The Watch Dogs video game series came out in 2014, enamoring audiences with the idea of a seemingly magical smartphone that could change traffic signals, hack web cameras, and even remotely control forklifts. This may sound like science fiction, but The Sonic uses a customized flavor of Kali Linux to allow you to unleash the power of Kali from any smartphone — all without the need to create a hotspot to control it.
Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a "nuclear explosion of identity theft." Let's explore what really happened and what you and those around you can do to protect yourselves.
Despite legends to the contrary, it appears that the saliva of a Komodo dragon is not teeming with pathogenic bacteria that kills their prey. Its reputation to survive while colonized with lots of horrible disease-causing bacteria, true or untrue, has made it the subject of research in pursuit of natural antimicrobial agents and led scientists to some remarkable findings.
What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap beyond the wonders we've seen in today's consumer virtual reality headsets.
Telemarketers can be as terrifying as a villain from a horror film. Your phone rings with an unknown 800 number, and you immediately fill with a sense of dread. There's no way to get them to stop calling; you imagine the number appearing on your phone at all hours of the day and night, haunting you.
We see Steampunk props all the time and wonder where the maker found all their pieces. In fact, for some people it's almost like a game to examine each prop and see if they can name all of the original parts.
Say whatever you want, but Steampunk is primarily a maker culture. Consider that Steampunk has existed since the 1960s and yet more or less languished in obscurity until approximately 2005, which is when it made the leap to costuming. That costuming was what provided the leap to the tangible, despite the fact that Steampunk art had also existed for years.
The devices in the new iPhone 16 series lineup have one feature no other iPhone models have: a physical Camera Control button. If you use your iPhone to take photos or record videos, the Camera Control speeds up the process and gives you immediate control over adjusting settings and values using intuitive gestures. But what exactly can you do with it?
On the latest iOS software, your iPhone comes with significant privacy and security enhancements to protect your data even more than Apple did before. From safeguarding your iPhone to passcode-protecting files to making it easier to browse the web safely, there's a lot you need to know and start using.
In the dark, even the lowest brightness option on the iPhone can still feel a thousand burning suns. No matter whether you're in bed or at the movie theater, you don't want to create a distraction with your smartphone. That's why you might want a brightness that isn't readily available on your device — but luckily, there may be a way to go lower than the lowest brightness.
There are tons of tools out there that do all kinds of recon, but it can be hard to narrow down what to use. A great way to be more efficient is by taking advantage of scripting. This doesn't have to mean writing everything from scratch — it can simply mean integrating existing tools into a single, comprehensive script. Luckily, it's easy to create your own subdomain enumeration script for better recon.
As a company, Facebook is not shy about talking up its AR smartglasses plans. The latest missive comes from two executives in charge of developing AR software and hardware.
Ah, subscriptions. Whether you love or hate them, they are now a fundamental part of our increasingly digital lives. If you have some essential subs on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac, like Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple News+, Bumble, Pandora, Tinder, or YouTube Premium, there are three key issues you need to know about that could unexpectedly stop your membership from renewing.
You should feel relatively safe to watch and post videos on TikTok, but like with any online service, you're always at the mercy of hackers.
The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in practically every business sector. Now, as we look back at the top augmented reality investments of 2020, the AR industry has been no exception.
Withstanding an attack from a motivated hacker is one of the most important responsibilities a system administrator must undertake. This is especially true for websites that may contain sensitive customer information and a high volume of users. So it's important for a sysadmin to take proactive measures to find and fix vulnerabilities in their websites.
Apple just released iOS 14.2 for iPhone, which introduces multiple fun new features and changes. There are 117 new emoji, such as a seal, ninja, bubble tea, and smiling face with tear. Eight new wallpapers can also be found, each containing a light and dark mode variant. HomePod's new Intercom feature appears too. And those are just a few of the things to look out for.
Apps can learn a lot about you just by reading information about your smartphone. They can easily track what device model you have, your phone number, and in some cases, your hardware MAC addresses. Many third-party apps will only track your device values for advertising purposes, but some might be trying to snoop on your data for ill intentions.
The future of TikTok in the U.S. is all but certain. Microsoft, Walmart, or Oracle could save the day by buying the company, TikTok may win its lawsuit, or China's new restrictions could halt everything — but all could fail. Just like Vine before it, TikTok could be on its way out, only for opposite reasons. But will it matter if TikTok gets banned in the States? With the competition heating up, likely not.
