How To: Keep the Government Out of Your Smartphone
We use smartphones for just about everything, and while that may be beneficial to us in our day-to-day lives, it can also be used against us in the court of law.
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How To: This Best-Selling VPN Is on Sale for Just $12 Today
Now that more people are working from home on unsecured networks and personal devices, hackers are having a field day accessing everything from private browsing histories to personal banking information. A virtual private network (VPN) is the first and most important line of defense when it comes to protecting all of your devices from digital intrusions, but not all VPNs are created equal.
How To: Learn the Ins & Outs, Infrastructure & Vulnerabilities of Amazon's AWS Cloud Computing Platform
While we haven't covered Amazon Web Services, or AWS, on Null Byte before, Amazon's cloud computing platform is ripe for attack by hackers, pentesters, and cybersecurity researchers. It's also an excellent cloud hosting service to build or use vulnerable-by-design AWS setups and frameworks.
News: The Mechanics of Panic — Why You Shouldn't Look to Elon Musk & Social Media Experts for Coronavirus Pandemic Advice
MIT artificial intelligence researcher Lex Fridman recently asked SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk possibly the best question he's ever been asked: What would he ask a hypothetical AGI system (an AI system with human-level intelligence and understanding) if he only had one question?
How To: Keep Law Enforcement Out of Your iPhone (& Your Privacy Intact)
If you're ever faced with a situation of handing over your iPhone to law enforcement (or getting it taken forcibly), whether by the police, feds, or court system, there are things you can do to prevent them from getting access to all that potentially self-incriminating data. And it takes less than a second.
News: The Problem with Farmed Fish — Their Food Is Spreading Antibiotic Resistance
As the fish farming industry struggles to become more environmentally friendly, it just gained another problem. Fish food loaded with antibiotic-resistant genes.
Sweeter Than Blood: Researchers Are Making Mosquitoes' Preference for Sugar Deadly
If you have a taste for sweets, you have at least one thing in common with mosquitoes. While too much sugar is unhealthy for humans, a new product makes sweets deadly to mosquitoes.
How To: Map Networks & Connect to Discovered Devices Using Your Phone
Sharing your Wi-Fi password is like giving an unlimited pass to snoop around your network, allowing direct access even to LAN-connected devices like printers, routers, and security cameras. Most networks allow users to scan and attempt to log in to these connected devices. And if you haven't changed the default password on these devices, an attacker can simply try plugging them in.
News: Biggest Bee Study Yet Shows Devastating Effects of Neonicotinoids Across the Globe
By connecting the dots between theory and real-life effect, two new studies offer more proof that neonicotinoid insecticides are causing extensive damage to honeybee colonies.
How To: Here's How to Compost if You Are an Apartment Dweller
Being a city dweller does not mean you cannot save the planet — or your food scraps. Climate change and resource management are big issues. Composting in any size space is not only possible, but it gives you a chance to reduce greenhouse gasses and reuse food scraps. Right now, about 40% of all food in the US goes to the landfill. In addition to planning meals and using your food in creative ways to reduce the amount that goes to waste, you can compost.
How Epidemics Happen: The Terrifying Reality of Superspreaders
Jostled in the airport, someone is coughing in line. The air looks empty but it is loaded with microbes that make their way into your body. You get sick. You give it to your family, and that's pretty much it. But what if you were so contagious that you spread it to your entire community and beyond?
News: What Are Superbugs? Everything You Need to Know About Antibiotic Resistance
Joe McKenna died when he was 30 years old. A young married man with his future ahead of him, he was cleaning up the station where he worked as a fireman. Struck by a piece of equipment fallen from a shelf, Joe complained of a sore shoulder. Over the next week, Joe worsened and ended up in the hospital. Chilled, feverish, and delirious, his organs shut down from an infection we'd now call septic shock.
News: How to Avoid Food Poisoning & Keep Your Cooking Safe with These Tips
Even when no one is in your kitchen, it is crowded. The refrigerator, sink, and counters are all covered with microbes that are just hanging around. They are inadvertent remnants from the raw chicken you used in that recipe last night, brewing a bacterial cocktail in your Nespresso machine, or just growing their merry little colonies on your leftovers.
