Ultrasonic Password Security for Google Accounts

Does a Strong Password Guarantee you the Security of your Online Account? If yes, then you should once check out our 'Data breaches' section on the website.

A Startup Company, SlickLogin has developed a technology that enables you to login into online accounts using Ultrasonic sound, instead of entering username and password on your.

The company claims its technology offers "military-grade security" that replaces passwords in the two-step process simply by placing your Phone next to their laptop or tablet.

When you sign-in via SlickLogin enabled website, the computer will play a sound which is encrypted into Ultrasonic Sound, inaudible to the human ear, but your Smartphone can hear it.

The Smartphone Sends data back to the SlickLogin Servers for authentication and grants immediate access. Each sound is different, unique and cannot be reused to hack an account.

Recently, Google has acquired this two month old Israeli Startup, "Today we're announcing that the SlickLogin team is joining Google, a company that shares our core beliefs that logging in should be easy instead of frustrating, and authentication should be effective without getting in the way." SlickLogin website said.

SlickLogin also uses WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, QR codes and GPS to prevent your account from hackers on the other side of the world.

SlickLogin Technology gives you a way to set an unforgettable password, but at the same time physical access to the Smartphone may pose critical threat to your online accounts and Smartphones with Low battery Backup may trouble you most of the times.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Google acqui-hires Spider.io to help stop online ad frauds

Adding to the acquisition spree of 2014, Google today announced the acqui-hiring of London based startup spider.io. It’s a web based security firm into checking the online advertisement frauds. Confirming the news on the blog, Neal Mohan,VP – Digital Advertising, Google said,

Today we’re announcing our latest investment: we’ve completed an acquisition of spider.io, a company that has spent the past 3 years building a world-class ad fraud fighting operation.

Spider.io came into limelight last year, when it was able to identify the YouTube hijack by a notorious adware company, Sambreel. The amount of deal is not yet disclosed. From immediate effect, the 7 membered team founded by Douglas De Lajer of spider.io will be joining Google.
Google further added,

Our immediate priority is to include their fraud detection technology in our video and display ads products, where they will complement our existing efforts. Over the long term, our goal is to improve the metrics that advertisers and publishers use to determine the value of digital media and give all parties a clearer, cleaner picture of what campaigns and media are truly delivering strong results. Also, by including spider.io’s fraud fighting expertise in our products, we can scale our efforts to weed out bad actors and improve the entire digital ecosystem.



Google also expressed its concern for the industry overall, “As an industry, we can address this issue and block those who seek to game the system. We can make digital the platform of choice for all marketers — including brands — to invest. And we can offer accountable media for all; we’re excited to take this big next step.”
Updates coming soon.

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Here Are Top Alternatives To Google's Native Android Apps

Do Google's own in-house Android apps keep you asking for more?

Google continues to work exceptionally hard to keep users locked into its ecosystem and not wander away to you-know-where. It constantly developes new apps that more often than not give users a more than satisfactory experience, so much so that a number of its in-house apps have helped the global search giant stay a step ahead of its competitors. However, let's be honest, many of its apps still keep you asking for more!

Here are the best alternatives to Google's native Android apps:

Email

-We are looking for Google-level of reliability, while also being open to non-Google inboxes and offering enhanced features for power users.

1. CloudMagic

-Integrates Gmail, Exchange, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, Office 365 and IMAP accounts all at once.

-Emails are easier to find.

-Features a unified inbox that lets you left-swipe emails.

2. Aqua Mail

-Optimised for both smartphones and tablets.

-The dedicated attachments tab at the top of each email is noteworthy, as also the fullscreen modes and a smart inbox.

-Meanwhile, the paid version removes the two-account limit and drops the promotional signature attached to all outgoing messages.

Messaging

-Google bid adieu to its pre-loaded SMS app With the launch of Android 4.4 KitKat leaving users to fend for themselves. Hangouts became the de-facto starting place, but it's met with wide criticism.

