Google Lens will let smartphone cameras understand what they see and take action

At Google’s I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new technology called Google Lens. The idea with the product is to leverage Google’s computer vision and AI technology in order to bring smarts directly to your phone’s camera. As the company explains, the smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help you take action.

During a demo, Google showed off how you could point your camera at something and Lens tells you what it is — like, it could identify the flower you’re preparing to shoot.

In another example, Pichai showed how Lens could do a common task — connecting you to a home’s Wi-Fi network by snapping a photo of the sticker on the router.

In that case, Google Lens could identify that it’s looking at a network’s name and password, then offer you the option to tap a button and connect automatically.

A third example was a photo of a business’s storefront — and Google Lens could pull up the name, rating and other business listing information in a card that appeared over the photo.

The technology basically turns the camera from a passive tool that’s capturing the world around you to one that’s allowing you to interact with what’s in your camera’s viewfinder.

Later, during a Google Home demonstration, the company showed how Lens would be integrated into Google Assistant. Through a new button in the Assistant app, users will be able to launch Lens and insert a photo into the conversation with the Assistant, where it can process the data the photo contains.

To show how this could work, Google’s Scott Huffman holds his camera up to a concert marquee for a Stone Foxes show and Google Assistant pulls up info on ticket sales. “Add this to my calendar,” he says — and it does.

The integration of Lens into Assistant can also help with translations.

Huffman demonstrates this by holding up his camera to a sign in Japanese, tapping the Lens icon and saying “What does this say?” Google Assistant then translates the text.

In addition, Pichai showed how Google’s algorithms could more generally clean up and enhance photos — like when you’re taking a picture of your child’s baseball game through a chain-link fence, Google could remove the fence from the photo automatically. Or if you took a photo in a low-light condition, Google could automatically enhance the photo to make it less pixelated and blurry.

The company didn’t announce when Google Lens would be available, only saying that it’s arriving “soon.”

WannaCry Ransomware: Everything You Need To Know Immediately

By now I am sure you have already heard something about the WannaCry ransomware, and are wondering what's going on, who is doing this, and whether your computer is secure from this insanely fast-spreading threat that has already hacked nearly 200,000 Windows PCs over the weekend.

The only positive thing about this attack is that — you are here — as after reading this easy-to-understandable awareness article, you would be so cautious that you can save yourself from WannaCry, as well as other similar cyber attacks in the future.

Since this widely spread ransomware attack is neither the first nor the last one to hit users worldwide, prevention is always the key to protect against such malware threats.
In this article, we have provided some of the most important primary security tips that you should always follow and advised to share with everyone you care for.

What is Ransomware & Why WannaCry is More Dangerous?

For those unaware, Ransomware is a computer virus that usually spreads via spam emails and malicious download links; specially designed to lock up the files on a computer, until the victim pays the ransom demand, usually $300-$500 in Bitcoins.

But what makes WannaCry so unique and nasty is its ability to self-spread without even need to click any link or a file.

The WannaCry ransomware, also known as Wanna Decryptor, leverages a Windows SMB exploit, dubbed EternalBlue, that allows a remote hacker to hijack computers running on unpatched Microsoft Windows operating system.

Once infected, WannaCry also scans for other unpatched PCs connected to the same local network, as well as scans random hosts on the wider Internet, to spread itself quickly.

What Has Happened So Far

We have been covering this story since Friday when this malware was first emerged and hit several hospitals across the globe, eventually forcing them to shut down their entire IT systems over the weekend, hence rejecting patients appointments, and cancel operations.

Later this cyber attack brought down many organizations to their knees.

Instead of repeating same details again, read our previous articles dig deeper and know what has happened so far:

• Day 1: OutCry — WannaCry targeted over 90,000 computers in 99 countries.
• Day 2: The Patch Day — A security researcher successfully found a way to slow down the infection rate, and meanwhile, Microsoft releases emergency patch updates for unsupported versions of Windows.
• Day 3: New Variants Arrives — Just yesterday, some new variants of WannaCry, with and without a kill-switch, were detected in the wild would be difficult to stop for at least next few weeks.

Isn’t the Cyber Attack Over?

Absolutely not.

This is just beginning. As I reported yesterday, security researchers have detected some new versions of this ransomware, dubbed WannaCry 2.0, which couldn’t be stopped by the kill switch.

