Corporate Involvement in International Cybersecurity Treaties

The Paris Call for Trust and Stability in Cyberspace is an initiative launched by French President Emmanuel Macron during the 2018 UNESCO’s Internet Governance Forum. It’s an attempt by the worlds governments to come together and create a set of international norms and standards for a reliable,...

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Are on the Rise

Both Google and Mandiant are reporting a significant increase in the number of zero-day vulnerabilities reported in 2021. Google: 2021 included the detection and disclosure of 58 in-the-wild 0-days, the most ever recorded since Project Zero began tracking in mid-2014. That’s more than double the...

Java Cryptography Implementation Mistake Allows Digital-Signature Forgeries

Interesting implementation mistake: The vulnerability, which Oracle patched on Tuesday, affects the company’s implementation of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm in Java versions 15 and above. ECDSA is an algorithm that uses the principles of elliptic curve cryptography to authentica...

Stalking with an Apple Watch

The malicious uses of these technologies are scary: Police reportedly arrived on the scene last week and found the man crouched beside the womans passenger side door. According to the police, the man had, at some point, wrapped his Apple Watch across the spokes of the womans passenger side front...

Using Radar to Read Body Language

Yet another method of surveillance: Radar can detect you moving closer to a computer and entering its personal space. This might mean the computer can then choose to perform certain actions, like booting up the screen without requiring you to press a button. This kind of interaction already exist...

Interview with the Head of the NSA’s Research Directorate

MIT Technology Review published an interview with Gil Herrera, the new head of the NSAs Research Directorate. Theres a lot of talk about quantum computing, monitoring 5G networks, and the problems of big data: The math department, often in conjunction with the computer science department, helps...

Me on App Store Monopolies and Security

There are two bills working their way through Congress that would force companies like Apple to allow competitive app stores. Apple hates this, since it would break its monopoly, and its making a variety of security arguments to bolster its argument. I have written a rebuttal: I would like to...

Friday Squid Blogging: Cephalopods Thirty Million Years Older Than Previously Thought

New fossils from Newfoundland push the origins of cephalopods to 522 million years ago. 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...

San Francisco Police Illegally Spying on Protesters

Last summer, the San Francisco police illegally used surveillance cameras at the George Floyd protests. The EFF is suing the police: This surveillance invaded the privacy of protesters, targeted people of color, and chills and deters participation and organizing for future protests. The SFPD also...

Fake QR Codes on Parking Meters

The City of Austin is warning about QR codes stuck to parking meters that take people to fraudulent payment sites...

Google Shuts Down Glupteba Botnet, Sues Operators

Google took steps to shut down the Glupteba botnet, at least for now. The botnet uses the bitcoin blockchain as a backup command-and-control mechanism, making it hard to get rid of it permanently. So Google is also suing the botnets operators. Its an interesting strategy. Lets see if its successf...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squeeze the Squid

Squeeze the Squid is a band. It just released its second album. 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...

Intel Is Maintaining Legacy Technology for Security Research

Interesting: Intel’s issue reflects a wider concern: Legacy technology can introduce cybersecurity weaknesses. Tech makers constantly improve their products to take advantage of speed and power increases, but customers don’t always upgrade at the same pace. This creates a long tail of old product...

Friday Squid Blogging: Bigfin Squid Captured on Video

"Eerie video captures elusive, alien-like squid gliding in the Gulf of Mexico." 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 Game Cryptocurrency Was a Scam

The Squid Game cryptocurrency was a complete scam: The SQUID cryptocurrency peaked at a price of $2,861 before plummeting to $0 around 5:40 a.m. ET., according to the website CoinMarketCap. This kind of theft, commonly called a "rug pull" by crypto investors, happens when the creators of the cryp...

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...

Missouri Governor Doesn’t Understand Responsible Disclosure

The Missouri governor wants to prosecute the reporter who discovered a security vulnerability in a states website, and then reported it to the state. The newspaper agreed to hold off publishing any story while the department fixed the problem and protected the private information of teachers arou...

Airline Passenger Mistakes Vintage Camera for a Bomb

I feel sorry for the accused: The "security incident" that forced a New-York bound flight to make an emergency landing at LaGuardia Airport on Saturday turned out to be a misunderstanding -- after an airline passenger mistook another travelers camera for a bomb, sources said Sunday. American...

The European Parliament Voted to Ban Remote Biometric Surveillance

Its not actually banned in the EU yet -- the legislative process is much more complicated than that -- but its a step: a total ban on biometric mass surveillance. To respect "privacy and human dignity," MEPs said that EU lawmakers should pass a permanent ban on the automated recognition of...

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...

