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04/09/2019

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30/07/2019

New Android Ransomware Uses SMS Spam to Infect Its Victims
By Sergiu Gatlan

A new ransomware family targeting Android devices spreads to other victims by sending text messages containing malicious links to the entire contact list found on already infected targets.

The malware dubbed Android/Filecoder.C (FileCoder) by the ESET research team which discovered it is currently targeting devices running Android 5.1 or later.

"Due to narrow targeting and flaws in both ex*****on of the campaign and implementation of its encryption, the impact of this new ransomware is limited," ESET's researchers found.




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New Android
Ransomware Uses SMS Spam to Infect Its Victims

"After the ransomware sends out this batch of malicious SMSes, it encrypts most user files on the device and requests a ransom. Due to flawed encryption, it is possible to decrypt the affected files without any assistance from the attacker," adds ESET.

Despite this, if the ransomware's developers manage to fix their "product," a lot of Android users could be exposed to a very dangerous and potentially highly destructive malware strain.

Ransomware SMS infection vector

FileCoder was first seen by ESET during a campaign spanning back as far as July 12, with the attackers distributing their malicious payload via posts made on Reddit and on the XDA Developers mobile software development community.

While XDA removed the malicious posts after being notified, the Reddit threads were still up and going at the time ESET malware researcher Lukas Stefanko published the FileCoder malware analysis.


FileCoder​​​​​​'s developers use two servers to distribute the ransomware, with malicious payloads being linked from both the malicious text messages sent to the victims' entire contact list and from the Reddit and XDA's forum posts.

Malicious SMS
Malicious SMS
The ransomware samples are also linked to with the help of QR codes that would make it faster for mobile users to get the malicious APKs on their devices and install them on their devices.

As a bait to convince potential victims to install the infected Android apps on their devices, FileCoder's operators would say that the app "supposedly uses the potential victim’s photos."

However, the Reddit and XDA forum posts "promote" the malicious app as a free s*x simulator online game which should also lower the potential targets' guard enough to get them to download and install the ransomware-ridden app on their devices.

As BleepingComputer found when analyzing a FileCoder sample, while being installed on a victim's Android device, the malware will request for the following permissions:

android.permission.SET_WALLPAPER
android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
android.permission.READ_CONTACTS
android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
android.permission.SEND_SMS
android.permission.INTERNET
"To maximize its reach, the ransomware has the 42 language versions of the message template [...]. Before sending the messages, it chooses the version that fits the victim device’s language setting. To personalize these messages, the malware prepends the contact’s name to them," ESET found.

FileCoder contact stealing and creating malicious SMS

The FileCoder ransomware asks its victims for a Bitcoin ransomware, with the Bitcoin addresses and the command-and-control (C2) server being hardcoded within the malware's source code but with the option of new addresses being sent via the Pastebin service.

FileCoder will spread itself to the victim's contact list via SMS before starting to encrypt files on all the folders on the device's storage it can get access to, appending the .seven extension to the original file names — the system files will be skipped.

"The ransomware also leaves files unencrypted if the file extension is “.zip” or “.rar” and the file size is over 51,200 KB/50 MB, and “.jpeg”, “.jpg” and “.png” files with a file size less than 150 KB," adds ESET.

The malware will encrypt a weird mix of Android-specific file types as well as a weird combination of unrelated document types, with the ESET research team concluding that "the list has been copied from the notorious WannaCryptor aka WannaCry ransomware."

Retrieving new C2 server domains & BTC addresses
Retrieving new C2 server domains & BTC addresses
FileCoder C2 servers still active

After all the files get locked by the malware, it will display the ransom note, detailing the number of encrypted files and the amount of time the victim has to pay for the cost of the decryption key — the ransom amounts range between $94 and $188.

While the ransom note says that the data will be lost if the ransom is not paid within three days, "there is nothing in the ransomware’s code to support the claim that the affected data will be lost after 72 hours."