What's even worse is that the new WannaCry variant believed to be created by someone else, and not the hackers behind the first WannaCry ransomware.

It has been speculated that now other organized cybercriminal gangs, as well as script-kiddies can get motivated by this incident to create and spread similar malicious ransomware.

Who's Behind WannaCry & Why Would Someone Do This?

While it's still not known who is behind WannaCry, such large-scale cyber attacks are often propagated by nation states, but this ongoing attack does not bear any link to foreign governments.

"The recent attack is at an unprecedented level and will require a complex international investigation to identify the culprits," said Europol, Europe's police agency.

Why are they hijacking hundreds of thousands of computers around the globe? Simple — to extort money by blackmailing infected users.

By looking at the infection rate, it seems like the criminals responsible for this absurd attack would have made lots and lots of dollars so far, but surprisingly they have made relatively little in the way of profits, according to @actual_ransom, a Twitter account that’s tweeting details of every single transaction.

At the time of writing, the WannaCry attackers have received 171 payments totaling 27.96968763 BTC ($47,510.71 USD).

How to Protect Yourself from WannaCry Ransomware?

Here are some simple tips you should always follow because most computer viruses make their ways into your systems due to lack of simple security practices:

1. Always Install Security Updates

If you are using any version of Windows, except Windows 10, with SMB protocol enabled, make sure your computer should always receive updates automatically from the Microsoft, and it’s up-to-date always.

2. Patch SMB Vulnerability

Since WannaCry has been exploiting a critical SMB remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2017-0148) for which Microsoft has already released a patch (MS17-010) in the month of March, you are advised to ensure your system has installed those patches.

Moreover, Microsoft has been very generous to its users in this difficult time that the company has even released the SMB patches (download from here) for its unsupported versions of Windows as well, including Windows XP, Vista, 8, Server 2003 and 2008.

Note: If you are using Windows 10 Creators Update (1703), you are not vulnerable to SMB vulnerability.

3. Disable SMB

Even if you have installed the patches, you are advised to disable Server Message Block version 1 (SMBv1) protocol, which is enabled by default on Windows, to prevent against WannaCry ransomware attacks.

Here's the list of simple steps you can follow to disable SMBv1:

1. Go to Windows' Control Panel and open 'Programs.'
2. Open 'Features' under Programs and click 'Turn Windows Features on and off.'
3. Now, scroll down to find 'SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support' and uncheck it.
4. Then click OK, close the control Panel and restart the computer.

4. Enable Firewall & Block SMB Ports

Always keep your firewall enabled, and if you need to keep SMBv1 enabled, then just modify your firewall configurations to block access to SMB ports over the Internet. The protocol operates on TCP ports 137, 139, and 445, and over UDP ports 137 and 138.

5. Use an Antivirus Program

An evergreen solution to prevent against most threats is to use a good antivirus software from a reputable vendor and always keep it up-to-date.

Almost all antivirus vendors have already added detection capability to block WannaCry, as well as to prevent the secret installations from malicious applications in the background.

6. Be Suspicious of Emails, Websites, and Apps

Unlike WannaCry, most ransomware spread through phishing emails, malicious adverts on websites, and third-party apps and programs.

So, you should always exercise caution when opening uninvited documents sent over an email and clicking on links inside those documents unless verifying the source to safeguard against such ransomware infection.

Also, never download any app from third-party sources, and read reviews even before installing apps from official stores.

7. Regular Backup your Files:

To always have a tight grip on all your important documents and files, keep a good backup routine in place that makes their copies to an external storage device which is not always connected to your computer.

That way, if any ransomware infects you, it can not encrypt your backups.

8. Keep Your Knowledge Up-to-Date

There's not a single day that goes without any report on cyber attacks and vulnerabilities in popular software and services, such as Android, iOS, Windows, Linux and Mac Computers as well.

So, it’s high time for users of any domain to follow day-to-day happening of the cyber world, which would not only help them to keep their knowledge up-to-date, but also prevent against even sophisticated cyber attacks.

What to do if WannaCry infects you?

Well, nothing.

If WannaCry ransomware has infected you, you can’t decrypt your files until you pay a ransom money to the hackers and get a secret key to unlock your file.

