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Apple's New MacBook Disconnects Microphone "Physically" When Lid is Closed

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 October 31, 2018  Mohit Kumar Apple introduces a new privacy feature for all new MacBooks that "at some extent" will prevent hackers and malicious applications from eavesdropping on your conversations. Apple's custom T2 security chip in the latest MacBooks includes a new hardware feature that physically disconnects the MacBook's built-in microphone whenever the user closes the lid, the company revealed yesterday at its event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Though the new T2 chip is already present in the 2018 MacBook Pro models launched earlier this year, this new feature got unveiled when Apple launched the new Retina MacBook Air and published a full security guide for T2 Chip yesterday. "This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed,...

Avast forum hacked, 400 000 accounts affected

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avast-forum-hacked
Avast announced today on it’s blog that the avast forum was hacked. The forum suffered a serious security breach and 0.2% of it’s 200 millions customer accounts were affected. Near 400 000 avast accounts were affected by this cyber attack. In this way the user nicknames, user names, email addresses and hashed passwords were compromised.
Avast CEO, Vince Steckler, mentioned on Avast blog that the forum was hosted on a third party software platform and that they are rebuilding it right now on another software platform, a software platform that will be more faster and secure.
The AVAST forum is currently offline and will remain so for a brief period. It was hacked over this past weekend and user nicknames, user names, email addresses and hashed (one-way encrypted) passwords were compromised. Even though the passwords were hashed, it could be possible for a sophisticated thief to derive many of the passwords. If you use the same password and user names to log into any other sites, please change those passwords immediately. Once our forum is back online, all users will be required to set new passwords as the compromised passwords will no longer work.
Vince Steckler, CEO AVAST Software
UPDATE:
The forum was running SMF version 2.0.6 at the time the attack occured. There was a RCE vulnerability in this version through which the attacker got in. The vulnerability was fixed in v2.0.7 although the fact wasn’t properly marked in the SMF changelog and/or new version announcement.
We are now in touch with SMF authors and investigating further.
Thanks for your support so far — we hope to have the forum up’n’running again soon!
Thanks
vlk
vlk is a team member of Avast, and this is his comment from the Avast Blog Post regarding this hack.
You can read more regarding this website penetration on the official Avast Blog.
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