User:86xm/sandbox



Faizan Akhtar ( born 6 March 1998) is a Pakistani ethical hacker and security researcher known for his discovery of vulnerabilities on the Android operating system. He has been conducting security research for over 7 years. He has been Featured and known by both Nationally and Internationally Media and Publications like Forbes, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, and The Express Tribune. He has listed as one of The 15 Most Successful Ethical Hackers WorldWide and Top 25 Threat Seekers by SCmagazine.

Personal life
Rafay Baloch attended Bahria University's Karachi campus, from which he obtained a bachelor's degree. Baloch is currently placed in Hall of Fame of Bahria University.

Hacking career
Rafay began his hacking career while he was still doing his bachelors and began to conquer with his achievements. He then with his achievements and experience in hacking wrote a book called "Ethical Hacking Penetration Testing Guide". His book was published in UK by “Taylor and Francis” which as per online forums is regarded as one of the Top 10 books on Ethical Hacking. He is the first Pakistani Security researcher to be acknowledged by Google, Facebook, PayPal, Apple, Microsoft and many other International organizations.He has also written several papers on information security, namely "HTML5 Modern Day Attack Vectors" and "Web Application Firewall Bypass." and "Bypassing Browser Security Policies For Fun And Profit".

Rafay found critical vulnerabilities in PayPal in 2012 and was rewarded 10,000$ + a job offer to work for them as a Security Researcher that he refused as he was still doing his bachelors at that time.

Bug Bounty Programs
Rafay has been active into bug bounty programs and has reported several critical vulnerabilities in several open source web applications as well as in bug bounty programs. One of the most notable vulnerability where he hacked into PayPal servers by exploiting a remote code execution vulnerability for which he was offered a job which he decided not to opt.

Browser Security Research
Rafay has actively reported several critical vulnerabilities in browsers. He started by finding Same Origin Policy (SOP) bypass in Android Stock browser which was initially rejected by Google, however this was later verified by Google after Researchers from Rapid7 verified it. This was coined as CVE 2014-6041. Rafay followed by reported several other SOP bypasses. Researchers at Trend Micro found this bug to be more widespread. It was later reported that hackers have been actively using Rafay's SOP bypass exploits for hacking into Facebook accounts. The SOP bypass bug was elevated by researcher from Rapid7 Joe Vennix for conducting a remote code execution," " Rafay also found several vulnerabilities affecting Webview which allowed an attacker to read local files as well as steal cookies from the user device.

Apple Safari Address Bar Spoofing Controversy
In 2018, Rafay unveiled a crack in both Safari and Microsoft's Edge browser that paved the way for the URL of a safe website to be shown in the address bar while users were actually being taken to a different, and possibly malicious, website. Rafay Baloch notified the security issue and informed Apple and Microsoft in early June. Microsoft fixed the issue within two months but Apple didn’t respond to Rafay’s report despite of the deadline given of 90 days grace period so he made the details public as per international rule. Rafay Baloch wrote in his article that an address bar can be used to easily breach someone’s privacy, without them noticing it. The reason this is possible is because an address bar is the only reliable indicator for security in new browsers, as it displays the site’s URL and other details related to the webpage you are on.

Google No Patch Policy Discovery
Rafay Baloch along with Joe Vennix got to know that Google was terminating support late last year when Google’s Android security crew replied to one of their warnings about a bug in the AOSP. There are bags full of Android Web View bugs that need to be patched; Baloch and Vennix, among other contributors to the Metasplot vulnerability exploit tool, have noticed at least 11 active exploits targeting Android's Web View in Jelly Bean.

Google has declined to comment on the matter. It likely made the policy decision when it chose to "unbundle" WebView from its core operating system as Android 5.0, or Lollipop, which was pushed out in October 2014. This meant users would be able to update WebView separately from Android, with automated downloads from Google's Play Store. But this option remains unavailable to anyone on an older version of the operating system; keep in mind that very few people actually use Lollipop, less than 0.1 percent of all Android device owners.