Never Pay the Ransom:

It’s up to the affected organizations and individuals to decide whether or not to pay the ransom, depending upon the importance of their files locked by the ransomware.

But before making any final decision, just keep in mind: there's no guarantee that even after paying the ransom, you would regain control of your files.

Moreover, paying ransom also encourages cyber criminals to come up with similar threats and extort money from the larger audience.

So, sure shot advice to all users is — Don't Pay the Ransom.

Who is responsible for WannaCry Attack?

— Is it Microsoft who created an operating system with so many vulnerabilities?

— Or is it the NSA, the intelligence agency of the United States, who found this critical SMB vulnerability and indirectly, facilitates WannaCry like attacks by not disclosing it to Microsoft?

— Or is it the Shadow Brokers, the hacking group, who managed to hack the NSA servers, but instead of reporting it to Microsoft, they decided to dump hacking tools and zero-day exploits in public?

— Or is it the Windows users themselves, who did not install the patches on their systems or are still using an unsupported version of Windows?

I do not know who can be blamed for this attack, but according to me, all of them shares equal responsibility.

Microsoft Blames NSA/CIA for WannaCry Cyber Attack

Microsoft has hit out at the US government for facilitating cyber attacks, like WannaCry, by not disclosing the software vulnerabilities to the respective vendors and holding them for their benefits, like global cyber espionage.

In a blog post on Sunday, Microsoft President Brad Smith condemned the US intelligence agencies’ unethical practices, saying that the "widespread damage" caused by WannaCry happened due to the NSA, CIA and other intelligence agencies for holding zero-days and allowing them to be stolen by hackers.

"This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world," Smith said.

This statement also publicly confirms that the hacking tools and exploits leaked by the Shadow Brokers belong to Equation Group, an elite group of hackers from NSA.

"Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage," Smith wrote.

You Should Thank These Experts

When the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware started on Friday night, It had already infected at least 30,000 computers worldwide, and at that moment nobody had an idea what’s happening and how the ransomware can spread itself like a worm so quickly.

Since then, in last three days, some cybersecurity experts and companies are continuously working hard, day and night, to analyze malware samples to find every possible way to stop this massive attack.

I have mentioned some of them, who should be thanked for saving millions of computers from getting hacked:

• MalwareTech — very skilled 22-years-old malware hunter who first discovered that here’s a kill-switch, which if used could stop ongoing ransomware attack.
• Matthieu Suiche — security researcher who discovered the second kill-switch domain in a WannaCry variant and prevent nearly 10,000 computers from getting hacked.
• Costin Raiu — security researcher from Kaspersky Lab, who first found out that there are more WannaCry variants in the wild, created by different hacking groups, with no kill-switch ability.

Thank you. Stay tuned.

How Hackers Use Phishing Attack to Hack Accounts

Phishing attacks for hacking accounts 2016. We know that the accounts either online or offline that are present on the network can be hacked but what if it is the case with the websites? Yess even websites also have some accounts and are secured by some password and that accounts can be hacked by the process called phishing attack.Here in this article I will tell you about how the hackers use the Phishing Attack method to hack the websites.Following are the steps for Phishing Attack method by which you will be able to hack up the websites easily.

How Hackers Use Phishing Attack to Hack Accounts

STEPS:

1. To start up with this method you will require the fake login page of any web account that you want to hack.For eg:if you want to hack gmail account you will require the fake login page of gmail.You could get the built fake login pages online for different websites.Each fake login page will have two files one is index.html and the another one is login.php.Upload these files on any free hosting site.You can host these on t35.com which is a free hosting site.

2. After creating the account on t35.com now go to the control panel and upload the files there.After uploading the files send the link of this fake site to your victim.As soon as the victim will login through that fake page a file named log.txt will be saved in your t35.com account and that will also contain the passwords of your victim.The fake login page will redirect to the real login page after the file has been saved.The redirected page will take the victim to the real login page where it will ask for the details again.

3. Now you can access the password that are saved in your account on the free hosting site that you has used go to your account at free hosting site and get the file named log.txt.Open the file and you will find the password and account details of your victim. Congratulations, you has now hacked the account by Phishing Attack.

Conclusion: This method might be the easiest method to hack the accounts as using this method you don't has to struggle hard to find the password but the victim itself will tell you the password and account details.Above steps will take you through the method of Phishing Attack and you shall be able to hack up the accounts easily if you will follow these up.

