For more than 25 years, a technology used for critical data and voice radio communications around the world has been shrouded in secrecy to prevent anyone from closely scrutinizing its security properties for vulnerabilities […] The backdoor, known for years by vendors that sold the technology but not necessarily by customers, exists in an encryption Read more about TETRA Military and Police Radio Code Encryption Has a Flaw: A built in Backdoor[…]

[…] Researchers at firmware-focused cybersecurity company Eclypsium revealed today that they’ve discovered a hidden mechanism in the firmware of motherboards sold by the Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte, […] the hidden code is meant to be an innocuous tool to keep the motherboard’s firmware updated, researchers found that it’s implemented insecurely, potentially allowing the mechanism to be Read more about Millions of Gigabyte Motherboards Were Sold With a Firmware Backdoor for updates[…]

Despite some companies making strides with ARM, for the most part, the desktop and laptop space is still dominated by x86 machines. For all their advantages, they have a glaring flaw for anyone concerned with privacy or security in the form of a hardware backdoor that can access virtually any part of the computer even Read more about Disabling Intel and AMD’s Backdoors On Modern computers[…]

In September, we noted that officials in the EU were continuing an effort to try to ban end-to-end encryption. Of course, that’s not how they put it. They say they just want “lawful access” to encrypted content, not recognizing that any such backdoor effectively obliterates the protections of end-to-end encryption. A new “Draft Council Resolution Read more about EU Takes Another Small Step Towards Trying To Ban Encryption; New Paper Argues Tech Can Backdoor Encryption Safely. It can’t.[…]

It’s said the NSA drew up a report on what it learned after a foreign government exploited a weak encryption scheme, championed by the US spying agency, in Juniper firewall software. However, curiously enough, the NSA has been unable to find a copy of that report. On Wednesday, Reuters reporter Joseph Menn published an account Read more about NSA: foreign spies used one of our crypto backdoors – we learnt some lessons but we lost them[…]

The Xplora 4 smartwatch, made by Chinese outfit Qihoo 360 Technology Co, and marketed to children under the Xplora brand in the US and Europe, can covertly take photos and record audio when activated by an encrypted SMS message, says Norwegian security firm Mnemonic. This backdoor is not a bug, the finders insist, but a Read more about Backdoorer the Xplora: Kids’ smart-watches can secretly take pics, record audio on command by encrypted texts[…]

In February, a researcher detailed a widely circulating Android backdoor that’s so pernicious that it survives factory resets, a trait that makes the malware impossible to remove without taking unusual measures. The analysis found that the unusual persistence was the result of rogue folders containing a trojan installer, neither of which was removed by a Read more about The secret behind “unkillable” Android backdoor called xHelper has been revealed[…]

Researchers have found a new way to defeat the boot verification process for some Intel-based systems, but the technique can also impact other platforms and can be used to compromise machines in a stealthy and persistent way. Researchers Peter Bosch and Trammell Hudson presented a time-of-check, time-of-use (TOCTOU) attack against the Boot Guard feature of Read more about New Intel firmware boot verification bypass enables low-level persistent backdoors[…]

Right on cue, Cisco on Wednesday patched a security vulnerability in some of its network switches that can be exploited by miscreants to commandeer the IT equipment and spy on people. This comes immediately after panic this week over a hidden Telnet-based diagnostic interface was found in Huawei gateways. Although that vulnerability was real, irritating, Read more about Sinister secret backdoor found in networking gear perfect for government espionage: The Chinese are – oh no, wait, it’s Cisco again[…]

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab say that ASUS, one of the world’s largest computer makers, was used to unwittingly install a malicious backdoor on thousands of its customers’ computers last year after attackers compromised a server for the company’s live software update tool. The malicious file was signed with legitimate ASUS digital certificates to Read more about Hackers Hijacked ASUS Software Updates to Install Backdoors on half a million Computers[…]

A Dutch security researcher has stumbled upon the Kremlin’s backdoor account that the government had been using to access the servers of local and foreign businesses operating in Russia. The backdoor account was found inside thousands of MongoDB databases that had been left exposed online without a password. Any hacker who noticed the account could Read more about Unsecured MongoDB databases expose Kremlin’s single username / password backdoor into Russian businesses[…]

For the fourth time in as many months, Cisco has removed hardcoded credentials that were left inside one of its products, which an attacker could have exploited to gain access to devices and inherently to customer networks. This time around, the hardcoded password was found in Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), which is a Read more about Cisco Removes Backdoor Account, Fourth in the Last Four Months[…]

Today, yet another security blunder becomes publicized, and it is really bad. You see, many Western Digital My Cloud NAS drives have a hardcoded backdoor, meaning anyone can access them — your files could be at risk. It isn’t even hard to take advantage of it — the username is “mydlinkBRionyg” and the password is Read more about Western Digital ‘My Cloud’ devices have a hardcoded backdoor — stop using these NAS drives NOW![…]