FileCoder ransom note
FileCoder ransom note
Unlike most other Android ransomware strains, FileCoder will not lock the victims' screens and will allow them to continue to use their devices, depending only on the fact that its targets will want their files decrypted as soon as possible.


FileCoder encrypts files using new AES keys for each of the files it locks, employing a pair of public and private keys, with the latter being encrypted with the help of the RSA algorithm.

However, because the ransomware's developers have hardcoded the value used to encrypt the private key within the malware's code, victims could decrypt their data without paying the ransom.

"All that is needed is the UserID [..] provided by the ransomware, and the ransomware’s APK file in case its authors change the hardcoded key value," found the ESET researchers.

FileCoder server

At the time this story was published, the servers used by FileCoder's authors were still online, with the ransom payment verification page also being available via one of the files hosted on the malware's C2 servers.

The payment verification page also provides the victims with a 'support email' designed to allow them to ask for help if facing any issues: "If you have any questions, please contact us. our email address:h3athledger@yandex.ru".

More details on the inner-workings of the Android/Filecoder.C ransomware together with a list of Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) including malware sample hashes, the Bitcoin address used in the campaign, are available at the end of Stefanko's Filecoder malware analysis.

27/07/2019

Why does 1% battery in any device last so long? Is there really only 1% left or is it used to threaten you into charging?

It may come as a surprise to many people, but in reality your phone doesn’t actually know how much charge is left in the battery. There’s nothing analysing the chemistry inside the battery and reporting back to the phone. Instead all the phone (including any electronics built into the battery) can do is make an estimate based on what it sees at the battery terminals over time. So for example it might keep a tally of how much charge it has used since the battery was last fully charged, and subtract this from a figure for the latest battery capacity. But then this latest capacity figure is also just an estimate based on previous usage.

A simple explanation of why 1% might last a long time is that the phone has underestimated the current battery capacity. Then when it gets down to what it thinks should be almost empty, displaying 1%, it finds that the battery has more capacity left than it estimated. That is before the battery actually reaches its minimum output voltage, indicating it’s really empty. In fact the algorithm designers know that it’s better to do this than over-estimate capacity and have the battery run out unexpectedly, so the tendency is to err on the pessimistic side, any unexpected capacity then being a bonus.

In practice the algorithms used for estimation of usage and current capacity are complex and vary between models and battery manufacturers, but you get the idea. Often you can help improve the estimate at least temporarily by allowing the phone to recalibrate the algorithm using a full discharge/recharge cycle. Even then this assumes that the battery is still operating normally, and once the battery gets towards end of life then charge varies in a way that the algorithms don’t anticipate and so the percentage displayed can then be a long way out whatever happens.

07/07/2019

8 Top Technology Trends for 2019 and the Jobs They’ll Create

Technology is now evolving at such a rapid pace that annual predictions of trends can seem out-of-date before they even go live as a published blog post or article. As technology evolves, it enables even faster change and progress, causing the acceleration of the rate of change, until eventually it will become exponential.

Technology-based careers don’t change at that same speed, but they do evolve, and IT professionals recognizes that his or her role will not stay the same. The IT worker of the 21st century will constantly be learning, out of necessity if not desire.

What does this mean for you? It means staying current with technology trends. And it means keeping your eyes on the future, to know which skills you’ll need to know and what types of jobs you want to be qualified to do.

Here are eight technology trends you should watch for in 2019, and some of the jobs that will be created by these trends. Because the time to train yourself for one of these emerging jobs is now.

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has already received a lot of buzz in recent years, but it continues to be a trend to watch because its effects on how we live, work and play are only in the early stages. In addition, other branches of AI have developed, including Machine Learning, which we will go into below. AI refers to computers systems built to mimic human intelligence and perform tasks such as recognition of images, speech or patterns and decision making. AI can do these tasks faster and more accurately than humans.