Details of the Recent T-Mobile Breach

Seems that 47 million customers were affected. Surprising no one, T-Mobile had awful security. Ive lost count of how many times T-Mobile has been hacked...

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...

Hacking AI-Graded Tests

The company Edgenuity sells AI systems for grading tests. Turns out that they just search for keywords without doing any actual semantic analysis...

Insider Attack on the Carnegie Library

Greg Priore, the person in charge of the rare book room at the Carnegie Library, stole from it for almost two decades before getting caught. Its a perennial problem: trusted insiders have to be trusted...

Seny Kamara on "Crypto for the People"

Seny Kamara gave an excellent keynote talk this year at the online CRYPTO Conference. He talked about solving real-world crypto problems for marginalized communities around the world, instead of crypto problems for governments and corporations. Well worth watching and listening to...

Friday Squid Blogging: How Squid Survive Freezing, Oxygen-Deprived Waters

Lots of interesting genetic details. 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...

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...

Amazon Supplier Fraud

Interesting story of an Amazon supplier fraud: According to the indictment, the brothers swapped ASINs for items Amazon ordered to send large quantities of different goods instead. In one instance, Amazon ordered 12 canisters of disinfectant spray costing $94.03. The defendants allegedly shipped...

Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France SIGINT Alliance

This paper describes a SIGINT and code-breaking alliance between Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France called Maximator: Abstract: This article is first to report on the secret European five-partner sigint alliance Maximator that started in the late 1970s. It discloses the name...

Friday Squid Blogging: New Squid Species off the New Zealand Coast

There's a new diversity of species. 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...

New Report on Police Digital Forensics Techniques

According to a new CSIS report, "going dark" is not the most pressing problem facing law enforcement in the age of digital data: Over the past year, we conducted a series of interviews with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials, attorneys, service providers, and civil society groups...

Third Annual Cybercrime Conference

Ross Anderson liveblogged the Third Annual Cybercrime Conference...

Sensitive Super Bowl Security Documents Left on an Airplane

A CNN reporter found some sensitive -- but, technically, not classified -- documents about Super Bowl security in the front pocket of an airplane seat...

Lessons Learned from the Estonian National ID Security Flaw

Estonia recently suffered a major flaw in the security of their national ID card. This article discusses the fix and the lessons learned from the incident: In the future, the infrastructure dependency on one digital identity platform must be decreased, the use of several alternatives must be...

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...

Reading Analytics and Privacy

Interesting paper: "The rise of reading analytics and the emerging calculus of reading privacy in the digital world," by Clifford Lynch: Abstract: This paper studies emerging technologies for tracking reading behaviors "reading analytics" and their implications for reader privacy, attempting to...

AI Agents Are Now Emailing Me with Their Security Concerns

I received the two emails below earlier in the month. They're vaguely coherent. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the corpus that AIs are training on contain data suggesting that I am someone to write to with random computer and network security problems. After all, I observe that behavior ...

If the Markets Reject OpenAI and Anthropic, the US Should Nationalize Them

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared inThe Guardian. OpenAI, and then Anthropic, were each formed by AI developers who feared unrestrained corporate AI development--specifically, that companies like Google and Meta would steer the technology towards deleterious,...

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...

Meta Is Testing Facial Recognition for Police and Military

We know that ICE wants to deploy eyeglasses with facial recognition that can identify people in real time. Turns out Meta is prototyping the feature with a Pentagon supplier. Alternate news story...

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...

On Anthropic’s Mythos Preview and Project Glasswing

The cybersecurity industry is obsessing over Anthropic's new model, Claude Mythos Preview, and its effects on cybersecurity. Anthropic said that it is not releasing it to the general public because of its cyberattack capabilities, and has launched Project Glasswing to run the model against a whol...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Overfishing in the South Pacific

Regulation is hard: The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization SPRFMO oversees fishing across roughly 59 million square kilometers 22 million square miles of the South Pacific high seas, trying to impose order on a region double the size of Africa, where distant-water fleets...

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...

Possible US Government iPhone Hacking Tool Leaked

Wired writes alternate source: Security researchers at Google on Tuesday released a report describing what they're calling "Coruna," a highly sophisticated iPhone hacking toolkit that includes five complete hacking techniques capable of bypassing all the defenses of an iPhone to silently install...

Apple’s Camera Indicator Lights

A thoughtful review of Apple's system to alert users that the camera is on. It's really well-designed, and important in a world where malware could surreptitiously start recording. The reason it's tempting to think that a dedicated camera indicator light is more secure than an on-display indicato...

Friday Squid Blogging: Jumbo Flying Squid in the South Pacific

The population needs better conservation. 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...