Press Release
Hackers use the call forwarding scam to gain WhatsApp accounts.
There is a method that enables attackers to take over a victim’s WhatsApp account and view their contact list and private conversations.
The technique depends on WhatsApp’s ability to provide a one-time password (OTP) verification code through voice call and the automated call forwarding services offered by mobile carriers.
Utilizing the MMI code
The founder and CEO of the digital risk management firm CloudSEK, Rahul Sasi, tweeted some information about the technique and claimed that it is used to hack WhatsApp accounts.
Testing by BleepingComputer revealed that the approach is effective, despite a few drawbacks that a determined attacker may get over.
A victim’s WhatsApp account can be hacked in a matter of minutes, but the attacker must have the victim’s phone number and be ready to use some social engineering.
According to Sasi, an attacker must first persuade the target to call a number that begins with an MMI code that the mobile carrier set up to facilitate call forwarding.
Depending on the carrier, a different MMI code may redirect calls to a terminal to another number whenever the line is busy or there is no reception, or only when the line is congested.
These codes begin with the symbols star (*) or hash (#). They are widely available, and according to our research, they are supported by all of the main mobile network operators.
The MMI code in front of the 10-digit number instructs the mobile carrier to divert all calls to the phone number supplied after it while the victim’s line is busy, according to the researcher, who claims that the 10-digit number belongs to the attacker.
The attacker starts the WhatsApp registration process on the victim’s device after deceiving them into forwarding calls to their number, selecting the option to get the OTP via voice call.
Once they have the OTP code, the attacker can set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for the victim’s WhatsApp account on their smartphone, preventing the account’s rightful owners from regaining access.
a few warnings
Although the technique appears straightforward, as BleepingComputer discovered through testing, getting it to function takes a little more work.
First, the attacker must utilise an MMI code that sends all calls, independent of the condition of the target device (unconditionally). For instance, call waiting may result in the hijack failing if the MMI only forwards calls when a line is busy.
The target device also received text messages during testing from BleepingComputer telling it that WhatsApp was registered on another device.
If the attacker also uses social engineering and engages the target in a phone call for just long enough for them to hear the WhatsApp OTP code over voice, users could not notice this warning.
A minor annoyance that can necessitate more social engineering is that the attacker must use a different phone number than the one used for the redirection if call forwarding has already been enabled on the victim device.
The mobile operators’ activation of call forwarding leaves the target user with the clearest indication of suspicious activity because a warning is displayed on the screen upon activation and doesn’t go away until the user acknowledges it.
Threat actors still stand a decent chance of succeeding despite this prominent warning since the majority of users are unfamiliar with the MMI codes or the mobile phone settings that prohibit call forwarding.
Despite these barriers, dishonest individuals who are skilled at social engineering can create a scenario that enables them to keep the victim occupied on the phone until they obtain the OTP code for setting up the victim’s WhatsApp account on their device.
Using mobile services from Verizon and Vodafone, BleepingComputer examined this technique and came to the conclusion that an attacker with a convincing scenario is likely to hijack WhatsApp accounts.
According to publicly available data, Sasi’s post refers to the cell providers Jio and Airtel, each of which had more than 400 million subscribers as of December 2020.
It’s simple to defend against this kind of assault by enabling WhatsApp’s two-factor authentication feature. Every time you register a phone with the messaging app, this function requires a PIN, preventing fraudulent users from taking over the account.
Han Bing, a former database manager for Lianjia, a major Chinese real estate agency, was given a 7-year prison term for breaking into company computers and erasing data.
Bing is accused of carrying out the conduct in June 2018, when he reportedly accessed the company’s finance system using his administrator rights and “root” account and deleted all previously saved data from two database servers and two application servers.
Large elements of Lianjia’s operations were immediately crippled as a result, leaving tens of thousands of workers without pay for an extended length of time and necessitating a data restoration effort that cost about $30,000.