AI has been around since 1956 is already widely used. In fact, five out of six Americans use AI services in one form or another every day, including navigation apps, streaming services, smartphone personal assistants, ride-sharing apps, home personal assistants, and smart home devices. In addition to consumer use, AI is used to schedule trains, assess business risk, predict maintenance, and improve energy efficiency, among many other money-saving tasks.

AI is one part of what we refer to broadly as automation, and automation is a hot topic because of potential job loss. Experts say automation will eliminate 73 million more jobs by 2030. However, automation is creating jobs as well as eliminating them, especially in the field of AI: Pundits predict that jobs in AI will number 23 million by 2020. Jobs will be created in development, programming, testing, support and maintenance, to name a few. Artificial Intelligence architect is one such job. Some say it will soon rival data scientist in need for skilled professionals.

To learn more about potential jobs in AI, read about building a career in AI or why you should earn an AI certification.

2. Machine Learning

Machine Learning is a subset of AI. With Machine Learning, computers are programmed to learn to do something they are not programmed to do: They literally learn by discovering patterns and insights from data. In general, we have two types of learning, supervised and unsupervised.

While Machine Learning is a subset of AI, we also have subsets within the domain of Machine Learning, including neural networks, natural language processing (NLP), and deep learning. Each of these subsets offers an opportunity for specializing in a career field that will only grow.

Machine Learning is rapidly being deployed in all kinds of industries, creating a huge demand for skilled professionals. The Machine Learning market is expected to grow to $8.81 billion by 2022. Machine Learning applications are used for data analytics, data mining and pattern recognition. On the consumer end, Machine Learning powers web search results, real-time ads and network intrusion detection, to name only a few of the many tasks it can do.

In addition to completing countless tasks on our behalf, it is generating jobs. Machine Learning jobs rank among the top emerging jobs on LinkedIn, with almost 2,000 job listings posted. And these jobs pay well: In 2017, the median salary for a machine learning engineer was $106,225. Machine Learning jobs include engineers, developers, researchers, and data scientists.

Learn more about Machine Learning.

3 Robotic Process Automation or RPA

Like AI and Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, or RPA, is another technology that is automating jobs. RPA is the use of software to automate business processes such as interpreting applications, processing transactions, dealing with data, and even replying to emails. RPA automates repetitive tasks that people used to do. These are not just the menial tasks of a low-paid worker: up to 45 percent of the activities we do can be automated, including the work of financial managers, doctors and CEOs.

Although Forrester Research estimates RPA automation will threaten the livelihood of 230 million or more knowledge workers or approximately 9 percent of the global workforce, RPA is also creating new jobs while altering existing jobs. McKinsey finds that less than 5 percent of occupations can be totally automated, but about 60 percent can be partially automated.

For you as the IT professional looking to the future and trying to understand technology trends, RPA offers plenty of career opportunities, including developer, project manager, business analyst, solution architect, and consultant. And these jobs pay well. SimplyHired.com says the average RPA salary is $73,861, but that is the average compiled from salaries for junior-level developers up to senior solution architects, with the top 10 percent earning over $141,000 annually.

If you’re interested in pursuing a career in RPA, the Introduction to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) course is the place to start.

4. Blockchain

Although most people think of blockchain technology in relation to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain offers security that is useful in many other ways. In the simplest of terms, blockchain can be described as data you can only add to, not take away from or change. Hence the term “chain” because you’re making a chain of data. Not being able to change the previous blocks is what makes it so secure. In addition, blockchains are consensus-driven, as explained in this Forbes article, so no one entity can take control of the data. With blockchain, you don’t need a trusted third-party to oversee or validate transactions.

This heightened security is why blockchain is used for cryptocurrency, and why it can play a significant role in protecting information such as personal medical data. Blockchain could be used to drastically improve the global supply chain, as described here, as well as protect assets such as art and real estate.