SPLOIT: Cryptography Is a Bitch (Ransomware Development): Part 1: Introduction to the Ransomware World
Greetings my fellow aspiring hackers,
How To: Keeping Your Hacking Identity Secret - #2
My first ever post on here was 'Keeping your hacking identity secret' and it did very well, and its not something I see here on null byte. So read along.
News: What Is a White Hat Hacker?
In recent weeks, some people have been shunned from the Null Byte community because they expressed "black hat" aspirations. This is because Null Byte is the "white hat" hacker training/playground. Although most of us think we know what that means, it does beg the question; "Who and what is a white hat hacker?"
Hack Like a Pro: Digital Forensics for the Aspiring Hacker, Part 10 (Identifying Signatures of a Port Scan & DoS Attack)
Welcome back, my budding hackers! As I have mentioned many times throughout this series, knowing a bit of digital forensics might keep you out of a lot of trouble. In addition, digital forensics is a burgeoning and high paying career. Some knowledge and certifications in this field will likely help you land a Security Engineer position or put you on the Incident Response Team at your employer.
Privacy 101: Using Android Without Compromising Security
In this day and age, maintaining your privacy is a perpetual battle, and doing so with an internet-connected device like your smartphone is even more of a struggle. Every website you visit, every app you install, every message you send, and every call you make is a potential vulnerability that could expose you to prying eyes.
How To: Why You Should Study to Be a Hacker
Welcome back, my budding hackers! People often ask me, "Why are you training hackers? Isn't that illegal?" Although I usually give them a short version of this post, there are MANY reasons why YOU should be studying hacking.
Hack Like a Pro: How to Spy on Anyone, Part 1 (Hacking Computers)
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! Now that nearly everyone and everyplace has a computer, you can use those remote computers for some good old "cloak and dagger" spying. No longer is spying something that only the CIA, NSA, KGB, and other intelligence agencies can do—you can learn to spy, too.
How To: Seize Control of a Router with RouterSploit
A router is the core of anyone's internet experience, but most people don't spend much time setting up this critical piece of hardware. Old firmware, default passwords, and other configuration issues continue to haunt many organizations. Exploiting the poor, neglected computer inside these routers has become so popular and easy that automated tools have been created to make the process a breeze.
How To: The 15 Most Popular Talks from DEFCON's Hacking Conferences
Every summer for the last 26 years, hoards of hackers have descended on the Las Vegas Strip for DEFCON, the biggest hacker conference in the US. There's a wealth of talks every season (DEFCON 27 has at least 95 scheduled), and there have been some essential topics to learn from in past discussions. We've dug through the last ten years and found the 15 most popular talks you should watch.
How To: View Air Quality in Apple Maps to See How Polluted Cities & Destinations Are
While the United States, in general, doesn't have the worst overall pollution, the air quality can drastically change from one day to the next. If you're particularly sensitive to pollutants in the air, there are apps that show how clean or polluted the air is in your area, as well as in cities you plan on traveling to, but Apple's making those apps less relevant with a new feature in Apple Maps.
How To: Detect When a Device Is Nearby with the ESP8266 Friend Detector
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 sniff the air for packets from any device we want to track, turning on an LED when it's detected nearby.
How To: 8 Passcode Tips for Keeping Hackers & Law Enforcement Out of Your iPhone for Good
There has been significant debate over law enforcement's right to access our digital devices in recent years. New tools from Grayshift and Cellebrite are popping up faster than ever to help government agencies, as well as traditional hackers, break into iPhones. If you're concerned, you can take steps right now to beef up your passcode and prevent outsiders from gaining access to your device.
How To: Stealthfully Sniff Wi-Fi Activity Without Connecting to a Target Router
Identifying vulnerable devices and services on a target router can be difficult without leaving logs and other traces of an active attacker on the network. However, there is a way to covertly decrypt and view Wi-Fi activity without ever connecting to the wireless network.
