Advanced iOS Trojan targeting the Hong Kong protesters

Cyber researchers are clamming to discover the first iOS Trojan, which attacks on the mob of Hong Kong protesters to affect their communications. 

An iOS Trojan known as Xsser mRat is similar in function as an Android virus, and discovered by cyber security researchers, who all believe that this iOS virus is targeting the pro-democracy protesters of Hong Kong. It is computer virus, which spies the operating system of on Apple's such as; iPhone and iPad. According to Lacoon Mobile Security, Xsser mRat is absolutely similar to the spyware of Android, which has initially infected the infected mobile users in Hong Kong. Android spyware was designed to coordinates the protesters of Hong Kong, but soon after infection it launches an attack.

Significance of a cross-platform mobile attack was reported by Lacoon. This cross-platform attack targeted the both Android and as well as iOS and it indicates that it may be conducted by nation state or a very large organization. The fact behind the attack was to use it against the protesters of Hong Kong and it was executed by Chinese-speaking cyber attackers, as first iOS Trojan attack linked to the cyber activity of Chinese government.

The Xsser mRAT is significant as it is first and one of the most advanced, fully operational and functional Chinese iOS Trojan. This malicious software is known as Xsser and is well-capable to steal the text messages, call details, photos, passwords, and other data from Apple devices such as; iPad and iPhone. According to Michael Shaulov, Chief Executive of Lacoon, that Xsser is the most advanced and sophisticated malware and it used to date in any known cyber attack of iOS users.

Programming community Code4HK is working on to support the democracy movement, but in actual it has nothing to do with this phishing expedition. But iPhone and iPad devices are getting infected by single click with mobile Remote Access Trojan (mRAT), when any user clicks on any specific link and soon after that it can easily access the personal data, physical location of phone or device, and can spy on phone calls.

An anonymous attacker was responsible for spreading this Android spyware with the help of platform likes; WhatsApp. Still it’s unclear that how iOS devices get infected by Xsser. According to Michael Shaulov, it is one of the most advanced and interesting developments, as the code used in these programmers are written in Chinese. According to researchers the campaign is high quality and it is coming from somewhere China by sophisticated attackers.

Trojan is the term; used by cyber researchers for virus and it describe malwares, which can enter in the technical device and harm the same. Still Apple has to identify any specific individual, who is suffering from iOS Trojan. It is expected that, it can cross borders easily and it is possible that Chinese-speaking entity is operating the iOS Trojan to spy on foreign companies, individuals, or it can be entire governments or system.

Facebook Launches Atlas to Support the Entire Digital-Advertising World

According to Erik Johnson, the head of the new Facebook service, Atlas platform will deliver people base marketing and also help the marketing companies to reach out to real people over different types of devices, publishers and platforms. The main aim behind this was to solve the marketer's problem of cross devices. Facebook recently announced Atlas, which is a rebuilt ad platform that enables the marketing companies to access a whole range of user data and also helps them in directing high targets ads on the web.

According to Johnson, Atlas with its targeting and measurement capability will be able to connect with the online campaigns with the help of offline sales. This will help the marketer’s to analyze the effectiveness of their ads. Among the first few companies, Pepsi and Intel are the one trying out this new platform. Instagram also has been enabled with Atlas to verify as well as measure their ad impressions.

Facebook Motivation: 

For Facebook, Atlas seems to be the obvious next step. Once the user is logged into Facebook app, this service will be able to identify all the other apps the users is using and accordingly place messages in that apps. Even though Google has a similar service but Facebook has vast users in number.

Isolate Promotion: 

With Google being the leader in advertising world, Atlas seems to be looking to directly attack the service. With the digital advertising market having worth of more than US$100 billion/year, Google has been able to rake in nearly half of this amount every year. With Facebook having millions of users and their daily activities in Facebook, the company can literally deliver not only personal but also precise ads.

All this can be achieved without the company being too intrusive. This means irrespective of the device, once the user logs on Facebook, they will be given individually directed ads. The company is hoping for higher conversion rate from these ads. When it comes to winning the advertising market world, Google just because is the leader in search engine can’t expect to be a winner.