And as the use of blockchain technology increases, so too does the demand for skilled professionals. In that regard, we are already behind. According to Techcrunch, blockchain-related jobs are the second-fastest growing category of jobs, with 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer. A blockchain developer specializes in developing and implementing architecture and solutions using blockchain technology. The average yearly salary of a blockchain developer is $130,000.

The job of a developer is not the only one available in the blockchain space, however. Employers are also looking for software engineers, consultants and project managers. Jobs are available at financial institutions, but also in retail and healthcare, and soon probably manufacturing as well.

Learn more about becoming a blockchain developer.

5. Edge Computing

Formerly a technology trend to watch, cloud computing has become mainstream, with major players AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud dominating the market. The adoption of cloud computing is still growing, as more and more businesses migrate to a cloud solution. But it’s no longer the emerging technology. Edge is. Move over, cloud computing, and make way for the edge.

As the quantity of data we’re dealing with continues to increase, we’ve realized the shortcomings of cloud computing in some situations. Edge computing is designed to help solve some of those problems as a way to bypass the latency caused by cloud computing and getting data to a data center for processing. It can exist “on the edge,” if you will, closer to where computing needs to happen. For this reason, edge computing can be used to process time-sensitive data in remote locations with limited or no connectivity to a centralized location. In those situations, edge computing can act like mini datacenters. Edge computing will increase as use the Internet of Things (IoT) devices increases. By 2022, the global edge computing market is expected to reach $6.72 billion.

As with any growing market, this will create job demand, primarily for software engineers.

6. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) immerses the user in an environment while Augment Reality (AR) enhances their environment. Although VR has primarily been used for gaming thus far, it has also been used for training, as with VirtualShip, a simulation software used to train U.S. Navy, Army and Coast Guard ship captains. The popular Pokemon Go is an example of AR.

Both have enormous potential in training, entertainment, education, marketing, and even rehabilitation after an injury. Either could be used to train doctors to do surgery, offer museum-goers a deeper experience, enhance theme parks, or even enhance marketing, as with this Pepsi Max bus shelter.

According to an article at Monster.com, the demand for job candidates with VR knowledge is up 37 percent, but the potential employees are in short supply. That demand will only increase. There are major players in the VR market, like Google, Samsung, and Oculus, but plenty of startups are forming and they will be hiring—or trying to, in light of the shortage. Getting started in VR doesn’t require a lot of specialized knowledge. Basic programming skills and a forward-thinking mindset can land a job, although other employers will be looking for optics as a skill-set and hardware engineers as well.

7. Cyber Security

Cyber security might not seem like emerging technology, given that it has been around for a while, but it is evolving just as other technologies are. That’s in part because threats are constantly new. The malevolent hackers who are trying to illegally access data are not going to give up any time soon, and they will continue to find ways to get through even the toughest security measures. It’s also in part because new technology is being adapted to enhance security. Three of those advancements are hardware authentication, cloud technology, and deep learning, according to one expert. Another adds data loss prevention and behavioral analytics to the list. As long as we have hackers, we will have cyber security as an emerging technology because it will constantly evolve to defend against those hackers.

As proof of the strong need for cybersecurity professionals, the number of cybersecurity jobs is growing three times faster than other tech jobs. However, we’re falling short when it comes to filling those jobs. As a result, it’s predicted that we will have 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021.

Many cyber security jobs pay six-figure incomes, and roles can range from ethical hacker to security engineer to Chief Security Officer, offering a promising career path for someone who wants to get into and stick with this domain.

8. Internet of Things

Although it sounds like a game you’d play on your smartphone, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the future. Many “things” are now being built with WiFi connectivity, meaning they can be connected to the Internet—and to each other. Hence, the Internet of Things, or IoT. IoT enables devices, home appliances, cars and much more to be connected to and exchange data over the Internet. And we’re only in the beginning stages of IoT: The number of IoT devices reached 8.4 billion in 2017 is and expected to reach 30 billion devices by 2020.

