New Way to Covertly Track Android Users

Researchers have discovered a new way to covertly track Android users. Both Meta and Yandex were using it, but have suddenly stopped now that they have been caught. The details are interesting, and worth reading in detail: Tracking code that Meta and Russia-based Yandex embed into millions of...

Online Privacy and Overfishing

Microsoft recently caught state-backed hackers using its generative AI tools to help with their attacks. In the security community, the immediate questions werent about how hackers were using the tools that was utterly predictable, but about how Microsoft figured it out. The natural conclusion wa...

Surveillance by the New Microsoft Outlook App

The ProtonMail people are accusing Microsofts new Outlook for Windows app of conducting extensive surveillance on its users. It shares data with advertisers, a lot of data: The window informs users that Microsoft and those 801 third parties use their data for a number of purposes, including to:...

Friday Squid Blogging: The Geopolitics of Eating Squid

New York Times op-ed on the Chinese dominance of the squid industry: Chinas domination in seafood has raised deep concerns among American fishermen, policymakers and human rights activists. They warn that China is expanding its maritime reach in ways that are putting domestic fishermen around the...

Child Exploitation and the Crypto Wars

Susan Landau published an excellent essay on the current justification for the government breaking end-to-end-encryption: child sexual abuse and exploitation CSAE. She puts the debate into historical context, discusses the problem of CSAE, and explains why breaking encryption isnt the solution...

Bots Are Better than Humans at Solving CAPTCHAs

Interesting research: "An Empirical Study & Evaluation of Modern CAPTCHAs": Abstract: For nearly two decades, CAPTCHAS have been widely used as a means of protection against bots. Throughout the years, as their use grew, techniques to defeat or bypass CAPTCHAS have continued to improve. Meanwhile...

Political Milestones for AI

ChatGPT was released just nine months ago, and we are still learning how it will affect our daily lives, our careers, and even our systems of self-governance. But when it comes to how AI may threaten our democracy, much of the public conversation lacks imagination. People talk about the danger of...

The Need for Trustworthy AI

If you ask Alexa, Amazons voice assistant AI system, whether Amazon is a monopoly, it responds by saying it doesnt know. It doesnt take much to make it lambaste the other tech giants, but its silent about its own corporate parents misdeeds. When Alexa responds in this way, its obvious that it is...

Cyberweapons Manufacturer QuaDream Shuts Down

Following a report on its activities, the Israeli spyware company QuaDream has shut down. This was QuadDream: Key Findings Based on an analysis of samples shared with us by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, we developed indicators that enabled us to identify at least five civil society victims of...

US Cyber Command Operations During the 2022 Midterm Elections

The head of both US Cyber Command and the NSA, Gen. Paul Nakasone, broadly discussed that first organizations offensive cyber operations during the runup to the 2022 midterm elections. He didnt name names, of course: We did conduct operations persistently to make sure that our foreign adversaries...

The FBI Identified a Tor User

No details, though: According to the complaint against him, Al-Azhari allegedly visited a dark web site that hosts "unofficial propaganda and photographs related to ISIS" multiple times on May 14, 2019. In virtue of being a dark web site--­that is, one hosted on the Tor anonymity network--­it...

Levels of Assurance for DoD Microelectronics

The NSA has has published criteria for evaluating levels of assurance required for DoD microelectronics. The introductory report in a DoD microelectronics series outlines the process for determining levels of hardware assurance for systems and custom microelectronic components, which include...

More on NSO Group and Cytrox: Two Cyberweapons Arms Manufacturers

Citizen Lab published another report on the spyware used against two Egyptian nationals. One was hacked by NSO Groups Pegasus spyware. The other was hacked both by Pegasus and by the spyware from another cyberweapons arms manufacturer: Cytrox. We havent heard a lot about Cytrox and its Predator...

Check What Information Your Browser Leaks

These two sites tell you what sorts of information youre leaking from your browser...

Friday Squid Blogging: Tentacle Doorknob

Its pretty. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...

More on Apple’s iPhone Backdoor

In this post, Ill collect links on Apples iPhone backdoor for scanning CSAM images. Previous links are here and here. Apple says that hash collisions in its CSAM detection system were expected, and not a concern. Im not convinced that this secondary system was originally part of the design, since...