However, because Lianjia has thousands of offices, employs over 120,000 brokers, owns 51 companies, and has an estimated $6 billion market value, the indirect costs from the firm’s economic disruption were significantly more detrimental.
examination of the staff
H. Bing was one of the five primary suspects in the event involving the data deletion, according to records made public by the court of the People’s Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing.
When the administrator refused to reveal his laptop password to the company’s inspectors, suspicions were quickly aroused.
Chinese media outlets who reprinted portions of the disclosed documents explain that “Han Bing stated that his computer had confidential data and the password could only be handed to official authorities, or would only accept entering it personally and being present during the checks.”
The checks were solely carried out to evaluate the response of the five employees who had access to the system because, as the investigators testified in court, they knew that such an operation wouldn’t leave any records on the laptops.
Finally, the experts were able to pinpoint the activity to particular internal IPs and MAC addresses after retrieving access records from the servers. The inspectors even collected WiFi network logs and timestamps, which they afterwards compared against CCTV footage to validate their suspicions.
The forensic expert hired by the company concluded that Bing had wiped the databases using the “shred” and “rm” commands. Rm deletes the files’ symbolic links, whereas shred overwrites the data three times with different patterns to make it unrecoverable.
Unhappy employee?
Unexpectedly, Bing had regularly warned his employer and superiors about security flaws in the finance system, even emailing other administrators to express his concerns.
He was mostly disregarded, nevertheless, as the departmental administrators never gave their approval for the security project he wanted to oversee.
This was supported by the testimony of the director of ethics at Lianjia, who told the court that Han Bing frequently argued with his superiors because he believed his organisational suggestions weren’t valued.
A similar incident occurred in September 2021 when a former employee of a credit union in New York deleted approximately 21.3GB of records in a 40-minute rampage as retaliation for her managers terminating her.
WordPress, the most well-known and widely used blogging platform, is thinking about removing support for Internet Explorer 11 when its usage falls below 1%.
WordPress has discovered that the cumulative usage of IE 11 is less than 1% using the following three metrics:
according to StatCounter’s GlobalStats, 0.71%.
from W3 Counter, 1.2%
from WordPress.com, 0.46%
When WordPress stopped supporting Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 in 2017, these usage figures were comparable.
WordPress plans to discontinue support for Internet Explorer 11 in the future due to the low number of users and the significant expense of maintaining the browser.
“Regarding the present WordPress user experience, the majority of WordPress users ought to be aware by now that a flag was introduced to BrowseHappy around 13 months ago to not recommend IE. In connection with this, the entire IE11 experience is subpar and comes with a significant maintenance cost for developers “Last week, WordPress clarified in a blog post.
WordPress is requesting feedback from individuals and organisations that still use the browser by March 18th in order to formulate their strategies for ceasing support.
WordPress is not the only platform to stop supporting IE 11.
Microsoft Teams’ web app will no longer be supported by Internet Explorer, and Microsoft 365 would stop supporting it on August 17, 2021, according to a 2020 August Microsoft announcement.
Press Release
Zuckerberg says Facebook is dealing with Spotify on a songs assimilation job codenamed Task Boombox (Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC).
Zuckerberg says Facebook is working with Spotify on a music integration project codenamed Project Boombox (Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC)
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Zuckerberg says Facebook is working with Spotify on a music integration project codenamed Project Boombox — – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday announced that the company is building audio features where users can engage in real-time conversations with others.
-
Social Media10 months agoWho is Rouba Saadeh?
-
Apps10 months agoWhy is Everyone Talking About Hindi Keyboards?
-
Social Media10 months agoMati Marroni Instagram Wiki (Model’s Age, Net Worth, Body Measurements, Marriage)
-
Entertainment10 months ago12 Online Streaming Sites that Serve as Best Alternatives to CouchTuner
-
Apps10 months agoThings you need to know about Marathi keyboard today
-
Apps10 months agoStuck with Your default Bangla keyboard? Isn’t it time for a change?
-
Entertainment10 months agoMovierulz Website: Movierulzz 2021 Latest Movies on Movierulz.com
-
Social Media10 months agoBrooke Daniells: Everything About Catherine Bell’s Partner