As consumers, we’re already using and benefitting from IoT. We can lock our doors remotely if we forget to when we leave for work and preheat our ovens on our way home from work, all while tracking our fitness on our Fitbits and hailing a ride with Lyft. But businesses also have much to gain now and in the near future. The IoT can enable better safety, efficiency and decision making for businesses as data is collected and analyzed. It can enable predictive maintenance, speed up medical care, improve customer service, and offer benefits we haven’t even imagined yet. However, despite this boom in the development and adoption of IoT, experts say not enough IT professionals are getting trained for IoT jobs. An article at ITProToday.com says we’ll need 200,000 more IT workers that aren’t yet in the pipeline, and that a survey of engineers found 25.7 percent believe inadequate skill levels to be the industry’s biggest obstacle to growth.

For someone interested in a career in IoT, that means easy entry into the field if you’re motivated, with a range of options for getting started. Skills needed include IoT security, cloud computing knowledge, data analytics, automation, understanding of embedded systems, device knowledge, to name only a few. After all, it’s the Internet of Things, and those things are many and varied, meaning the skills needed are as well.

Although technologies are emerging and evolving all around us, these eight domains offer promising career potential now and for the foreseeable future. And all eight are suffering from a shortage of skilled workers, meaning the time is right for you to choose one, get trained, and get on board at the early stages of the technology, positioning you for success now and in the future.

Gathering the right people, content and resources, IT Pro gives professionals insight into the technologies and skills needed to take on the challenges

01/07/2019

How do different USB cables affect the charging speed of smartphone

The USB specifications for power from a port vary from 100mA to 1.5A (even more for Type C ports), but the cables and connectors, not so much. They’re always rated for about 1.8A of current, which is what you’re concerned about here. Some power dongles provide higher levels of current, since they can probaby “get away with it”… or so they think.

But that rating is based on safety limits for resistive heating of the cable and connectors. It’s no specific assurance that, if I put +5V at 1.5A into a USB Type A connector, I necessarily get something pretty close to +5V at 1.5A out of the Type B or Micro B end of that cable. The cable/connector ratings just deal with heating, to ensure nothing melts. And actually, most specs ensure nothing gets noticably warm to the touch.

Why would it get warm? Viva La Resistance! Every wire that’s not a superconductor has some finite resistance. Ohm’s law tells you and me that E = IR, where E is voltage, I is current, and R is resistance. So when I put power through a wire, the current x resistance gives me the voltage that will be “consumed” across that wire, power that turns into heat, and thus, never makes it to your phone.

Read this article, now, as it contains the answers you seek, if not the entire explanation: USB Cable Resistance: Why your phone/tablet might be charging slow. Your voltage drop across a cable will absolutely affect charging times. Both the wire gauge of the power conductors (the thickness of the conductors, which determines the resistance per unit length) and the length of the cable will result in longer charging times.

Battery Charging Mode

It’s interesting to note that the USB 2.0 Battery Charging spec mandates the usual +5V and at least 1.5A. This study didn’t do a 1.5A measurement, but they did look at 2.0A and 2.4A, the levels some manufacturers push for. But they may never actually get them, and here’s why.

The basis of Battery Charging mode is that the USB port can deliver more power, again, the supply should deliver at least 1.5A on its output pins. It might be able to supply more, it might not be able to supply more. The power management system, which includes the battery charger, has to be intelligent, pretty much all the time. When on a data port, it can only draw 500mA, for example. So the charging protocol is very adaptive to the supply.

In Battery Charging mode, the phone will back off current demands until it’s getting the voltage it needs. An overloaded power supply will start to “crowbar”, to drop to high current and low voltage output, so every phone’s power management circuit is designed to limit current draw to keep voltage above some minimum, simply to protect your power dongle from damage, fires, little things like that. Power loss over a cable looks exactly the same to a power manager as power loss due to over-current.

