Largest Recorded DDoS Attack is 3.8 Tbps

Cloudflare just blocked the current record DDoS attack: 3.8 terabits per second. Lots of good information on the attack, and DDoS in general, at the link. News article...

Hacking ChatGPT by Planting False Memories into Its Data

This vulnerability hacks a feature that allows ChatGPT to have long-term memory, where it uses information from past conversations to inform future conversations with that same user. A researcher found that he could use that feature to plant "false memories" into that context window that could...

An Analysis of the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act

A good--long, complex--analysis of the EU's new Cyber Resilience Act...

Legacy Ivanti Cloud Service Appliance Being Exploited

CISA wants everyone--and government agencies in particular--to remove or upgrade an Ivanti Cloud Service Appliance CSA that is no longer being supported. Welcome to the security nightmare that is the Internet of Things...

The Present and Future of TV Surveillance

Ars Technica has a good article on whats happening in the world of television surveillance. More than even I realized...

US Federal Court Rules Against Geofence Warrants

This is a big deal. A US Appeals Court ruled that geofence warrants--these are general warrants demanding information about all people within a geographical boundary--are unconstitutional. The decision seems obvious to me, but you cant take anything for granted...

Providing Security Updates to Automobile Software

Auto manufacturers are just starting to realize the problems of supporting the software in older models: Today’s phones are able to receive updates six to eight years after their purchase date. Samsung and Google provide Android OS updates and security updates for seven years. Apple halts servici...

RADIUS Vulnerability

New attack against the RADIUS authentication protocol: The Blast-RADIUS attack allows a man-in-the-middle attacker between the RADIUS client and server to forge a valid protocol accept message in response to a failed authentication request. This forgery could give the attacker access to network...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Cartoon

Squid humor. 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...

Molly White Reviews Blockchain Book

Molly White--of "Web3 is Going Just Great" fame--reviews Chris Dixons blockchain solutions book: Read Write Own: In fact, throughout the entire book, Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service at any kind of scale. The closest he...

New Images of Colossus Released

GCHQ has released new images of the WWII Colossus code-breaking computer, celebrating the machines eightieth anniversary birthday?. News article...

AI Decides to Engage in Insider Trading

A stock-trading AI a simulated experiment engaged in insider trading, even though it "knew" it was wrong. The agent is put under pressure in three ways. First, it receives a email from its "manager" that the company is not doing well and needs better performance in the next quarter. Second, the...

French Police Will Be Able to Spy on People through Their Cell Phones

The French police are getting new surveillance powers: French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late on Wednesday, July 5. … Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well ...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at IT-S Now 2023 in Vienna, Austria, on June 2, 2023 at 8:30 AM CEST. The list is maintained on this page...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking on “How to Reclaim Power in the Digital World” at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday, March 16, 2023, at 5:30 PM CET. I’ll be discussing my new book A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules at...

NIST Is Updating Its Cybersecurity Framework

NIST is planning a significant update of its Cybersecurity Framework. At this point, its asking for feedback and comments to its concept paper. 1. Do the proposed changes reflect the current cybersecurity landscape standards, risks, and technologies? 2. Are the proposed changes sufficient and...

How to Surrender to a Drone

The Ukrainian army has released an instructional video explaining how Russian soldiers should surrender to a drone: "Seeing the drone in the field of view, make eye contact with it," the video instructs. Soldiers should then raise their arms and signal theyre ready to follow. After that the drone...

Friday Squid Blogging: Signature Steamed Giant Squid with Thai Lime Sauce

From a restaurant in Singapore. Its not actually giant squid. 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...

Wyze Camera Vulnerability

Wyze ignored a vulnerability in its home security cameras for three years. Bitdefender, who discovered the vulnerability, let the company get away with it. In case youre wondering, no, that is not normal in the security community. While experts tell me that the concept of a "responsible disclosur...

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...

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...

How the FBI Gets Location Information

Vice has a detailed article about how the FBI gets data from cell phone providers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, based on a leaked I think 2019 139-page presentation...

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...

Excellent Write-up of the SolarWinds Security Breach

Robert Chesney wrote up the Solar Winds story as a case study, and its a really good summary...

