Whatever industry you're in, there's a decent chance you've had to work with Excel — that number-crunching powerhouse that drives the accounting departments of countless corporations across the globe.
We're living in a world that runs on Big Data. As the driving force behind everything from self-driving cars and Google algorithms to the latest medical technology and financial platforms, massive sets of increasingly complex data lie at the heart of today's most exciting and important innovations.
Post-exploitation is often not quite as exciting as popping the initial shell, but it's a crucial phase for gathering data and further privilege escalation. Once a target is compromised, there's a lot of information to find and sift through. Luckily, there are tools available that can make the process easy. One such tool is Postenum.
Attacks against databases have become one of the most popular and lucrative activities for hackers recently. New data breaches seem to be popping up every week, but even with all of that attention, databases continue to be a prime target. All of these attacks have to start somewhere, and we'll be exploring a variety of methods to gather information on PostgreSQL databases with Metasploit.
File permissions can get tricky on Linux and can be a valuable avenue of attack during privilege escalation if things aren't configured correctly. SUID binaries can often be an easy path to root, but sifting through all of the defaults can be a massive waste of time. Luckily, there's a simple script that can sort things out for us.
Choosing which programming language to learn next can be a truly daunting task. That's the case regardless of whether you're a Null Byter just beginning a career in development and cybersecurity or you're a seasoned ethical hacking and penetration tester with years of extensive coding experience under your belt. On that note, we recommend Python for anyone who hasn't mastered it yet.
Wi-Fi networks come in two flavors: the more common 2.4 GHz used by most routers and IoT devices, and the 5 GHz one offered as an alternative by newer routers. While it can be frustrating to attack a device that moves out of reach to a 5 GHz Wi-Fi network, we can use an Alfa dual-band adapter to hack Wi-Fi devices on either type of network.
We've been so worried about volumetric scans possibly robbing celebrities and performers of their agency and right to control their image that, somewhere along the way, we forgot that scans may not always be necessary to produce passable holographic performances.
One of my favorite perks of this job is the opportunity to try out all the big flagship phones each year. Whether it's rating their suitability for a particular use-case or just entering their specs into our comparison tool, we have to get our hands on all major phones released in the US. We pride ourselves on being fair in our reviews and roundups, but that doesn't mean we don't have preferences.
The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry.
Post-exploitation information gathering can be a long and drawn-out process, but it is an essential step when trying to pivot or establish advanced persistence. Every hacker should know how to enumerate a target manually, but sometimes it is worth it to automate the process. Metasploit contains post modules that can quickly gather valuable information about a target, saving both time and effort.
In November 2016, the RCS Universal Profile (Rich Communications Services) was introduced. The technology takes text messaging to the 21st century, emulating many of the features found in IM apps like WhatsApp and iMessage, but working through your phone number like regular SMS or MMS. The only thing is, your carrier needs to support RCS-UP to use the feature. Thankfully, the list is growing.
Apple's iOS 13 has been quite the disrupter. The initial update featured over 200 new features and changes, while its successor, iOS 13.1, brought another 22 to the mix. With the company's latest update, iOS 13.2, you'll see an extra 22 amendments on your iPhone, including new emojis, Deep Fusion on iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, and Announce Messages with Siri, just to name a few.
It's always a big deal when the company that makes Android releases a new phone. Google's Pixel series has made a name for itself in three short years behind its camera prowess, but now it's time to start competing with the major players. That said, Google should like how their Pixel 4 and 4 XL stack up against the iPhones and Galaxies of the world.
Many people don't realize much better audio can sound on their phones. While it's solid to begin with, Samsung has included several options in the Galaxy Note 10+ that will upgrade your listening experience to profound status.
SMB (Server Message Block) is a protocol that allows resources on the same network to share files, browse the network, and print over the network. It was initially used on Windows, but Unix systems can use SMB through Samba. Today, we will be using a tool called Enum4linux to extract information from a target, as well as smbclient to connect to an SMB share and transfer files.
OnePlus, whose phones always challenge for the title of best spec-to-price ratio, releases two main devices every year. There's the primary flagship in late spring, then an iterative update with the "T" suffix in fall. Typically, there's not much difference between the two, but this year, OnePlus is mixing up the formula a bit.
The idea of squeezing your phone might have sounded a bit out there when it was new, but it's now a hallmark feature on Pixel devices. As useful as it is for summoning the Google Assistant, however, it certainly would be nice to be able pick and choose what action is triggered by squeezing the phone. Well, now you can.
While our smartphones are many things, one of their primary functions is to make calls. Many of us try to avoid ever having to make calls, but there are situations when it's a must, such as wishing your grandma happy Birthday or calling 911 — and in those times you want stellar call quality.
When I first found out about Nreal, back in the spring of 2018, the most interesting thing about the company's story was the founder's background. Chi Xu, the CEO and founder of Nreal, previously worked at Magic Leap as a software engineer.