5 Best Ways Used By Hackers to Crack Accounts Passwords

Password hacking tricks tools 2016. Online Accounts like that of Facebook, google, yahoo and many others uses some Id to ensure the privacy of your data but have you ever thought like to hack up the other people’s database and accounts so that you have full access on their online property which only they are supposed to have.You shall be amazed as the same thing that I asked you in the earlier statement is possible and you can hack the Online Accounts very easily but the owner of that account will be unknown of that and will never ever punish you.Here I will show you how you can hack the Online Accounts by using some different ways.So go on through the ways that are given below to know about how you can do it.

5 Best Ways Used By Hackers to Crack Accounts Passwords

Here are some popular tricks to hack accounts and get their passwords:

1.Password hashes:

Passwords that you type in your computer operating systems are stored somewhere on the disc in the form of hashes.These hashes are not in clear text therefore to access these hashes root/sysadmin privilages are required.In windows operating system these hashes are stored on the local disc in the SAM file,while in linux stores these hashes in /etc/shadow file.Hence to encrypt out the password out of these hashes the root access is required and therefore the password can only be cracked by this process only if the operating system can be in your control for some time or you can use the system by your own.

As the hashes are not in clear text so we has to find the password out of that by some method.Here are some methods that are used preferably to do so:

a)Dictionary:

Using dictionary attack to find the password out of hashes is the simplest and fastest method.It just runs through dictionary of words and tries each one of them to check whether it works or not.It could seem to be impossible if it has to be done manually as one cannot try so many passwords at a time but the best thing is that your computer can do so in just a minute or even less to find up the password.Use this trick and find out the password from the hashes where some programs available on internet will help you find the correct password out of the bundle of text of hashes.

b)Rainbow table:

Most systems now a days uses hashes to store the password but as we know these hashes are encrypted files.To crack up the encryption is to take the dictionary file that we has found in above step and hash it again and then compare it with the hash file that was accessed previously from the system.That takes a lot of time and uses intense CPU but this process checks the password that we got through dictionary of hash file to be correct.

2.Using Software to hack:

There are many softwares available on the internet that do help you to crack the various accounts.These softwares uses some commands and some information to find the encrypted pasword and then crack it.Some softwares can even hack the accounts in few minutes which is great but every password cannot be cracked by this method.Still this method is used mostly to crack the accounts as it the easiest method to do so.You just has to provide the required information and the rest of process will be done by softwares only.

Here are some of the best hacking software used till date:

a)John The Ripper:

The world’s best known tool to crack up the passwords that can crack up the password for linux operating system strictly using the command line.It uses built in default password cracking technology and attempts to crack password first by dictionary attack and if that fails it then tries combined dictionary words and still if that does not works it tries the hybrid attack of dictionary words with special characters and words.At last if that all does nothing then it uses its special brute force feature that will be enough to find the required account password.

b) Ophcrack:

It’s a free rainbow table-based password cracking tool for Windows and is among the most popular password cracking tools and can also be used on linux and mac systems.It crackes LM and NTLM hashes.Although this program can crack the password only if you have the hash file of the operating system without that it is of no use.Still it can probably crack most accounts.

3.Online account hacking:

Accounts can be hacked using online hacking tools that uses some information about the account and using that it can crack up the accounts.Online tools are pre programed to do so and can be the easiest way to hack passwords if you are familier with some of the information of account.Following are some of the best online hacking tools that you can use:

a)Brutus:

Many consider it to be the fastest online password hacking tool and is also free and available for both Linux and Windows.It supports password cracking in HTTP,POP3,FTP,SMB,Telnet and other types such as IMAP,NNTP,Netbus,etc.Brutus is open source tool and is best for doing online hacking of many types of accounts.

b) THC-Hydra:

Probably the most widely used online hacking tool that is capable of hacking web form authentication and when it is used with other tools like Tamper Data,it can become a powerful and effective tool for cracking nearly every type of online password authentication mechanism.

