Attacking Machine Learning Systems

The field of machine learning ML security--and corresponding adversarial ML--is rapidly advancing as researchers develop sophisticated techniques to perturb, disrupt, or steal the ML model or data. It’s a heady time; because we know so little about the security of these systems, there are many...

Manipulating Weights in Face-Recognition AI Systems

Interesting research: "Facial Misrecognition Systems: Simple Weight Manipulations Force DNNs to Err Only on Specific Persons": Abstract: In this paper we describe how to plant novel types of backdoors in any facial recognition model based on the popular architecture of deep Siamese neural network...

Booklist Review of A Hacker’s Mind

Booklist reviews A Hackers Mind: Author and public-interest security technologist Schneier Data and Goliath, 2015 defines a “hack” as an activity allowed by a system “that subverts the rules or norms of the system … at the expense of someone else affected by the system.” In accessing the security...

First Review of A Hacker’s Mind

Kirkus reviews A Hackers Mind: A cybersecurity expert examines how the powerful game whatever system is put before them, leaving it to others to cover the cost. Schneier, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and author of such books as Data and Goliath and Click Here To Kill Everybody, regularly...

Another Event-Related Spyware App

Last month, we were warned not to install Qatars World Cup app because it was spyware. This month, its Egypts COP27 Summit app: The app is being promoted as a tool to help attendees navigate the event. But it risks giving the Egyptian government permission to read users emails and messages. Even...

Critical Vulnerability in Open SSL

There are no details yet, but its really important that you patch Open SSL 3.x when the new version comes out on Tuesday. How bad is "Critical"? According to OpenSSL, an issue of critical severity affects common configurations and is also likely exploitable. Its likely to be abused to disclose...

On the Randomness of Automatic Card Shufflers

Many years ago, Matt Blaze and I talked about getting our hands on a casino-grade automatic shuffler and looking for vulnerabilities. We never did it--I remember that we didnt even try very hard--but this article shows that we probably would have found non-random properties: …the executives had...

Interview with Signal’s New President

Long and interesting interview with Signals new president, Meredith Whittaker: WhatsApp uses the Signal encryption protocol to provide encryption for its messages. That was absolutely a visionary choice that Brian and his team led back in the day ­- and big props to them for doing that. But you...

Hacking Automobile Keyless Entry Systems

Suspected members of a European car-theft ring have been arrested: The criminals targeted vehicles with keyless entry and start systems, exploiting the technology to get into the car and drive away. As a result of a coordinated action carried out on 10 October in the three countries involved, 31...

Leaking Screen Information on Zoom Calls through Reflections in Eyeglasses

Okay, its an obscure threat. But people are researching it: Our models and experimental results in a controlled lab setting show it is possible to reconstruct and recognize with over 75 percent accuracy on-screen texts that have heights as small as 10 mm with a 720p webcam." That corresponds to 2...

The LockBit Ransomware Gang Is Surprisingly Professional

This article makes LockBit sound like a legitimate organization: The DDoS attack last weekend that put a temporary stop to leaking Entrust data was seen as an opportunity to explore the triple extortion tactic to apply more pressure on victims to pay a ransom. LockBitSupp said that the ransomware...

Remotely Controlling Touchscreens

This is more of a demonstration than a real-world vulnerability, but researchers can use electromagnetic interference to remotely control touchscreens. From a news article: Its important to note that the attack has a few key limitations. Firstly, the hackers need to know the targets phone passcod...

Hacking Starlink

This is the first--of many, I assume--hack of Starlink. Leveraging a string of vulnerabilities, attackers can access the Starlink system and run custom code on the devices...

Drone Deliveries into Prisons

Seems its now common to sneak contraband into prisons with a drone...

Apple’s Lockdown Mode

I havent written about Apples Lockdown Mode yet, mostly because I havent delved into the details. This is how Apple describes it: Lockdown Mode offers an extreme, optional level of security for the very few users who, because of who they are or what they do, may be personally targeted by some of...

Facebook Is Now Encrypting Links to Prevent URL Stripping

Some sites, including Facebook, add parameters to the web address for tracking purposes. These parameters have no functionality that is relevant to the user, but sites rely on them to track users across pages and properties. Mozilla introduced support for URL stripping in Firefox 102, which it...

