US Blacklists NSO Group

The Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer -- and human rights violator, and probably war criminal -- NSO Group has been added to the US Department of Commerces trade blacklist. US companies and individuals cannot sell to them. Aside from the obvious difficulties this causes, itll make it harder...

On Cell Phone Metadata

Interesting Twitter thread on how cell phone metadata can be used to identify and track people who dont want to be identified and tracked...

Tracking Stolen Cryptocurrencies

Good article about the current state of cryptocurrency forensics...

Tracking People by their MAC Addresses

Yet another article on the privacy risks of static MAC addresses and always-on Bluetooth connections. This one is about wireless headphones. The good news is that product vendors are fixing this: Several of the headphones which could be tracked over time are for sale in electronics stores, but...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Communication

Interesting article on squid communication. 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...

Double-Encrypting Ransomware

This seems to be a new tactic: Emsisoft has identified two distinct tactics. In the first, hackers encrypt data with ransomware A and then re-encrypt that data with ransomware B. The other path involves what Emsisoft calls a "side-by-side encryption" attack, in which attacks encrypt some of an...

Schneier.com is Moving

Im switching my website software from Movable Type to WordPress, and moving to a new host. The migration is expected to last from approximately 3 AM EST Monday until 4 PM EST Tuesday. The site will still be visible during that time, but comments will be disabled. This is to prevent any new commen...

US Postal Service Files Blockchain Voting Patent

The US Postal Service has filed a patent on a blockchain voting method: Abstract: A voting system can use the security of blockchain and the mail to provide a reliable voting system. A registered voter receives a computer readable code in the mail and confirms identity and confirms correct ballot...

ICT Supply-Chain Security

The Carnegie Endowment for Peace published a comprehensive report on ICT information and communication technologies supply-chain security and integrity. It's a good read, but nothing that those who are following this issue don't already know...

Detecting Laptop Tampering

Micah Lee ran a two-year experiment designed to detect whether or not his laptop was ever tampered with. The results are inconclusive, but demonstrate how difficult it can be to detect laptop tampering...

GCHQ Found -- and Disclosed -- a Windows 10 Vulnerability

Now this is good news. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre NCSC -- part of GCHQ -- found a serious vulnerability in Windows Defender their anti-virus component. Instead of keeping it secret and all of us vulnerable, it alerted Microsoft. I'd like believe the US does this, too...

Hacking Fingerprint Readers with Master Prints

There's interesting research on using a set of "master" digital fingerprints to fool biometric readers. The work is theoretical at the moment, but they might be able to open about two-thirds of iPhones with these master prints. Definitely something to keep watching. Research paper behind a paywal...

Using a VM to Contain an AI Agent

It won't work: My suspicion was that GPT 5.6-Cyber would succeed, but the frequency and manner of its success removed all doubt. We have to reassess sandboxing quality for capable AI agents, and in general the software stack with which they interact. An off-the-shelf VM is not enough to contain a...

Hiding Prompt Injection in Legal Filing

Someone hid AI instructions into a legal filing. Alternate link...

ICE Is Buying Access to Credit Card Records

Through data brokers, ICE is buying the information you provided to open a credit card...

Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide

This essay originally appeared inThe Guardian. I teach public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And it will come as no surprise to you that my students regularly use AI to complete their writing assignments. Doing so is a waste of their tuition...

Long-Lived Vulnerability in Microsoft Secure Boot

Microsoft's Secure Boot has had a serious vulnerability for most of its existence. An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux, devices from firmware infections has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years of existence. The discovery was made by researche...

Axon Is Another License Plate Surveillance Company

Governments are switching, but I'm not sure it makes a difference: …some municipalities, including Denver, Colorado, are ditching their Flock arrays. But keep in mind that if they're only switching from Flock to another brand of license-plate readers, like Axon, it's like a gambling addict trying...

End-to-End Encryption and “Going Dark”

New paper: "Encryption and Globalization 15 Years Later: End-to-End Encryption and the Third Round of the 'Going Dark' Debate": Abstract : This Article updates and expands on 2012 research on encryption and globalization, analyzing what the authors call "Round 3" of the Going Dark Debate: the...

Embedding Forbidden Text in Spyware to Discourage AI Analysis

At least one malware developer is adding text about nuclear and biological weapons to their spyware, in an effort to stop automatic AI analysis. Details: The index.js payload begins with a large JavaScript block comment containing fake system instructions and policy-triggering content. Because it...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at DemocracyXChange 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 18, 2026. I’m speaking at the SANS AI Cybersecurity Summit 2026 in Arlington, Virginia, USA, at 9:40 AM ET on April 20, 2026. I'm speaking at the Greater...

Python Supply-Chain Compromise

This is news: A malicious supply chain compromise has been identified in the Python Package Index package litellm version 1.82.8. The published wheel contains a malicious .pth file litellminit.pth, 34,628 bytes which is automatically executed by the Python interpreter on every startup, without...

US Bans All Foreign-Made Consumer Routers

This is for new routers; you don't have to throw away your existing ones: The Executive Branch determination noted that foreign-produced routers 1 introduce "a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense" and 2 pose "a severe...

Possible New Result in Quantum Factorization

I'm skeptical about--and not qualified to review--this new result in factorization with a quantum computer, but if it's true it's a theoretical improvement in the speed of factoring large numbers with a quantum computer...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Fishing Tips

This is a video of advice for squid fishing in Puget Sound. 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...

Microsoft is Giving the FBI BitLocker Keys

Microsoft gives the FBI the ability to decrypt BitLocker in response to court orders: about twenty times per year. It's possible for users to store those keys on a device they own, but Microsoft also recommends BitLocker users store their keys on its servers for convenience. While that means...

