3093 matches found
AI and the Evolution of Social Media
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. A decade ago, social media was celebrated for sparking democratic uprisings in the Arab world and beyond. Now front pages are splashed with stories of social platforms’ role in misinformation, business conspiracy, malfeasance, and risks to mental health. In a 2022...
How Public AI Can Strengthen Democracy
With the worlds focus turning to misinformation, manipulation, and outright propaganda ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we know that democracy has an AI problem. But were learning that AI has a democracy problem, too. Both challenges must be addressed for the sake of democratic...
Friday Squid Blogging: New Foods from Squid Fins
We only eat about half of a squid, ignoring the fins. A group of researchers is working to change that. 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...
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...
LLM Summary of My Book Beyond Fear
Claude Anthropics LLM was given this prompt: Please summarize the themes and arguments of Bruce Schneiers book Beyond Fear. Im particularly interested in a taxonomy of his ethical arguments--please expand on that. Then lay out the most salient criticisms of the book. Claudes reply: Heres a brief...
Applying AI to License Plate Surveillance
License plate scanners arent new. Neither is using them for bulk surveillance. Whats new is that AI is being used on the data, identifying "suspicious" vehicle behavior: Typically, Automatic License Plate Recognition ALPR technology is used to search for plates linked to specific crimes. But in...
UK Electoral Commission Hacked
The UK Electoral Commission discovered last year that it was hacked the year before. Thats fourteen months between the hack and the discovery. It doesnt know who was behind the hack. We worked with external security experts and the National Cyber Security Centre to investigate and secure our...
Commentary on the Implementation Plan for the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy
The Atlantic Council released a detailed commentary on the White Houses new "Implementation Plan for the 2023 US National Cybersecurity Strategy." Lots of interesting bits. So far, at least three trends emerge: First, the plan contains a somewhat more concrete list of actions than its parent...
PIPEDREAM Malware against Industrial Control Systems
Another nation-state malware, Russian in origin: In the early stages of the war in Ukraine in 2022, PIPEDREAM, a known malware was quietly on the brink of wiping out a handful of critical U.S. electric and liquid natural gas sites. PIPEDREAM is an attack toolkit with unmatched and unprecedented...
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...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Processing Facility
This video of a modern large squid processing ship is a bit gory, but also interesting. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I havent covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...
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...
USB “Rubber Ducky” Attack Tool
The USB Rubber Ducky is getting better and better. Already, previous versions of the Rubber Ducky could carry out attacks like creating a fake Windows pop-up box to harvest a users login credentials or causing Chrome to send all saved passwords to an attackers webserver. But these attacks had to ...
Security Vulnerabilities in Honda’s Keyless Entry System
Honda vehicles from 2021 to 2022 are vulnerable to this attack: On Thursday, a security researcher who goes by Kevin2600 published a technical report and videos on a vulnerability that he claims allows anyone armed with a simple hardware device to steal the code to unlock Honda vehicles. Kevin260...
Hackers Using Fake Police Data Requests against Tech Companies
Brian Krebs has a detailed post about hackers using fake police data requests to trick companies into handing over data. Virtually all major technology companies serving large numbers of users online have departments that routinely review and process such requests, which are typically granted as...
Tracking Secret German Organizations with Apple AirTags
A German activist is trying to track down a secret government intelligence agency. One of her research techniques is to mail Apple AirTags to see where they actually end up: Wittmann says that everyone she spoke to denied being part of this intelligence agency. But what she describes as a "good...
Facebook Is Down
Facebook -- along with Instagram and WhatsApp -- went down globally today. Basically, someone deleted their BGP records, which made their DNS fall apart. …at approximately 11:39 a.m. ET today 15:39 UTC, someone at Facebook caused an update to be made to the companys Border Gateway Protocol BGP...
Friday Squid Blogging: Flying Squid
How squid fly. 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...
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: Im speaking online at Western Washington University on January 20, 2021. Details to come. I’ll be speaking at an Informa event on February 28, 2021. Details to come. The list is maintained on this page...
Undermining Democracy
Last Thursday, Rudy Giuliani, a Trump campaign lawyer, alleged a widespread voting conspiracy involving Venezuela, Cuba, and China. Another lawyer, Sidney Powell, argued that Mr. Trump won in a landslide, the entire election in swing states should be overturned and the legislatures should make su...
Former NSA Director Keith Alexander Joins Amazon’s Board of Directors
This sounds like a bad idea...
Robocall Results from a Telephony Honeypot
A group of researchers set up a telephony honeypot and tracked robocall behavior: NCSU researchers said they ran 66,606 telephone lines between March 2019 and January 2020, during which time they said to have received 1,481,201 unsolicited calls -- even if they never made their phone numbers publ...
Security and Human Behavior (SHB) 2020
Today is the second day of the thirteenth Workshop on Security and Human Behavior. It's being hosted by the University of Cambridge, which in today's world means we're all meeting on Zoom. SHB is a small, annual, invitational workshop of people studying various aspects of the human side of...