New Browser De-anonymization Technique

Researchers have a new way to de-anonymize browser users, by correlating their behavior on one account with their behavior on another: The findings, which NJIT researchers will present at the Usenix Security Symposium in Boston next month, show how an attacker who tricks someone into loading a...

Post-Roe Privacy

This is an excellent essay outlining the post-Roe privacy threat model. Summary: period tracking apps are largely a red herring. Taken together, this means the primary digital threat for people who take abortion pills is the actual evidence of intention stored on your phone, in the form of texts,...

When Security Locks You Out of Everything

Thought experiment story of someone who lost everything in a house fire, and now cant log into anything: But to get into my cloud, I need my password and 2FA. And even if I could convince the cloud provider to bypass that and let me in, the backup is secured with a password which is stored in--yo...

Tracking People via Bluetooth on Their Phones

Weve always known that phones--and the people carrying them--can be uniquely identified from their Bluetooth signatures, and that we need security techniques to prevent that. This new research shows that thats not enough. Computer scientists at the University of California San Diego proved in a...

Hacking Tesla’s Remote Key Cards

Interesting vulnerability in Teslas NFC key cards: Martin Herfurt, a security researcher in Austria, quickly noticed something odd about the new feature: Not only did it allow the car to automatically start within 130 seconds of being unlocked with the NFC card, but it also put the car in a state...

Remotely Controlling Touchscreens

Researchers have demonstrated controlling touchscreens at a distance, at least in a laboratory setting: The core idea is to take advantage of the electromagnetic signals to execute basic touch events such as taps and swipes into targeted locations of the touchscreen with the goal of taking over...

Forging Australian Driver’s Licenses

The New South Wales digital drivers license has multiple implementation flaws that allow for easy forgeries. This file is encrypted using AES-256-CBC encryption combined with Base64 encoding. A 4-digit application PIN which gets set during the initial onboarding when a user first instals the...

Attacks on Managed Service Providers Expected to Increase

CISA, NSA, FBI, and similar organizations in the other Five Eyes countries are warning that attacks on MSPs--as a vector to their customers--are likely to increase. No details about what this prediction is based on. Makes sense, though. The SolarWinds attack was incredibly successful for the...

15.3 Million Request-Per-Second DDoS Attack

Cloudflare is reporting a large DDoS attack against an unnamed company "operating a crypto launchpad." While this isnt the largest application-layer attack weve seen, it is the largest weve seen over HTTPS. HTTPS DDoS attacks are more expensive in terms of required computational resources because...

Using Pupil Reflection in Smartphone Camera Selfies

Researchers are using the reflection of the smartphone in the pupils of faces taken as selfies to infer information about how the phone is being used: For now, the research is focusing on six different ways a user can hold a device like a smartphone: with both hands, just the left, or just the...

De-anonymizing Bitcoin

Andy Greenberg wrote a long article -- an excerpt from his new book -- on how law enforcement de-anonymized bitcoin transactions to take down a global child porn ring. Within a few years of Bitcoins arrival, academic security researchers -- and then companies like Chainalysis -- began to tear...

US Critical Infrastructure Companies Will Have to Report When They Are Hacked

This will be law soon: Companies critical to U.S. national interests will now have to report when theyre hacked or they pay ransomware, according to new rules approved by Congress. … The reporting requirement legislation was approved by the House and the Senate on Thursday and is expected to be...

Privacy Violating COVID Tests

A good lesson in reading the fine print: Cignpost Diagnostics, which trades as ExpressTest and offers £35 tests for holidaymakers, said it holds the right to analyse samples from seals to "learn more about human health" -- and sell information on to third parties. Individuals are required to give...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at IT-S Now 2022 in Vienna on June 2, 2022. I’m speaking at the 14th International Conference on Cyber Conflict, CyCon 2022, in Tallinn, Estonia on June 3, 2022. I’m speaking at the RSA Conference 2022 in San Francisco...