The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants. The case centers on the trial of Okello Chatrie, a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to a 2019 robbery outside of Richmond and was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison for stealing $195,000 at gunpoint. Police probing...

Ireland Proposes Giving Police New Digital Surveillance Powers

This is coming: The Irish government is planning to bolster its police's ability to intercept communications, including encrypted messages, and provide a legal basis for spyware use...

Internet Voting is Too Insecure for Use in Elections

No matter how many times we say it, the idea comes back again and again. Hopefully, this letter will hold back the tide for at least a while longer. Executive summary: Scientists have understood for many years that internet voting is insecure and that there is no known or foreseeable technology...

AI and the Corporate Capture of Knowledge

More than a decade after Aaron Swartz's death, the United States is still living inside the contradiction that destroyed him. Swartz believed that knowledge, especially publicly funded knowledge, should be freely accessible. Acting on that, he downloaded thousands of academic articles from the...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, on January 27, 2026, at 1:30 PM ET. I’m speaking at the Université de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on January 29, 2026, at 4:00...

Friday Squid Blogging: The Chinese Squid-Fishing Fleet off the Argentine Coast

The latest article on this topic. 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...

A Cyberattack Was Part of the US Assault on Venezuela

We don't have many details: President Donald Trump suggested Saturday that the U.S. used cyberattacks or other technical capabilities to cut power off in Caracas during strikes on the Venezuelan capital that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. If true, it would mark one of...

Telegram Hosting World’s Largest Darknet Market

Wired is reporting on Chinese darknet markets on Telegram. The ecosystem of marketplaces for Chinese-speaking crypto scammers hosted on the messaging service Telegram have now grown to be bigger than ever before, according to a new analysis from the crypto tracing firm Elliptic. Despite a brief...

Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence AI overlords are a common trope in science-fiction dystopias, but the reality looks much more prosaic. The technologies of artificial intelligence are already pervading many aspects of democratic government, affecting our lives in ways both large and small. This has occurr...

Deliberate Internet Shutdowns

For two days in September, Afghanistan had no internet. No satellite failed; no cable was cut. This was a deliberate outage, mandated by the Taliban government. It followed a more localized shutdown two weeks prior, reportedly instituted "to prevent immoral activities." No additional explanation...

Chinese Surveillance and AI

New report: "The Party's AI: How China's New AI Systems are Reshaping Human Rights." From a summary article: China is already the world's largest exporter of AI powered surveillance technology; new surveillance technologies and platforms developed in China are also not likely to simply stay there...

Like Social Media, AI Requires Difficult Choices

In his 2020 book, "Future Politics , " British barrister Jamie Susskind wrote that the dominant question of the 20th century was "How much of our collective life should be determined by the state, and what should be left to the market and civil society?" But in the early decades of this century,...

AI and Voter Engagement

Social media has been a familiar, even mundane, part of life for nearly two decades. It can be easy to forget it was not always that way. In 2008, social media was just emerging into the mainstream. Facebook reached 100 million users that summer. And a singular candidate was integrating social...

More Prompt||GTFO

The next three in this series on online events highlighting interesting uses of AI in cybersecurity are online: 4, 5, and 6. Well worth watching...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: My coauthor Nathan E. Sanders and I are speaking at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC at noon ET on November 17, 2025. The event is hosted by the POPVOX Foundation and the topic is “AI and Congress: Practical Step...

New Attacks Against Secure Enclaves

Encryption can protect data at rest and data in transit, but does nothing for data in use. What we have are secure enclaves. I've written about this before: Almost all cloud services have to perform some computation on our data. Even the simplest storage provider has code to copy bytes from an...

The AI-Designed Bioweapon Arms Race

Interesting article about the arms race between AI systems that invent/design new biological pathogens, and AI systems that detect them before they're created: The team started with a basic test: use AI tools to design variants of the toxin ricin, then test them against the software that is used ...

A Cybersecurity Merit Badge

Scouting America formerly known as Boy Scouts has a new badge in cybersecurity. There's an image in the article; it looks good. I want one...

Agentic AI’s OODA Loop Problem

The OODA loop --for observe, orient, decide, act--is a framework to understand decision-making in adversarial situations. We apply the same framework to artificial intelligence agents, who have to make their decisions with untrustworthy observations and orientation. To solve this problem, we need...

Daniel Miessler on the AI Attack/Defense Balance

His conclusion: Context wins Basically whoever can see the most about the target, and can hold that picture in their mind the best, will be best at finding the vulnerabilities the fastest and taking advantage of them. Or, as the defender, applying patches or mitigations the fastest. And if you’re...

Apple’s New Memory Integrity Enforcement

Apple has introduced a new hardware/software security feature in the iPhone 17: "Memory Integrity Enforcement," targeting the memory safety vulnerabilities that spyware products like Pegasus tend to use to get unauthorized system access. From Wired: In recent years, a movement has been steadily...

Details About Chinese Surveillance and Propaganda Companies

Details from leaked documents: While people often look at China’s Great Firewall as a single, all-powerful government system unique to China, the actual process of developing and maintaining it works the same way as surveillance technology in the West. Geedge collaborates with academic institutio...

Microsoft Still Uses RC4

Senator Ron Wyden has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Microsoft over its continued use of the RC4 encryption algorithm. The letter talks about a hacker technique called Kerberoasting, that exploits the Kerberos authentication system...

New Cryptanalysis of the Fiat-Shamir Protocol

A couple of months ago, a new paper demonstrated some new attacks against the Fiat-Shamir transformation. Quanta published a good article that explains the results. This is a pretty exciting paper from a theoretical perspective, but I don't see it leading to any practical real-world cryptanalysis...