Let’s just take one sample point: a 2400mA supply over a 5m, 20ga cable. That’s got a 1.09V dropout. You can’t actually charge a Li-ion cell from a 3.91V power source. So your charging circuit is going to back off, way off, on power draw. At 1000mA, the 5m cable is delivering 4.55V. That might be enough, depending on the phone’s power management efficiency, to get the necessary 4.3V charging voltage to the Li-ion cell. The charging protocol doesn’t need 4.3V the whole time, but it does eventually. So while you think you have a crazy powerful 2.4A “charger”, that long cable ensures your charge takes much, much longer.

If you had a 28ga cable, the charging circuit would have backed off to below 250mA! That’s slower than charging from a data port over a short cable.

New Power Delivery Protocols

Curiously, smarter protocols like QualComm’s QuickCharge suffer less from this. For one, they boost the charging voltage, so they’re less affected by cable induced voltage droop. And they’re sometimes drawing less current, so there’s less absolute loss in the cable (that loss is dependent on current, not voltage). QuickCharge 3.0 and USB Power Delivery can also dynamically adjust power during charging. So they can adapt in real time, at least to some extent, to loss over the cable.

29/06/2019

Why do smartphone makers lock away the battery compartments on their phones to make the battery difficult/impossible to replace?

You can blame Steve Jobs for this. And, of course, the iPhone’s success.

Why is the iPhone glued shut? Well, the simple answer is because the iPod was glued shut. But they were very different creatures.

The iPod was, of course, the first very successful portable digital music player. In an interview back in those days, Steve Jobs claimed that the iPod was designed to last one year. All intentions aside, I only every had one once, and it was four years old when some fool smashed in one of my car windows to grab an iPod accidently left in a holder on the dashboard. It was close to worthless by then.

So when Apple went to design the iPhone, they leveraged heavily from the iPod. Yes, they greatly upgraded the UI, put that on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. But the design ideas, the support infrastructure, etc. all dropped into the existing iPod infrastructure. And that included the sealed battery, a first in phones, smart or dumb.

That was in 2007. Apple’s first water/dust resistant phone was the iPhone 7 released in 2016. So it’s a completely safe bet that Apple’s sealed battery had absolutely nothing to do with an IP (intrusion protection) rating.

Certainly part of it was Apple’s penchant for style over substance. The iPhone had to be an object of desire, it had to be beautiful. No seams for battery removal was part of that, as it had been on the iPod. And other companies followed this line. Apple encased the iPhone 4 in glass, another bad idea (and one that’s come back this year, and not just from Apple), but also another thing that precluded an easy battery swap.

But still, I think some of it’s money. Apple charges $80 for a battery replacement. I can buy an iPhone battery online for about $10. And consider, this is a company willing to spend $25,000 in engineering time to design out a transistor or two on an iPhone. Why? Apple understands numbers. That transistor may only cost $0.01, probably even less given Apple’s volumes. But they sell ~200 million phones a year. So that one design tweak would save them $2,000,000 in a single year.

So the fixed battery saves them some money on the casework, but also makes for a beautiful phone. So they sell more. Apple warrents the phone for 500 charge/discharge cycles, so if you’re running it down every day, it doesn’t last out a typical US contract. Not everyone will, but some do.. that’s probably a multi-million dollar business for Apple. But even more than that, it means that nearly every two-year-contract iPhone given up by a user for a new one will be pretty much shot, some of course more than others. So they put a road-bump in your plan to hand that old iPhone down.

And if you think Apple's not playing games here, think again. Of all of Apple's products, the iPhone is the one product that has an expected 2 year or so life. Some replace it every year, some try to keep it three years or more, but the accepted life is about two years. The battery lasts just about that long, But look at the Apple watch. Apple warrants that battery for 1,000 cycles. The iPad? Also 1,000 cycles. All those Mac Books? You guessed it: also 1,000 cycles. If it's not planned obsolescence, ask yourself why it's only the iPhone with a short battery life.