1. Textra SMS

-Deep customisation for notifications and a quick-reply popup that lets you respond to messages without fully opening the app.

-Handles huge inboxes with no noticeable slowdown.

2. EvolveSMS

-Displays important information like names, numbers, call options and attachment options inside conversations.

-Group messaging, message popups, gesture support and notification customisation come as standard.

Calendar

-Google's own calendar is good enough but we seek far more inspiration.

1. Cal

-Includes a number of social and productivity features.

-If you have a task listed in Any.do, it'll pop up in your schedule beneath your planned events.

-Connect your Facebook account and you'll be notified of everybody's birthday!

2. SolCalendar

-Add events with a single touch, birthday cakes and smiley emoticons and displayS them using any of its 40 home screen widgets.

Camera

-Google's self-acknowledged weak-point.

1. ProCapture

-High-quality panorama mode, timer, burst, wide shot mode and noise reduction, keeping the focus on shooting modes instead of after-effects.

2. Camera Awesome

-packed with clever features like two-finger focal adjustments.

-Tweak the ISO, white balance and exposure settings all from the screen. Also includes full screen shutter button, burst shot, HDR mode, timer, panorama and social sharing.

Productivity

-Google's Keep is a supremely fast and extensive app, however, it still isn't enough, is it?

1. Evernote

-Supports lengthy text input.

-Easy way to add lists and save audio notes, indexing them for later searching.

2. Any.do

-Offers cloud sync, time-saving gestures, missed call integration and auto-suggestion features as standard.


Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Google To Minus Down On Older Versions Of Android

Google is up for reforms in smartphones as it plans to restrict the Android versions. 

Google is rumoured to take a step towards limiting the older versions of Android that are shipping across through new smartphones. It is likely to force smartphone makers to stick with a specific API level and the corresponding OS version. Failing to do so, the makers will not be allowed to ship their hardware with Google services.

Android is practically an outcome of Google's strategy of licensing its open source OS to various manufacturers. For each one phone, the maker can choose which platform version of Android to start with, and further customise it accordingly. They can even use it for any number of smartphones that target various segments of consumer market, with the option to manage updates on its own schedule.

Now due to countless versions of Android being used by consumers all across the world, Google itself is having much mess to handle. The search engine is now basing the move on an information that is supplied in a memo by the Android team to a major Android OEM partners.

As per a report by Android Police, Google will no longer approve GMS distribution on a new Android products that ships older platform releases. Each platform release will have a 'GMS approval window' that typically closes nine months after the next Android platform release is publicly available.

Some six different versions of Android that are running on activated smartphones are 2.2 (Froyo) which is running on 1.3 per cent of phones, 2.3 (Gingerbread) on 20.0 per cent, 3.2 (Honeycomb)on 0.1 per cent, 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on 16.1 per cent, 4.1 to 4.3 (Jelly Bean) on 60.7 per cent and 4.4 (KitKat) on 1.8 per cent. 

Author : Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

8 Super Fun Things To Do On Google!

Play beatbox, visit block sites and login with an incorrect ID. Here are 8 awesome tricks to try on Google! 

There would hardly be a day when we don't visit Google. Be it for a random search, or for a news or for checking our good old Gmail! So how about shifting seats from typical work searches to some fun tricks? Here we bring to you 8 must try tricks to have fun on Google.

1. Explore Mars!

Simply go to Just go to www.google.com/Mars and explore the awesome mars!

2. Add periods in login ID

Have fun by logging in by randomly adding periods in your log in ID. Google doesn't recognize periods as characters!

For example your email id is atithyaamaresh@gmail.com, try logging in with at.it.hyaa.mares.h@gmail.com and you will still be able to login!

3. askew

Try Googling for the word "askew" and enjoy the result!

4. Google Sphere

First turn off your 'Google Instant predictions' Search in Google search settings. Then type 'Google Sphere' and click "I'm feeling lucky".

5. The loneliest number

Yes Google knows it all! Even the loneliest number! Just search "the loneliest number".