4.Password cracking Hardware:

These are special type of machines designed only to perform some type of operation to hack up the data or the accounts of the system when connected to it.These machines or these type of hardware is amazingly powerful and can perform any task in about 1 million of time that general hardware may take.These hardwares can be available on rent for hacking systems or accounts.Some of the best password cracking hardware are:

a)Botnet:

These machines are simply a function of brute force computing power and these machines are basically used for cracking the passwords in very very less time than that of general computers.The same can be done to network also and it can access about network of one million machines.

b)ASIC:

These are application specific devices that can work about to hack any system or account.These machines can work faster than over 100 CPU working togather.

5)Hidden Softwares:

Look like if you are using someone else computer or smartphone and your account was found to be hacked after some days but you remember to log out all the sessions on that system.You could be amazed to know that your login could be recorded on the computer or smartphone by some sort of software or application that remains hidden to other people and can record their passwords and account data also.Here are some softwares that can do up the same trick:

a)Keyloggers:

Keyloggers is a specifically designed software that can record the account logins and send it to a file at a particular location in your storage.That records contain the account details and their passwords also.This software is very popular to hack the accounts if your device is used by others to access their accounts.

b)KeyCounter:

Similar software that also uses the recorded information like Keyloggers.This also is another popular software that is used to hack the accounts using hidden recording of the login details and password.

Conclusion: Hacking accounts is a no easy task even the professional hackers do fail sometimes to hack the accounts.Here in this article are the most accurate and easy ways that are even used by pro hackers also.These
ways are also mostly used ones to hack the accounts of almost any type.

Learn everything about Trojans, Viruses and Worms

Some of the skills that hackers have are programming and computer networking skills. They often use these skills to gain access to systems. The objective of targeting an organization would be to steal sensitive data, disrupt business operations or physically damage computer controlled equipment. Trojans, viruses and worms can be used to achieve the above stated objectives.

In this article, we will introduce you to some of the ways that hackers can use Trojans, viruses and worms to compromise a computer system. We will also look at the counter measures that can be used to protect against such activities.

What is a Trojan horse?

A Trojan horse is a program that allows the attack to control the user’s computer from a remote location. The program is usually disguised as something that is useful to the user. Once the user has installed the program, it has the ability to install malicious payloads, create backdoors, install other unwanted applications that can be used to compromise the user’s computer etc.

The list below shows some of the activities that the attacker can perform using a Trojan horse.

• Use the user’s computer as part of the Botnet when performing distributed denial of service attacks.
• Damage the user’s computer (crashing, blue screen of death etc.)
• Stealing sensitive datasuch as stored passwords, credit card information etc.
• Modifying fileson the user’s computer
• Electronic money theftby performing unauthorized money transfer transactions
• Log all the keysthat a user presses on the keyboard and sending the data to the attacker. This method is used to harvest user ids, passwords and other sensitive data.
• Viewing the users’screenshot
• Downloading browsing history data

What is a worm?

A worm is a malicious computer program that replicates itself usually over a computer network. An attacker may use a worm to accomplish the following tasks;

• Install backdoors on the victim’s computers.  The created backdoor may be used to create zombie computers that are used to send spam emails, perform distributed denial of service attacks etc. the backdoors can also be exploited by other malware.
• Worms may also slowdown the network by consuming the bandwidth as they replicate.
• Install harmful payload code carried within the worm.

What is virus?

• A virus is a computer program that attaches itself to legitimate programs and files without the user’s consent. Viruses can consume computer resources such as memory and CPU time. The attacked programs and files are said to be “infected”. A computer virus may be used to;
• Access private data such as user id and passwords
• Display annoying messages to the user
• Corrupt data in your computer
• Log the user’s keystrokes

Computer viruses have been known to employ social engineering techniques. These techniques involve deceiving the users to open the files which appear to be normal files such as word or excel documents. Once the file is opened, the virus code is executed and does what it’s intended to do.

Trojans, viruses and worms counter measures

• In order to protect against such attacks, an organization can use the following methods.
• A policy that prohibits users to download unnecessary files from the internet such as spam email attachments, games, programs that claim to speed up downloads etc.
• Anti-virus software must be installed on all user computers. The anti-virus software should be updated frequently and scans must be performed at specified time intervals.
• Scan external storage devices on an isolated machine especially those that originate from outside the organization.
• Regular backups of critical data must be made and stored on preferably read only media such as CDs and DVDs.
• Worms exploit vulnerabilities in the operating systems. Downloading operating system updates can help reduce the infection and replication of worms.
• Worms can also be avoided by scanning all email attachments before downloading them.