Linux-Targeted Malware Increased by 35%

Crowdstrike is reporting that malware targeting Linux has increased considerably in 2021: Malware targeting Linux systems increased by 35% in 2021 compared to 2020. XorDDoS, Mirai and Mozi malware families accounted for over 22% of Linux-targeted threats observed by CrowdStrike in 2021. Ten times...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m giving an online-only talk on “Securing a World of Physically Capable Computers” as part of Teleport’s Security Visionaries 2022 series, on January 18, 2022. I’m speaking at IT-S Now 2022 in Vienna on June 2, 2022. I’m speaking...

Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Art

Images of giant squid and octopi attacking. 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...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Eating Maine Shrimp

Squid are eating Maine shrimp, causing a collapse of the ecosystem. This seems to be a result of climate change. Maines shrimp fishery has been closed for nearly a decade since the stocks collapse in 2013. Scientists are now saying a species of squid that came into the Gulf of Maine during a...

Friday Squid Blogging: Person in Squid Suit Takes Dog for a Walk

No, I dont understand it, either. 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 Detail on the Juniper Hack and the NSA PRNG Backdoor

We knew the basics of this story, but its good to have more detail. Heres me in 2015 about this Juniper hack. Heres me in 2007 on the NSA backdoor...

Hacker-Themed Board Game

Black Hat is a hacker-themed board game...

Cellebrite Can Break Signal

Cellebrite announced that it can break Signal. Note that the company has heavily edited its blog post, but the original -- with lots of technical details -- was saved by the Wayback Machine. News article. Slashdot post. The whole story is puzzling. Cellebrites details will make it easier for the...

Data and Goliath Book Placement

Notice the copy of Data and Goliath just behind the head of Maine Senator Angus King. This demonstrates the importance of a vibrant color and a large font...

The Security Value of Inefficiency

For decades, we have prized efficiency in our economy. We strive for it. We reward it. In normal times, that's a good thing. Running just at the margins is efficient. A single just-in-time global supply chain is efficient. Consolidation is efficient. And that's all profitable. Inefficiency, on th...

Friday Squid Blogging: Fantastic Video of a Juvenile Giant Squid

It's amazing: Then, about 20 hours into the recording from the Medusa's fifth deployment, Dr. Robinson saw the sharp points of tentacles sneaking into the camera's view. "My heart felt like exploding," he said on Thursday, over a shaky phone connection from the ship's bridge. At first, the animal...

Stealing Nativity Displays

The New York Times is reporting on the security measures people are using to protect nativity displays...

Details on the Mirai Botnet Authors

Brian Krebs has a long article on the Mirai botnet authors, who pled guilty...

Analyzing Cyber Insurance Policies

There's a really interesting new paper analyzing over 100 different cyber insurance policies. From the abstract: In this research paper, we seek to answer fundamental questions concerning the current state of the cyber insurance market. Specifically, by collecting over 100 full insurance policies...

Cybersecurity Mission Creep in the US

Interesting paper: "Cybersecurity Mission Creep." Abstract: Cybersecurity is experiencing mission creep. Policymakers are casting more and more problems as issues of cybersecurity. So reframed, wildly different policy issues, from misinformation, to child social media safety laws, to antitrust...

The Chinese Control the Majority of Argentina’s Squid Fleet

Chinese companies control nearly two-thirds of Argentina’s own squid fleet...

AI Worm

Researchers have prototyped an AI-powered internet worm. The coolest thing about the prototype is that it carries its own LLM with it, and runs it on computers that have been broken into. This is the closest to John Brunner's original 1975 conception of a computer worm that I've seen...

Microsoft Threatening Security Researcher

An anonymous security researcher called "Nightmare Eclipse" has been publishing a series of significant security exploits against Microsoft Windows--including one that breaks BitLocker. Microsoft has threatened legal action against the researcher. Lots of recriminations are being traded back and...

Copy.Fail Linux Vulnerability

This is the worst Linux vulnerability in years. TL;DR copy.fail is a Linux kernel local privilege escalation, not a browser or clipboard attack. Disclosed by Theori on 29 April 2026 with a working PoC. It abuses the kernel crypto API AFALG sockets plus splice to write four bytes at a time straigh...

Is “Hackback” Official US Cybersecurity Strategy?

The 2026 US "Cyber Strategy for America" document is mostly the same thing we've seen out of the White House for over a decade, but with a more aggressive tone. But one sentence stood out: "We will unleash the private sector by creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and...