New solutions for Marketers: 

Even without the details not being released by the company, this can certainly be considered as breakthrough for the marketers wherein they have the ads option in different devices, offline as well as large target audience. The company will be able to solve one of the biggest challenges of advertising to a target audience on a multiplatform. While this might be something the company can cheer about, customers might not be on the same level. If the users are aware of the functions of Atlas, they might not be comfortable about being targeted across the web.

Whether anyone will agree or not, privacy will still be an issue concerning the users. But there are data which indicate that the users are willing to share their information as long as their privacy is not invaded over an extent. With this new platform, Facebook will be a leader and set an example for other social media sites to venture into advertising networks.

Amazon’s New Frontiers: Robotics and Data Generated from Connected Devices

The chief technology officer at Amazon, Werner Vogels, likes to move around the world about few times in a year. He is famous for giving out predictions and this time he has predicted the robotics, data from connected devices and automation will become the new frontiers for the company.

The Company is working on automating most of their functions like fulfillment centers and autonomous vehicles. He stated that with the increasing number of sensor the data can explode any time. This prediction is coming from a person who primarily runs a $150 billion retail vision.

According to Vogel, data which help in building up the analytics are extremely beneficial to the company. Companies have been using video anonymously to show the restaurants and shops about their customer base demographic. Through the video the company can identify between a Caucasian and middle-aged man who is well dressed.

Numerous companies have been using the AWS (Amazon Web Services) for managing the data which gets generated from these kinds of sensors. In India itself Amazon's cloud is being used by Tata Motors to run their management system. The cloud computing has been gaining huge importance in India and Microsoft has already announced the cloud computing centers will be opened in India. According to Vogel, Amazon has no such plan of opening data centers in India.

They say that hybrid cloud would be a much better option for India and it will be better model. They are expecting services and content to become device-independent which opens up scope for cloud computing.

According to Vogel, cloud computing has a vital role in all the areas wherein a user can have specific interfaces for different types of devices, but at the end data and services will be stored in one location which can be accessed by different devices. Vogel has visited India more than 6 times. According to the recent reports the customer base for Amazon Web services has nearly increased by 50%. Last year the company has nearly 8000 customer which has now increased to 12000 customers.

Is there any specific kind of advice or direction for organizations based on heavy engineering? Simple advice would be to stay away from trying out everything. According to Vogel, the company had ensured that they have appropriate processes in place to which required things and to build things which will be useful for the customers.

A minimum set of features is usually built by retailers. Later on, based on these features the retailers build products which consider the feedback received from the customers.

The product managers of Amazon usually send a press release in the initial stages which basically describes the product as well as its requirements. Once this has been done, the company focuses on getting answers for 20 sets of questions which are frequently asked by the customers. According to Vogel, the aim of the customer is to determine the reaction of the customers towards a product, much before they can even build the product. The company calls this as working from customer’s end.

HTC Nexus 9 Tablet to prove as a Tough Competitor

While the Chinese Telecomm companies are making intense rapid progress by designing their smartphones with meticulous features which are available in the market at an extremely affordable price, it has become a challenge for telecomm companies Samsung, HTC to remain in the competition. To keep in pace with the competition, HTC reports revealed that they are going to launch Google Nexus 9 tablet powered by Tegra K1 64-bit processor in the third quarter of 2014. This has ushered frenzy among the mobile manufacturers who are looking forward for the launch of the device.

Reason for making such a comeback: 

HTC took the challenge to develop such a device mainly because to gain worldwide acclamation as a leading smartphones manufacturers. In 2012, HTC manufactured HTC Flyer, which failed to dominate the market and attract audience’s attention. So they’ve high hopes for unveiling Nexus 9 tablet. Previously, HTC rejected Google’s offer for collaboration to manufacture tablets because they claimed to have been busy in promoting their smartphone business globally, which later did not reward much fruitful success.