How To: Use a Virtual Burner Phone to Protect Your Identity & Security
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 how to get started using a free second phone number on your regular smartphone.
How To: Access the Dark Web While Staying Anonymous with Tor
The dark web is an intimidating place for a newbie hacker, but it's a powerful tool once you've learned to navigate it safely. To help you out with that, this guide will cover some need-to-know information for traversing the dark corners of the internet while keeping your identity and data safe. (Hint: Using Tor is not enough.)
How To: Everything You Need to Disable on Your Galaxy S8 or S8+ for Privacy & Security
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.
How to Hack Radio Frequencies: Building a Radio Listening Station to Decode Digital Audio & Police Dispatches
On April 7, 2017, residents in Dallas, Texas, woke to the sound of emergency sirens blaring all over the city. No one could shut them off, and after repeated efforts to contain the situation, the city had to shut down the entire system. While the media reported a sophisticated computer hack was responsible, the truth was much less high-tech.
How To: Your One-Stop Guide to Secure, Encrypted Messaging
Now that smartphones have ensured that we're connected to the internet 24/7, online privacy has become more important than ever. With data-mining apps hoping to sell your information for targeted ads, and government agencies only one subpoena away from knowing every detail of your private life, encryption has become our last line of defense.
How To: Stop Apps from Asking to Track Your iPhone Activity in iOS 14.5 for More Control Over Your Privacy
If you're like me, you're not too keen on being tracked. So when an app asks you if it can track your iPhone activity across other programs and websites for ads or data brokers, the answer is pretty much always "no." If you're tired of choosing "Ask App Not to Track" over and over again, there is a way to stop apps from even being able to ask in the first place.
News: 30+ Privacy & Security Settings in iOS 12 You Should Check Right Now
There's always an iPhone in our list of top phones for privacy and security, due in large part to advanced security measures like Face ID, consistent iOS updates, and easy ways to prevent unwanted access and excessive data sharing. However, some of those options actually do the opposite and hinder security. It all depends on how you use your iPhone, but you should at least know everything available.
News: The 4 Best Apps for Private, Encrypted Messaging on Android & iPhone
Smartphones are still "phones," which means communicating with others is usually a primary use. Ranging from a simple "hi" to a more personal conversation and even sharing passwords, our messages should remain private so that only the intended recipient sees their content. While many apps tout end-to-end encryption, not all apps prioritize security and privacy.
News: Seek's CEO Reveals How Its New AR Patent Could Change the Entire 3D Space & Looks into the Future of Smartglasses
Among the various components of the emerging augmented reality space, the most lucrative is the advertising market. The prospect of turning every object, every location, ever signpost in the real world into a discount code or virtual transaction interface is why AR will ultimately be more profitable than VR.
Locking Down Linux: Using Ubuntu as Your Primary OS, Part 1 (Physical Attack Defense)
Windows 10 and macOS have poor reputations when it comes to customer privacy and user policies. Our hacking Windows 10 and hacking macOS articles might make it seem like a reasonably secure operating system doesn't exist. But I'm here to tell you that there is a viable alternative that could provide some sense of security and trust.
How To: Dial These Secret Codes to See if Someone Is Hijacking Calls & Texts on Your iPhone
Malevolent hackers can divert your incoming calls and texts to any number they want, and they don't need to be a criminal mastermind to do it. Even friends and family members can reroute your incoming calls and messages so that they know exactly who's trying to reach you, and all it takes is seconds of access to your iPhone or wireless account. These secret codes can help uncover them.
Hacking iOS: How to Embed Payloads into iPhone Packages with Arcane
It's a common misconception that iPhones are impervious to cyberattacks and "more secure" than Android. And when an iPhone does get hacked, it's nearly impossible to tell that it happened.
NR30: Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality for 2019
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
How To: Secure Your Identity & Become Anonymous Online in 2019
Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself from cyberstalkers, advertisers, and hackers in a time when digital lives are a high commodity.