The Story of Colossus

Nice video of a talk by Chris Shore on the history of Colossus...

Determining Key Shape from Sound

Its not yet very accurate or practical, but under ideal conditions it is possible to figure out the shape of a house key by listening to it being used. Listen to Your Key: Towards Acoustics-based Physical Key Inference Abstract: Physical locks are one of the most prevalent mechanisms for securing...

NSA Advisory on Chinese Government Hacking

The NSA released an advisory listing the top twenty-five known vulnerabilities currently being exploited by Chinese nation-state attackers. This advisory provides Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVEs known to be recently leveraged, or scanned-for, by Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors to...

Cybersecurity Visuals

The Hewlett Foundation just announced its top five ideas in its Cybersecurity Visuals Challenge. The problem Hewlett is trying to solve is the dearth of good visuals for cybersecurity. A Google Images Search demonstrates the problem: locks, fingerprints, hands on laptops, scary looking hackers in...

Iranian Government Hacking Android

The New York Times wrote about a still-unreleased report from Chckpoint and the Miaan Group: The reports, which were reviewed by The New York Times in advance of their release, say that the hackers have successfully infiltrated what were thought to be secure mobile phones and computers belonging ...

Friday Squid Blogging: Nano-Sized SQUIDS

SQUID news: Physicists have developed a small, compact superconducting quantum interference device SQUID that can detect magnetic fields. The team l focused on the instruments core, which contains two parallel layers of graphene. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the securi...

iPhone Apps Stealing Clipboard Data

iOS apps are repeatedly reading clipboard data, which can include all sorts of sensitive information. While Haj Bakry and Mysk published their research in March, the invasive apps made headlines again this week with the developer beta release of iOS 14. A novel feature Apple added provides a bann...

Another Intel Speculative Execution Vulnerability

Remember Spectre and Meltdown? Back in early 2018, I wrote: Spectre and Meltdown are pretty catastrophic vulnerabilities, but they only affect the confidentiality of data. Now that they -- and the research into the Intel ME vulnerability -- have shown researchers where to look, more is coming --...

Security Analysis of the Democracy Live Online Voting System

New research: "Security Analysis of the Democracy Live Online Voting System": Abstract: Democracy Live's OmniBallot platform is a web-based system for blank ballot delivery, ballot marking, and optionally online voting. Three states -- Delaware, West Virginia, and New Jersey -- recently announced...

New US Electronic Warfare Platform

The Army is developing a new electronic warfare pod capable of being put on drones and on trucks. ...the Silent Crow pod is now the leading contender for the flying flagship of the Army's rebuilt electronic warfare force. Army EW was largely disbanded after the Cold War, except for short-range...

Malware in Google Apps

Interesting story of malware hidden in Google Apps. This particular campaign is tied to the government of Vietnam. At a remote virtual version of its annual Security Analyst Summit, researchers from the Russian security firm Kaspersky today plan to present research about a hacking campaign they...

The Insecurity of WordPress and Apache Struts

Interesting data: A study that analyzed all the vulnerability disclosures between 2010 and 2019 found that around 55% of all the security bugs that have been weaponized and exploited in the wild were for two major application frameworks, namely WordPress and Apache Struts. The Drupal content...

I'm Looking to Hire a Strategist to Help Figure Out Public-Interest Tech

I am in search of a strategic thought partner: a person who can work closely with me over the next 9 to 12 months in assessing what's needed to advance the practice, integration, and adoption of public-interest technology. All of the details are in the RFP. The selected strategist will work close...

Defeating the "Deal or No Deal" Arcade Game

Two teenagers figured out how to beat the "Deal or No Deal" arcade game by filming the computer animation and then slowing it down enough to determine where the big prize was hidden...

Facebook Is Using Your Two-Factor Authentication Phone Number to Target Advertising

From Kashmir Hill: Facebook is not content to use the contact information you willingly put into your Facebook profile for advertising. It is also using contact information you handed over for security purposes and contact information you didn't hand over at all, but that was collected from other...

Future Cyberwar

A report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies looks at surprise and war. One of the report's cyberwar scenarios is particularly compelling. It doesn't just map cyber onto today's tactics, but completely reimagines future tactics that include a cyber component quote starts on pag...