However, rumors states that Nexus 9 will not be available in US, owing to the ill-fated failure of the previous tablet HTC Flyer in 2012. The Wall Street Journal claims that HTC is working collaboratively with Googleplex in Mountain View upon Nexus 9, which will be soon unveiled to the citizens.

Leaked News about the Specification of the Tablet: 

There might be several rumors about the Nexus 9, but certain features have been confirmed to be present in the device. One of the speculative killer features that have been incorporated in the device is the 64-bit NVIDIATegra K1 Denver processor, which has been predicted to be highly superior to the Snapdrgaon processor present in the existing android devices.

In addition to that, sources reveal that the device will run on 3GB RAM, contrary to 4GB RAM which exists in most of the devices. In addition, the device is assumed to sport an8.9 inch AMOLED display, with a 2048x1440 pixel density with 241ppi. The device will have aluminum rear with a thickness of .31mm and will weigh 418gm. The aluminum rear is assumed to provide a better protection for the device from shocks and slight scratches. In addition, the device will sport with 8MP rear camera and 3MP front facing camera. Unfortunately, there has been no news about the presence of LED flash. The tablet will be powered by 4900mAh lithium battery, and will run on the latest Android 5.0 L (Lollipop, Lemon Cheesecake) which will enhance its performance. The device will be available in 16GB and 32GB variant without any external expansion slot.

The price has been expected to be around $399  and $499 respectively while the LTE version is expected to cost around $600.

Conclusion: 

Android technology has skyrocketed in the recent years and has been running a wide array of devices ever since it is advent in the market. With its breathe taking features, market analysts envisage HTC’s comeback in the smartphone market in the distant future.

Teachers and Students Will Get Free Unlimited Drive Storage from Google

Goggle drive is one of the best cloud storage platforms, and if you are student or teacher, so it can be much better for you. With the aim to ramp up its commitment towards education, the leading search engine Google is decided to offer unlimited drive storage for students and teacher at no cost. This initiative is similar to Drive for Work and will known as “Drive for Education”.

Features of Google Apps for Education:

Unlimited storage facility will support the files as big as 0.5TB in size. For teachers, Google normally target the classroom with new classroom tool, which will help the teachers to create and organize the assignments of school. To avail the facility of unlimited drive storage, the person should have an active .edu email address and your school will need to be signed up for Education App and these Apps are free for educational institutions. As a incentive for sign-up process Google is offering unlimited storage in free the service is set to roll out in up-coming weeks. Teachers and students will be able to access the data with the help of internet-connected tablets, laptops, smartphones, etc. According to product manager of Google Apps for Education, Ben Schrom “All the files uploaded on Google drive will be encrypted, at all the Google servers. Google Apps for Education will enable the users to organizing all Classroom assignments automatically into Google drive folders.

All non-profit institutions will exempted from ad-related scanning of data, if they will be part of Google Apps for Education initiative. It means Google will not scan the data, which will be uploaded by teachers and students and it will not targeted for advertisements. This Educational App will combine the Google Calendar and Gmail, with other productivity tools such as; Google docs, sheets and slides.

Microsoft's Office Vs Google Apps':

Microsoft's Office is seems to be the biggest competitor for Google Apps', as Microsoft's Office have powerful presence in the education market since 1990s. Google is attracting the peoples to open and edit office- format documents online, with a platform from where they can easily share the same document with other Google doc users. It seems to impossible to compare the Google Apps' success and Microsoft Office because no one has release total revenue or user figures. According to recent reports, Office 365 subscription had more than 5.6 million subscribers in all consumer segments for Q2, which includes PC apps and online versions. And these figures were more than 1 million subscribers from previous quarter. Whereas; Microsoft did not release any figure for business subscriptions or traditional licensed software.

Free unlimited storage for teachers and students is good deal for learning students, as for personal use its annual subscriptions cost $70 for Office 365 and for premium business it cost $180. For Google Apps for Education every user is free to use 30GB of space, but upgrade cost $5 per month per user with the facility of up-gradation of 100GB space.