Wallpaper that Crashes Android Phones
This is interesting: The image, a seemingly innocuous sunset or dawn sky above placid waters, may be viewed without harm. But if loaded as wallpaper, the phone will crash. The fault does not appear to have been maliciously created. Rather, according to developers following Ice Universe's Twitter...
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...
Clarifying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
A federal court has ruled that violating a website's terms of service is not "hacking" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The plaintiffs wanted to investigate possible racial discrimination in online job markets by creating accounts for fake employers and job seekers. Leading job sites have...
5G Security
The security risks inherent in Chinese-made 5G networking equipment are easy to understand. Because the companies that make the equipment are subservient to the Chinese government, they could be forced to include backdoors in the hardware or software to give Beijing remote access. Eavesdropping i...
Distributing Malware By Becoming an Admin on an Open-Source Project
The module "event-stream" was infected with malware by an anonymous someone who became an admin on the project. Cory Doctorow points out that this is a clever new attack vector: Many open source projects attain a level of "maturity" where no one really needs any new features and there aren't a lo...
Another Bloomberg Story about Supply-Chain Hardware Attacks from China
Bloomberg has another story about hardware surveillance implants in equipment made in China. This implant is different from the one Bloomberg reported on last week. That story has been denied by pretty much everyone else, but Bloomberg is sticking by its story and its sources. I linked to other...
Detecting Credit Card Skimmers
Interesting research paper: "Fear the Reaper: Characterization and Fast Detection of Card Skimmers": Abstract: Payment card fraud results in billions of dollars in losses annually. Adversaries increasingly acquire card data using skimmers, which are attached to legitimate payment devices includin...
Don't Fear the TSA Cutting Airport Security. Be Glad That They're Talking about It.
Last week, CNN reported that the Transportation Security Administration is considering eliminating security at U.S. airports that fly only smaller planes -- 60 seats or fewer. Passengers connecting to larger planes would clear security at their destinations. To be clear, the TSA has put forth no...
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...
Securing Elections
Elections serve two purposes. The first, and obvious, purpose is to accurately choose the winner. But the second is equally important: to convince the loser. To the extent that an election system is not transparently and auditably accurate, it fails in that second purpose. Our election systems ar...
Dan Geer on the Dangers of Computer-Only Systems
A good warning, delivered in classic Dan Geer style...
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...
Websites Use Session-Replay Scripts to Eavesdrop on Every Keystroke and Mouse Movement
The security researchers at Princeton are posting You may know that most websites have third-party analytics scripts that record which pages you visit and the searches you make. But lately, more and more sites use "session replay" scripts. These scripts record your keystrokes, mouse movements, an...
Security Flaws in Children's Smart Watches
The Norwegian Consumer Council has published a report detailing a series of security and privacy flaws in smart watches marketed to children. Press release. News article. This is the same group that found all those security and privacy vulnerabilities in smart dolls. EDITED TO ADD 10/21: Slashdot...
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...
Security Flaws in 4G VoLTE
Research paper: "Subscribers remote geolocation and tracking using 4G VoLTE enabled Android phone," by Patrick Ventuzelo, Olivier Le Moal, and Thomas Coudray. Abstract: VoLTE Voice over LTE is a technology implemented by many operators over the world. Unlike previous 2G/3G technologies, VoLTE...
Chelsea Manning Profiled in New York Times Magazine
Interesting reading...
Safety and Security and the Internet of Things
Ross Anderson blogged about his new paper on security and safety concerns about the Internet of Things. See also this short video. It's very much along the lines of what I've been writing...
Yacht Security
Turns out, multi-million dollar yachts are no more secure than anything else out there: The ease with which ocean-going oligarchs or other billionaires can be hijacked on the high seas was revealed at a superyacht conference held in a private members club in central London this week. ... Murray, ...
Some Claude Chats Are Searchable on Google
And it's personal information alternate link: The exposed data includes an AI-powered therapy app that someone appears to have vibe-coded, notes on meetings, and a dashboard someone made apparently to analyze medical billing data. Exposed chats reportedly include private cryptocurrency wallet key...
Protecting Privacy in an AI Era
Daniel Solove argues in the Wall Street Journal alternate link that giving people control of their personal data is not an effective way to regulate privacy in this era. Instead, we need to hold companies accountable for their actions, similar to what we do with food and drug companies. Measures...
Anthropic’s Fable 5 Model Jailbroken Within Days
Fable 5 is the supposed safe version of Anthropic's Mythos Preview, with guardrails to ensure that it can't be used to create cyberattacks. Well, that restriction was bypassed within days...
Friday Squid Blogging: Victims of Unregulated Squid Fishing
Dolphins, sharks, turtles, and human workers are all victims of unregulated squid fishing fleets. Another news article. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Blog moderation policy...
Anthropic’s Fable and the State of AI
On June 9th, Anthropic released its Fable generative AI model. Three days later, the US government classified it as a dangerous munition, and used its export-control authority to prohibit any foreign nationals from accessing it. Unable to differentiate between Americans and foreigners, the compan...