6. Using blocked websites!

So your school or office has blocked a certain website that you want to use? Simply Google for "cache:WEBSITENAME.com" and win!

7. Play games on Youtube!

Yes you can play games right inside YouTube while watching your video! Just type "1980" while watching a YouTube video and fight attackers from blowing up the video. There are many more games available with different key combinations, how to find them? Google!

8. Beatbox on Google!

This one is specially fun! Go to Google translate and enter the below text. Set the language from German and click on the speaker to listen.

pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk

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Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Google Offering $2.71828 Million To Hack Chrome OS!

Google has announced the fourth edition of its Pwnium competition for Chrome OS this March at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver. Up for grabs is a whopping $2.71828 Million!

Continuing with the trend starting in 2013, those who can hack Chrome OS will walk away with a six figure reward at Google's fourth Pwnium competition this March. The company will be offering up to a total of $2.71828 million in rewards for security researchers who manage to hack Chrome OS. The breakdown of Pwnium 4’s rewards is as follows: $110,000 (browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page.) and $150,000 (compromise with device persistence: guest to guest with interim reboot, delivered via a web page.)

Security researchers can now choose between an ARM-based Chromebook (the WiFi-only HP Chromebook 11) or the Acer C720 Chromebook (the WiFi-only 2GB version) that is based on the Intel Haswell microarchitecture. It must be recalled that last year, only Intel-based Chrome OS devices were allowed to be hacked at the competition. Further, the attack must be demonstrated against the devices running whatever the Chrome OS stable version is at the time.

Google further revealed that it will be giving out bonuses to all those who come up with impressive or surprising exploit that may involve exploiting memory corruption in 64-bit browser processes or defeating kASLR or exploiting kernel from renderer processes. The full exploit must be given to Google, with explanations for all individual bugs used, all of which must be unknown, and exploits should be served from a password-authenticated and HTTPS-supported Google App Engine URL. Notably, no exploits for Chrome OS were found last year.
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Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill 

Google Chrome Will Now Detect And Fix 'Hijacked' Browser Settings!

Modification of browser settings is done without users' knowledge to generally force hits on a particular website.  

Imagine you're trying to download a free screensaver or game and later find out that the download came bundled with a malicious programme that's trying to 'hijack' your browser settings. Well, you're not alone, in fact, it's an issue that's continuing to grow at an alarming rate. So much so that hijacking of browser settings leads the list of user complaints made to search engine giant Google. Hijacking has existed for quite some time now. To curb the same, Google added a 'reset browser settings' button to Chrome's settings page in October 2013. However, hijacking of browser settings ceases to reduce. "Despite this, settings hijacking remains our number one user complaint." said Google. Hijacking includes a modification of the settings without users' knowledge directed to force hits on a particular site increasing its revenue as a result. Google's Chrome will now be prompting Windows users whose settings might have changed if they like to restore their browser settings back to factory default. The move will ensure the reset option reaches everyone who migght require it, thereby detecting and fixing hijacked browser settings more efficiently. "If you've been affected by settings hijacking and would like to restore your settings, just click 'Reset' on the prompt below when it appears," Google explained. However, some hijackers might leave behind processes that undermine user control of settings. In that case, the hijacking persists after a short period. Users can find additional help uninstalling such programmes in the Chrome help forum to counter the same. Shivam Kotwalia, CodeKill

Google Keeps ‘Vast Majority’ Of Motorola Mobility Patents In Sale To Lenovo

Motorola Mobility is being sold to Lenovo, in a deal worth $2.91B. Google is divesting itself of the handset division it purchased for $12.5B in 2011, but it will keep some of the assets — including patents.

“Google will maintain ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio, including current patent applications and invention disclosures,” says Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside. “As part of its ongoing relationship with Google, Lenovo will receive a license to this rich portfolio of patents and other intellectual property. Additionally Lenovo will receive over 2,000 patent assets, as well as the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark portfolio.”