How the US Military Can Better Keep Hackers

Interesting commentary: The military is an impossible place for hackers thanks to antiquated career management, forced time away from technical positions, lack of mission, non-technical mid- and senior-level leadership, and staggering pay gaps, among other issues. It is possible the military need...

Beating Facial Recognition Software with Face Makeup

At least right now, facial recognition algorithms don't work with Juggalo makeup...

Are Free Societies at a Disadvantage in National Cybersecurity

Jack Goldsmith and Stuart Russell just published an interesting paper, making the case that free and democratic nations are at a structural disadvantage in nation-on-nation cyberattack and defense. From a blog post: It seeks to explain why the United States is struggling to deal with the "soft"...

Hijacking Emergency Sirens

Turns out it's easy to hijack emergency sirens with a radio transmitter...

DARPA Funding in AI-Assisted Cybersecurity

DARPA is launching a program aimed at vulnerability discovery via human-assisted AI. The new DARPA program is called CHESS Computers and Humans Exploring Software Security, and they're holding a proposers day in a week and a half. This is the kind of thing that can dramatically change the...

Israeli Security Attacks AMD by Publishing Zero-Day Exploits

Last week, the Israeli security company CTS Labs published a series of exploits against AMD chips. The publication came with the flashy website, detailed whitepaper, cool vulnerability names -- RYZENFALL, MASTERKEY, FALLOUT, and CHIMERA -- and logos we've come to expect from these sorts of things...

Two New Papers on the Encryption Debate

Seems like everyone is writing about encryption and backdoors this season. "Policy Approaches to the Encryption Debate," R Street Policy Study 133, by Charles Duan, Arthur Rizer, Zach Graves and Mike Godwin. "Encryption Policy in Democratic Regimes," East West Institute. I recently blogged about...

XKCD's Smartphone Security System

Funny...

Hacking Robots

Researchers have demonstrated hacks against robots, taking over and controlling their camera, speakers, and movements. News article...

Fighting Leakers at Apple

Apple is fighting its own battle against leakers, using people and tactics from the NSA. According to the hour-long presentation, Apple's Global Security team employs an undisclosed number of investigators around the world to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the...

The Quick vs. the Strong: Commentary on Cory Doctorow's Walkaway

Technological advances change the world. That's partly because of what they are, but even more because of the social changes they enable. New technologies upend power balances. They give groups new capabilities, increased effectiveness, and new defenses. The Internet decades have been a...

Stealing Voice Prints

This article feels like hyperbole: The scam has arrived in Australia after being used in the United States and Britain. The scammer may ask several times "can you hear me?", to which people would usually reply "yes." The scammer is then believed to record the "yes" response and end the call. That...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Helps Discover New Marine Species

The Squid is a new scientific machine: One of the technological breakthroughs was the onboard use of a spinning wheel confocal microscope, nicknamed the Squid, which uses lasers to scan microscopic details of how organisms are put together. "That opens up a whole new world of exploring. We could...

Cybersecurity and the Gap Between Skill and Ability

Last week, national security agencies from the Five Eyes--that's the rich, English-language-speaking countries club--jointly released a statement warning of the increasing cyber risks of AI models: in particular, their ability to autonomously hack into systems and networks. The statement was more...

FBI Extracts Deleted Signal Messages from iPhone Notification Database

404 Media reports alternate site: The FBI was able to forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app was deleted, because copies of the content were saved in the device’s push notification database…. The news shows how forensic...

LLMs Acting Deceptively

New research: "Deception abilities emerged in large language models": Abstract: Large language models LLMs are currently at the forefront of intertwining AI systems with human communication and everyday life. Thus, aligning them with human values is of great importance. However, given the steady...

The UK Bans Default Passwords

The UK is the first country to ban default passwords on IoT devices. On Monday, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to ban default guessable usernames and passwords from these IoT devices. Unique passwords installed by default are still permitted. The Product Security and...

EPA Won’t Force Water Utilities to Audit Their Cybersecurity

The industry pushed back: Despite the EPAs willingness to provide training and technical support to help states and public water system organizations implement cybersecurity surveys, the move garnered opposition from both GOP state attorneys and trade groups. Republican state attorneys that were...