Security News
A new simple but dangerous strain of Android malware has been found in the wild that steals users' authentication cookies from the web browsing and other apps, including Chrome and Facebook, installed on the compromised devices. "Malware could steal cookie files of any website from other apps in the same way and achieve similar results."
Facebook is denying that a recent content moderation glitch has anything to do with workforce issues, but it's also saying that automated systems are to blame for being overzealous in stamping out misinformation. On Monday, Facebook had put out an industry statement saying that it was joining Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube to scrub misinformation contained in posts about COVID-19.
A recently discovered Android Trojan was designed to gain root access on infected devices and hijack Facebook accounts by stealing cookies from the browser and the social media app. While it's uncertain how the Trojan infects devices - it does not exploit flaws in the Facebook application or the browser - it achieves root by connecting with another backdoor installed on the smartphone, and passes it a shell command.
Facebook and Twitter revealed evidence Thursday suggesting that Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election are getting more sophisticated and harder to detect. Facebook said the network of accounts it removed was in the "Early stages" of building an audience.
A new simple but dangerous strain of Android malware has been found in the wild that steals users' authentication cookies from the web browsing and other apps, including Chrome and Facebook, installed on the compromised devices. "Malware could steal cookie files of any website from other apps in the same way and achieve similar results."
The trojans are designed to gain control of Facebook user accounts by capturing browser cookies in Android, says Kaspersky. This trojan captures root rights on an Android device, thus allowing it to steal cookies from the browser and from Facebook and transfer them to the server of the cybercriminals behind it.
Facebook and other tech companies need to be regulated like the tobacco industry, warned Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The data scientist revealed how he helped the disgraced company, founded by Donald Trump's former right-hand man Steve Bannon, to use unauthorised personal data harvested from Facebook to help swing a string of elections, including Trump's US presidential win in 2016.
A researcher has earned $55,000 from Facebook for reporting a serious vulnerability that could have been exploited by hackers to steal access tokens and hijack accounts. India-based researcher Amol Baikar discovered in December that the "Login with Facebook" feature, which allows users to log in to other websites with their Facebook account, was affected by a vulnerability.
Facebook has been accused of lying to a US court in its ongoing legal battle against government malware maker NSO Group. A series of filings from NSO lawyers lay out the Israeli security company's reasoning for its no-show in court on 2 March, including the accusation that Facebook never properly served its lawyers with legal papers, despite telling the court that it had. The accusations were made in court documents [PDF] in which NSO has asked the court to vacate the earlier default judgement entered at the start of last week after the security shop's lawyers failed to turn up at the California US District Court.
Australia's privacy watchdog announced legal action against Facebook Monday for alleged "Systematic failures" exposing more than 300,000 Australians to a data breach by Cambridge Analytica. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said it had initiated proceedings against the tech giant and that Facebook committed "Serious and/or repeated interferences with privacy".