After years of complaining about rising prices, OEMs are finally listening to consumers. It couldn't have come at a better time thanks to potential recession due to COVID-19. As evident with the poor sales of Samsung's Galaxy S20 series, consumers are not looking to spending $1,000+ on a smartphone just for the latest specs.
Android phones finally have a true AirDrop alternative called "Nearby Share." The new feature was added through an update to the Google Play Services app that comes pre-installed on all Android devices in the US, so you don't even have to wait on a firmware upgrade — it's just there.
The Pi-hole project is a popular DNS-level ad blocker, but it can be much more than that. Its DNS-level filtering can also be used as a firewall of sorts to prevent malicious websites from resolving, as well as to keep privacy-killing trackers such as Google Analytics from ever loading in the browser. Let's take a look at setting a Pi-hole up and customizing a blacklist to suit your needs.
The "Zoombombing" trend is still strong on the Zoom video meetings service, despite security measures Zoom put in place to stop it. That's why it's up to you, as either a host or co-host, to be proactive about preventing Zoombomber harassment, as well as stopping it whenever it slips through the cracks.
Smartphones are inherently bad for privacy. You've basically got a tracking device in your pocket, pinging off cell towers and locking onto GPS satellites. All the while, tracking cookies, advertising IDs, and usage stats follow you around the internet.
Using a strong password is critical to the security of your online accounts. However, according to Dashlane, US users hold an average of 130 different accounts. Memorizing strong passwords for that many accounts is impractical. Fortunately, password managers solve the problem.
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?"
A lot of people still trust their web browsers to remember every online account password for them. If you're one of those users, you need to adopt a more secure way of managing passwords, because browser-stored passwords are hacker gold mines. With a USB Rubber Ducky and physical access to your computer, they can have a screenshot of all your credentials in their inbox in less than 60 seconds.
It's easier than you might think to hack into Wi-Fi routers using just one unrooted Android phone. This method doesn't require brute-forcing the password, a Windows OS for converting PowerShell scripts into EXE format, a reliable VPS for intercepting hacked Wi-Fi passwords, or Metasploit for post-exploitation tricks.
Twitter's official iOS app is adequate if you're not much of a tweeter, but if you are, there's a lot of useful features that are missing. Luckily, there are plenty of free Twitter clients available that you can use on your iPhone. These third-party apps have features such as customizable interfaces, post scheduling, and different browser options for opening links, to name just a few.
Kali Linux is probably the most well-known hacking distribution among penetration testers. However, there are alternative distros which offer versatility and advanced package management systems that are absolutely worth considering.
Overall, iOS is more impressive than ever with its stability enhancements, security tools, suite of apps and services, and intuitive user interface. With each passing update, things just get better and better for iPhone users. But don't think for a second that this is all because of Apple's genius — many of these features were at least partly inspired by tweaks made by the jailbreak community.
Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your child could do if they were able to harness this technical aptitude and put it to good use — and they can, with learning apps.
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.
One of Android's biggest strengths is its flexibility. There's usually more than one way to perform the same task, which makes it easy to find an alternate method that works better for you. Android also has some hidden features that newer users might not be aware of, so we made this list to highlight lesser-known tips and tricks.
In the previous article, we learned how to set up our VPS, configure our PHP server, and developed an in-depth understanding of how the payload works. With all that taken care of, we can get into disguising our payload to appear as an image and crafting the note in the greeting card being delivered to our intended target.
With an ordinary birthday card, we can introduce a physical device which contains malicious files into someone's home and deceive them into inserting the device into a computer.
During our last adventure into the realm of format string exploitation, we learned how we can manipulate format specifiers to rewrite a program's memory with an arbitrary value. While that's all well and good, arbitrary values are boring. We want to gain full control over the values we write, and today we are going to learn how to do just that.
Over the years, the internet has become a dangerous place. As its popularity has increased, it has attracted more hackers looking to make a quick buck. However, as our dependency on the web grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to sever all ties. This means we have to protect one of our weakest points, the password.
Around this time in 2016, the predictions for the next year had reached something of a consensus: 2017 would be the year of augmented reality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future — nothing much, really. At least not for the first half of the year.
Your iPhone has a lot of personal information contained within it, so of course you want your device to be secure. You don't want that information getting into the wrong hands — or any hands other than your own, for that matter.