The hugely successful S10 series of flagships may be a tough act to follow, but Samsung has proven that it's up to the task with the Galaxy Note 10. The latest phablet bearing the Note name is the first of its line to come with an even larger variant, and boasts an eye-pleasing design with impressive performance to boot.
Say you're sending a snap to a friend at a restaurant, bar, store, what have you, but you're curious about the song that's playing in the background. You could leave the app to Shazam it, or you could ask screen-hogging Siri or Google Assistant what the track is, but why not just have Snapchat do the work for you? With its built-in scanner, you can discover a song without ever leaving the app.
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.
You would think that recovering your smartphone or another important item that you leave behind in an Uber ride would be a simple process, but it can actually be a pain in the ass. You have to find out how to report it to the driver, hope the driver is honest, pay a fee, and contact Uber directly if none of that works. But we're here to help make this process as easy as possible for you.
For 2019, Sony is trying to shake its failures of the past and start fresh. Following the unsuccessful Xperia XZ series, Sony is changing the name of their flagship to a single number: Xperia 1. With the name change comes a few upgrades, one of which is its new look. Secondly, its new display is unmatched in the mobile space.
Once again, LG is mixing up its launch. Instead of the announcing the latest entry in G series later in the year, the LG G8 ThinQ was announced at Mobile World Congress 2019, shortly after Samsung's Galaxy S10 event. And instead of trying to match what other OEMs are doing, LG is once again trying to be different.
Android 9.0 Pie moved the status bar clock from the right corner to the left to accommodate phones with notches, but there's one major downside for Samsung users: since no Galaxy phones have a notch, all this did was take away space for the notification icons that would otherwise start from the left corner.
The Galaxy S10 has finally been revealed to the masses, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. As the flagship to herald the tenth anniversary of the venerable Galaxy S line, the S10 has kept popular and familiar design elements like the immersive Infinity Display while employing new features like more advanced cameras to set a new standard for other OEMs to follow.
The tactic of brute-forcing a login, i.e., trying many passwords very quickly until the correct one is discovered, can be easy for services like SSH or Telnet. For something like a website login page, we must identify different elements of the page first. Thanks to a Python tool for brute-forcing websites called Hatch, this process has been simplified to the point that even a beginner can try it.
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 already have permission. The vulnerability can lead to an attacker gaining complete control over a device.
When flashing files through TWRP, ADB, or Fastboot, there's a slight chance for things to go wrong. Whether it's user error related or something else entirely, it's always good to have a backup plan. In most cases, you'll be dealing with a semi-brick or soft-brick, which can usually be solved by wiping the data of the device using TWRP. However, it can be more severe than that in some cases.
While many are familiar with Samsung, I'm pretty sure most Americans couldn't name the second-largest smartphone OEM. It's actually Huawei, and they recently released a spec-sheet dream of a phone in the Mate 20 Pro. So naturally, we wanted to see how it compared to the largest OEM's best offering.
In this jam-packed October, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has flown under the radar in the US. Due to Huawei's lack of presence in the States, many are unfamiliar with the second largest OEM in the world. Huawei has continuously put out amazing mobile devices, and this year they released a phone that's nearly perfect on paper.
This week, Next Reality released the fifth and final set of profiles on the NR30 leaders in augmented reality, with this chapter focusing on the influencers in the industry.
It only takes a few commands to manipulate a MacBook's secure HTTPS traffic and pluck login passwords out of the encrypted data. Let's take Facebook and Gmail hacking to the next level by intercepting Safari and Google Chrome web traffic in real time.
Considering Rovio Entertainment quite literally owes its existence to Apple and the App Store, it may ruffle a few feathers that the company has opted to aim the augmented reality debut of its blockbuster Angry Birds franchise at Magic Leap instead.
Web 2.0 technology has provided a convenient way to post videos online, keep up with old friends on social media, and even bank from the comfort of your web browser. But when applications are poorly designed or incorrectly configured, certain flaws can be exploited. One such flaw, known as CSRF, allows an attacker to use a legitimate user's session to execute unauthorized requests to the server.
I've had a few days to live with the Magic Leap One, and it's time to finally weigh in with some thoughts as someone who has been tracking this company from the beginning, for almost five years now.
Getting root is considered the Holy Grail in the world of Linux exploitation. Much like SYSTEM on Windows, the root account provides full administrative access to the operating system. Sometimes even a successful exploit will only give a low-level shell; In that case, a technique called privilege escalation can be used to gain access to more powerful accounts and completely own the system.
Using Netcat to backdoor a macOS device has its short-comings. If the compromised Mac goes to sleep, the Netcat background process will occasionally fail to terminate correctly; This leaves Netcat running infinitely in the background and the attacker with no new way into the device. As an alternative, we'll use the lesser-known Tcl shell which can handle abrupt backdoor disconnections.
