Front-Running Vulnerability: Exploiting Reward Updates for Maximized Payouts

Lines of code Vulnerability details Impact Malicious users claim rewards at a higher rate than what was intended by front-running governance actions meant to reduce rewards. This allows them to claim rewards at a higher rate than what was intended, undermining the protocol's intended economic...

SolarWinds and Market Incentives

In early 2021, IEEE Security and Privacy asked a number of board members for brief perspectives on the SolarWinds incident while it was still breaking news. This was my response. The penetration of government and corporate networks worldwide is the result of inadequate cyberdefenses across the...

Phishing Lures Shift from COVID-19 to Job Opportunities

Cybercriminals cashed in on the surge of COVID-19 earlier this year, with email lures purporting to be from healthcare professionals offering more information about the pandemic. However, as the year moves forward, bad actors are continuing to swap up their attacks with savvy lures that match...

Economics of Vulnerability Research Still Skewed

By any measure, Luigi Auriemma is a prolific vulnerability researcher. In the first ten months of 2011, the pay-for-bugs program Zero Day Initiative credited Auriemma with discovering 30 vulnerabilities, ranging from issues in Sybase enterprise software to Adobe Shockwave to Apple Quicktime. In i...

The Value of Self-Enforcing Protocols

By Bruce Schneier There are several ways two people can divide a piece of cake in half. One way is to find someone impartial to do it for them. This works, but it requires another person. Another way is for one person to divide the piece, and the other person to complain to the police, a judge, o...