A seven-year-old privilege escalation vulnerability discovered in the polkit system service could be exploited by a malicious unprivileged local attacker to bypass authorization and escalate permissions to the root user. Tracked as CVE-2021-3560 (CVSS score: 7.8), the flaw affects polkit versions between 0.113 and 0.118 and was discovered by GitHub security researcher Kevin Backhouse, who
Organizations’ cybersecurity capabilities have improved over the past decade, mostly out of necessity. As their defenses get better, so do the methods, tactics, and techniques malicious actors devise to penetrate their environments. Instead of the standard virus or trojan, attackers today will deploy a variety of tools and methods to infiltrate an organization’s environment and
Multiple critical security flaws have been disclosed in Samsung’s pre-installed Android apps, which, if successfully exploited, could have allowed adversaries access to personal data without users’ consent and take control of the devices. “The impact of these bugs could have allowed an attacker to access and edit the victim’s contacts, calls, SMS/MMS, install arbitrary apps
Google’s upcoming plans to replace third-party cookies with a less invasive ad targeted mechanism have a number of issues that could defeat its privacy objectives and allow for significant linkability of user behavior, possibly even identifying individual users. “FLoC is premised on a compelling idea: enable ad targeting without exposing users to risk,” said Eric
Twitter on Wednesday appointed development finance executive Mimi Alemayehou to its board of directors to replace Elliott Management partner Jesse Cohn, after the activist hedge fund helped create a blueprint for changes that led to a doubling of the social media firm’s share price. Alemayehou will join the board immediately and Cohn will step down,
President Joe Biden on Wednesday withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of WeChat and TikTok, and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps and others. The administration of former President Donald Trump had attempted to block new users from downloading the apps and
Social media firms wanting to operate in Nigeria must register a local entity and be licensed, the country’s information minister said on Wednesday, the government’s latest move since it banned Twitter last week. “We are insisting that for you to operate in Nigeria you must first be a Nigerian company and be licensed by the
Like supermarkets, restaurants, and purveyors of sourdough bread, the illegal drugs trade went digital to serve its customers during lockdown, and could stay that way when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, Europe’s drugs agency said on Wednesday. “The pandemic is pushing drug criminals online, reinforcing a trend,” said the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva
The United States on Thursday condemned the Nigerian government for suspending Twitter and targeting individuals who use the social media site, including Nigerian broadcasters, and called for the African nation to reverse its decision. “Unduly restricting the ability of Nigerians to report, gather, and disseminate opinions and information has no place in a democracy. Freedom
Facebook Messenger is getting three new features in an update for its mobile app. The new features include three new chat themes, a quick reply bar, along with QR code scanning and payment links. The update will be rolled out for its Android and iOS apps. The social media giant mentioned that the QR code
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has obtained the first images of Ganymede, Jupiter’s biggest moon, as it flew by the icy moon on Monday. Juno is the only second spacecraft to fly by Ganymede in two decades. NASA has shared two pictures on its Instagram handle, which give us a closer and detailed view of the surface
A team of researchers has developed a new, economically viable system to extract lithium from seawater, while also creating freshwater. The demand for lithium — an extremely crucial element used in batteries that power electric vehicles — has been soaring for quite some time now and its land-based reserves are likely to be exhausted by
Not long ago, bipedal robots that can manage to walk without falling were considered to be the most advanced in the field of robotics. But an acrobatic humanoid robot that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working on will give them a run for their money (only if that was possible). The
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced earlier this week that he will be flying to space aboard his space company Blue Origin’s New Shephard vehicle on July 20, accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos. This was supposed to make senior Bezos the first ‘space billionaire’ to actually go into space. But it now seems that another ‘space
This year’s first solar eclipse will occur on June 10. It will be an annular or partial solar eclipse, meaning the Moon will not cover the sun entirely and position itself in a way that the outer edges of the sun will be visible from the Earth. This will create a spectacular “ring of fire”
In a first for India, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy, a type of gene therapy for blood cancer treatment, was successfully conducted last Friday at the Bone Marrow Transplant unit at the Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Tata Memorial Hostpital in Mumbai in collaboration with IIT Bombay. The Central
Andromeda Galaxy’s vastness is captured perfectly in a zoom-out video that was shared by World and Science, a Twitter handle that frequently shares interesting stories from the world of science. The video of Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or M31, has left users on the micro-blogging site awestruck. The sharp zoom0out clip shows
NASA has released yet another fascinating photograph of two swirling galaxies merging in a galactic system 140 million light-years from the Earth. As these two galaxies become one, shock waves rumble through both of them and trigger waves of new star formation, the American space agency explains. Some of these stars are very large and live
NASA posted a couple breath-taking images of the annular solar eclipse as seen from the United States on its official Instagram handle, calling it a “view of a lifetime” The solar eclipse that occurred on June 10 is the first solar eclipse of this year and was witnessed in its partial form from Ladakh and
Imagine a robot dog accompanying you on your morning walks in the park or on the side of the road. Fascinating, right? And while it’s not really cheap, Chinese company Unitree Robotics’ robo-dog costs just about 3.6 percent of Boston Dynamics’ highly advanced product, Spot. The latest machine from Unitree — Go1 — has captured
Transform 2021 Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy. July 12-16 Register Today Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. (Reuters) — Intel is debating a possible offer to buy SiFive, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, a company closely associated with open source technology that is challenging the rise