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...

2017 Tesla Hack

Interesting story of a class break against the entire Tesla fleet...

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...

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...

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...

Security Vulnerability in Apple's HomeKit

The story of the recent vulnerability in Apple's HomeKit...

Jumping Airgaps with a Laser and a Scanner

Researchers have configured two computers to talk to each other using a laser and a scanner. Scanners work by detecting reflected light on their glass pane. The light creates a charge that the scanner translates into binary, which gets converted into an image. But scanners are sensitive to any...

Tracing Spam from E-mail Headers

Interesting article from Brian Krebs...

Research on Models Engaging in Genie-Like Behavior

New paper: "Self-Jailbreaking: Language Models Can Reason Themselves Out of Safety Alignment After Benign Reasoning Training." Abstract: We discover a novel and surprising phenomenon of unintentional misalignment in reasoning language models RLMs, which we call self-jailbreaking. Specifically,...

Is Someone Hacking DoD Refrigerators?

It sure seems like it. The stores confirmed to be affected include Fort Irwin, Calif.; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; Naval Station Newport, R.I.; Columbus Air Force Base, Miss.; and Travis Air Force Base, Calif., according to announcements made online by each installatio...

Friday Squid Blogging: Arctic Bobtail Squid Video

Nice video of the Arctic bobtail squid. 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 Taxonomy of Cognitive Security

Last week, I listened to a fascinating talk by K. Melton on cognitive security, cognitive hacking, and reality pentesting. The slides from the talk are here, but--even better--Menton has a long essay laying out the basic concepts and ideas. The whole thing is important and well worth reading, and...

Friday Squid Blogging: Bioluminescent Bacteria in Squid

The Hawaiian bobtail squid has bioluminescent bacteria...

Meta’s AI Glasses and Privacy

Surprising no one, Meta's new AI glasses are a privacy disaster. I'm not sure what can be done here. This is a technology that will exist, whether we like it or not. Meanwhile, there is a new Android app that detects when there are smart glasses nearby...

US Declassifies Information on JUMPSEAT Spy Satellites

The US National Reconnaissance Office has declassified information about a fleet of spy satellites operating between 1971 and 2006. I'm actually impressed to see a declassification only two decades after decommission...

Friday Squid Blogging: New Squid Species Discovered

A new species of squid. pretends to be a plant: Scientists have filmed a never-before-seen species of deep-sea squid burying itself upside down in the seafloor--a behavior never documented in cephalopods. They captured the bizarre scene while studying the depths of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone CCZ...

1980s Hacker Manifesto

Forty years ago, The Mentor--Loyd Blankenship--published "The Conscience of a Hacker" in Phrack. You bet your ass we're all alike… we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominate...

Palo Alto Crosswalk Signals Had Default Passwords

Palo Alto's crosswalk signals were hacked last year. Turns out the city never changed the default passwords...

LinkedIn Job Scams

Interesting article on the variety of LinkedIn job scams around the world: In India, tech jobs are used as bait because the industry employs millions of people and offers high-paying roles. In Kenya, the recruitment industry is largely unorganized, so scamsters leverage fake personal referrals. I...

Using AI-Generated Images to Get Refunds

Scammers are generating images of broken merchandise in order to apply for refunds...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Camouflage

New research: Abstract: Coleoid cephalopods have the most elaborate camouflage system in the animal kingdom. This enables them to hide from or deceive both predators and prey. Most studies have focused on benthic species of octopus and cuttlefish, while studies on squid focused mainly on the...

IoT Hack

Someone hacked an Italian ferry. It looks like the malware was installed by someone on the ferry, and not remotely...

Someone Boarded a Plane at Heathrow Without a Ticket or Passport

I'm sure there's a story here: Sources say the man had tailgated his way through to security screening and passed security, meaning he was not detected carrying any banned items. The man deceived the BA check-in agent by posing as a family member who had their passports and boarding passes...

Substitution Cipher Based on The Voynich Manuscript

Here's a fun paper: "The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext": Abstract: In this article, I investigate the hypothesis that the Voynich Manuscript MS 408, Yale University Beinecke Library is compatible with being a ciphertext ...