When Google purchased Motorola Mobility, much of the discussion swirled around whether it was buying it simply to own a hardware pipeline on which to deliver its Android juice — or whether it wanted patents for protection. The answer, as is typical, lay somewhere in the middle. Though the Motorola patents never turned out to by incredibly effective winning solo battles against Google’s patent enemies, they did work as a part of a larger tactic which has seen Google aligning itself via cross-licensing with OEMs like Samsung.

One segment of the statement today by Woodside was interesting:

Since being acquired by Google in 2012, Motorola has transformed itself, focusing on solving real consumer problems and providing amazing experiences built on a foundation of pure Android. The result has been Moto X, Moto G, and a reinvigorated Droid line. Together, these devices have won over consumers and critics alike and helped re-establish the Motorola brand around the world.

Indeed, Google’s purchase and investments in Motorola did raise the flagging manufacturer’s profile significantly over the intervening years. They have several well-received smartphones on the market and have made a lot of noise about technology innovations in wearable computing and DARPA-think-tank-director hires.

Google sold off several aspects of its initial Motorola purchase including its cable box business. And it managed to leverage the patents — which Google valued at $5.5B — to at least some positive outcome. So, while the monetary ‘wins’ or ‘losses’ here are one for the bean counters to figure out, the strategic victories for Google may actually be fairly strong. According to some maths from analyst Benedict Evans, Google’s total outlay may have been closer to $7.15B than $12B — the divestitures, retention of patents and the sale price would cut the plain monetary loss down further to under $2B.

There is now a renewed Android vendor on the market peddling Google’s OS, in the care of Lenovo, the logistics firm that made IBM’s old enterprise business the biggest consumer computer retailer in the world. And it has some new cross-licensing agreements on patents — the majority of which it gets to keep.

And, with the purchase of Nest, it has a fresh young hardware company with a design focus and a set of high-profile talent.

“As a side note, this does not signal a larger shift for our other hardware efforts,” noted Google CEO Larry Page in an announcement today. “The dynamics and maturity of the wearable and home markets, for example, are very different from that of the mobile industry. We’re excited by the opportunities to build amazing new products for users within these emerging ecosystems.”

It may look bad in the raw math, but may not turn out so bad for all parties when the pieces settle into place.

Lenovo To Buy Motorola Mobility From Google For $2.91 Billion

CodeKill Group has confirmed reports that Lenovo is buying Motorola Mobility from Google. This is the division within Google that the company purchased in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility will go to Lenovo for $2.91 billion.
Of that $2.91 billion, $1.41 billion will be paid at the close of the deal. $660 million will be comprised of US cash and $750 million in Lenovo ordinary shares. The remaining $1.5 billion will be paid in the form of a three-year promissory note.
Google will maintain ownership of the vast majority of the Motorola Mobility patent portfolio. Lenovo will still receive 2,000 patent assets and the Motorola Mobility brand and trademark.
According to a separate report published by Reuters, Lenovo is being advised by Credit Suisse Group while Lazard Ltd advised Google on the transaction.
“As part of Lenovo, Motorola Mobility will have a rapid path to achieving our goal of reaching the next 100 million people with the mobile Internet. With the recent launches of Moto X and Moto G, we have tremendous momentum right now and Lenovo’s hardware expertise and global reach will only help to accelerate this,” said Dennis Woodside, CEO, Motorola Mobility, in a released statement.
According to our source, Google wanted to dump the asset for some time. The company had to hold off selling the division for tax reasons.
Motorola Mobility’s performance has yet to live up to its purchase price. Since Motorola split and its consumer division went to Google, it has been a constant source of red ink. Motorola lost quite a lot of money: $248 million in the last quarter alone. Google sums this well, noting that the loss was “-21% of Motorola Mobile segment revenues.” Motorola lost $192 million in the year-ago quarter, so the trend here isn’t positive.
Google previously sold off the cable box division of Motorola Mobility for $2.4 billion.
This comes just weeks after Google purchased the hot hardware startup Nest. Since then, Nest’s role in the budding conglomerate that Google is turning into has been widely speculated about. With Motorola gone, Nest’s superstar team that includes many former Apple engineers seemingly has an empty playground.
It seems this complete’s Lenovo’s quest for an established cell phone business. It was rumored back in October that the company submitted a bid for BlackBerry. That deal clearly didn’t pan out.
Simply buying its way to the top worked for Lenovo in the past. In 2005 Lenovo purchased IBM’s personal computer division for $1.25 billion. That purchase alone caused Lenovo to be the world’s third-largest computer maker. But, using the established brand, Lenovo scaled the PC division to become the largest shipper of PCs in the world. In the last months of 2013 Lenovo overtook HP.
Just last week, Lenovo announced a plan to buy IBM’s x86 server business for $2.3 billion.
As the dust settles on this deal, it’s clear that Google took a large loss on its venture with Motorola Mobility. Google acquired an established brand with a vast portfolio of patents, a mature distribution system and a knowledgeable manufacturing arm. Even after pouring money and resources into the historic American brand, Google couldn’t make lemonade with Motorola. Maybe Lenovo, the now-leader in personal computers, will have better luck.
More as we get it.

