing. The converter is compatible with electronic PWM dimming allowing for 0%-100% current control.
“The IRS2980 LEDrivIR™ IC offers improved performance at a lower system cost than alternative solutions for non-isolated LED driver applications and we are pleased that the device has been named a finalist in these highly prestigious awards,” said Adam White, IR‘s Senior Vice President, Global Sales.
Available in an SO-8 package, the IRS2980 LEDrivIR™ IC utilizes IR‘s advanced high-voltage IC process which incorporates latest-generation high-voltage level-shifting and termination technology to deliver superior electrical over-stress protection and higher field reliability, in addition to other new features and enhancements.
The Ultimate Products of the Year Award – awarded to the most significant product introduced in the last 12 months in 11 categories – is determined by large-scale peer review. Finalists in each category are chosen by expert editors from both EE Times and EDN with accompanying editorial reviews.
The Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards ceremony will take place on April 23, 2013, as part of UBM Tech’s DESIGN West and ESC Silicon Valley Conference.
About UBM Tech
UBM Tech is a global media business that provides information, events, training, data services, and marketing solutions for the technology industry. Its media brands and information services inform and inspire decision makers across the entire technology market — engineers and design professionals, software and game developers, solutions providers and integrators, networking and communications executives, and business technology professionals. UBM Tech’s industry-leading media brands include EE Times, Interop, Black Hat, InformationWeek, Game Developer Conference, CRN, and DesignCon.
About International Rectifier
EA's Origin has an Exploit, Leaving Gamers Vulnerable to Hackers
The ability to infiltrate a remote computer via uniform resource identifiers (URI) exploits is nothing new, per se. A hacker gets someone to click on a link, which actually opens up the victim’s system to the infiltration of malware. But as reported by Ars Technica, research group ReVuln has found a potentially dangerous URI exploit within EA’s Origin client which could leave as many as 40 million gamers vulnerable.
The ReVuln team gave a presentation last week at the Black Hat security conference in Amsterdam. Apparently, getting someone to click on an “origin://” prefixed link is all it takes, as the Origin client then downloads a dynamic link library file to the victim’s computer. The ReVuln team has also released a paper, detailing the exploit, which mentions a similar vulnerability discovered in Valve’s Steam platform last year.