First widely distributed Android bootkit Malware infects more than 350,000 Devices

In the last quarter of 2013, sale of a Smartphone with ANDROID operating system has increased and every second person you see is a DROID user.

A Russian security firm 'Doctor Web' identified the first mass distributed Android bootkit malware called 'Android.Oldboot', a piece of malware that's designed to re-infect devices after reboot, even if you delete all working components of it.

The bootkit Android.Oldboot has infected more than 350,000 android users in China, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Brazil, the USA and some Southeast Asian countries. China seems to a mass victim of this kind of malware having a 92 % share.

A Bootkit is a rootkit malware variant which infects the device at start-up and may encrypt disk or steal data, remove the application, open connection for Command and controller.

A very unique technique is being used to inject this Trojan into an Android system where an attacker places a component of it into the boot partition of the file system and modify the 'init' script (initialize the operating system) to re-load the malware as you switch on your android.

When you start your device, this script loads the Trojan 'imei_chk' (detects it as Android.Oldboot.1) which extract two files libgooglekernel.so (Android.Oldboot.2) and GoogleKernel.apk  (Android.Oldboot.1.origin), copy them respectively in /system/lib and /system/app.

Android.Oldboot acts as a system service and connects to the command-and-controller server using libgooglekernel.so library and receives commands to download, remove installed apps, and install malicious apps.

Since it becomes a part of the boot partition, formatting the device will not solve the problem. The researchers believe that the devices somehow had the malware pre-loaded at the time of shipping from the manufacturer, or was likely distributed inside modified Android firmware. So, users should beware of certain modified Android firmware.

Two weeks ago, Some Chinese Security Researchers have also detected a bootkit called 'Oldboot', possibly the same malware or another variant of it.

"Due to the special RAM disk feature of Android devices’ boot partition, all current mobile antivirus products in the world can’t completely remove this Trojan or effectively repair the system."

"According to our statistics, as of today, there’re more than 500, 000 Android devices infected by this bootkit in China in last six months.

The Android malware Android.Oldboot is almost impossible to remove, not even with formatting your device. But if your device is not from a Chinese manufacturer, then chances that you are a victim of it, are very less.

This bootkit is not the first of this kind. Two years back, in the month of March we reported, NQ Mobile Security Research Center uncovered the world's first Android bootkit malware called 'DKFBootKit', that replaces certain boot processes and can begin running even before the system is completely booted up.

But Android.Oldboot malware is a bit more dangerous because even if you remove all working components of it from your android successfully, the component imei_chk will persist in a protected boot memory area and hence will reinstall itself on next boot and continuously infect the Smartphone.

Users are recommended to install apps from authorized stores such as Google Play, disable installation of apps from ‘Unknown Sources’ and for a better security install a reputed security application.

You can also try to re-flash your device with its original ROM. After flashing, the bootkit will be removed.