Adversarial ML Attack that Secretly Gives a Language Model a Point of View

Machine learning security is extraordinarily difficult because the attacks are so varied--and it seems that each new one is weirder than the next. Heres the latest: a training-time attack that forces the model to exhibit a point of view: Spinning Language Models: Risks of Propaganda-As-A-Service...

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...

Museum Security

Interesting interview: Banks dont take millions of dollars and put them in plastic bags and hang them on the wall so everybody can walk right up to them. But we do basically the same thing in museums and hang the assets right out on the wall. So its our job, then, to either use technology or...

Qatar Spyware

Everyone visiting Qatar for the World Cup needs to install spyware on their phone. Everyone travelling to Qatar during the football World Cup will be asked to download two apps called Ehteraz and Hayya. Briefly, Ehteraz is an covid-19 tracking app, while Hayya is an official World Cup app used to...

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...

Friday Squid Blogging: On Squid Ink

Its aimed at children, but its a good primer. 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...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at the World Ethical Data Forum, online, October 26-28, 2022. I’m speaking at the 24th International Information Security Conference in Madrid, Spain, on November 17, 2022. The list is maintained on this page...

Regulating DAOs

In August, the US Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC sanctioned the cryptocurrency platform Tornado Cash, a virtual currency "mixer" designed to make it harder to trace cryptocurrency transactions--and a worldwide favorite money-laundering platform. Americans are now forbidden from...

Digital License Plates

California just legalized digital license plates, which seems like a solution without a problem. The Rplate can reportedly function in extreme temperatures, has some customization features, and is managed via Bluetooth using a smartphone app. Rplates are also equipped with an LTE antenna, which c...

Recovering Passwords by Measuring Residual Heat

Researchers have used thermal cameras and ML guessing techniques to recover passwords from measuring the residual heat left by fingers on keyboards. From the abstract: We detail the implementation of ThermoSecure and make a dataset of 1,500 thermal images of keyboards with heat traces resulting...

Inserting a Backdoor into a Machine-Learning System

Interesting research: "ImpNet: Imperceptible and blackbox-undetectable backdoors in compiled neural networks, by Tim Clifford, Ilia Shumailov, Yiren Zhao, Ross Anderson, and Robert Mullins: Abstract: Early backdoor attacks against machine learning set off an arms race in attack and defence...

Complex Impersonation Story

This is a story of one piece of what is probably a complex employment scam. Basically, real programmers are having their resumes copied and co-opted by scammers, who apply for jobs or, I suppose, get recruited from various job sites, then hire other people with Western looks and language skills a...

Friday Squid Blogging: Emotional Support Squid

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a video--"2 Hours Of Squid To Relax/Study/Work To"--with 2.4 million views. 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...

Spyware Maker Intellexa Sued by Journalist

The Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was spied on by his own government, with a commercial spyware product called "Predator." That product is sold by a company in North Macedonia called Cytrox, which is in turn owned by an Israeli company called Intellexa. Koukakis is suing Intellexa. The lawsu...

October Is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

For the past nineteen years, October has been Cybersecurity Awareness Month here in the US, and that event that has always been part advice and part ridicule. I tend to fall on the apathy end of the spectrum; I dont think Ive ever mentioned it before. But the memes can be funny. Heres a decent...

NSA Employee Charged with Espionage

An ex-NSA employee has been charged with trying to sell classified data to the Russians but instead actually talking to an undercover FBI agent. Its a weird story, and the FBI affidavit raises more questions than it answers. The employee only worked for the NSA for three weeks--which is weird in...

Detecting Deepfake Audio by Modeling the Human Acoustic Tract

This is interesting research: In this paper, we develop a new mechanism for detecting audio deepfakes using techniques from the field of articulatory phonetics. Specifically, we apply fluid dynamics to estimate the arrangement of the human vocal tract during speech generation and show that...

Friday Squid Blogging: Breeding the Oval Squid

Japanese scientists are trying to breed the oval squid in captivity. 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...

Security Vulnerabilities in Covert CIA Websites

Back in 2018, we learned that covert system of websites that the CIA used for communications was compromised by--at least--China and Iran, and that the blunder caused a bunch of arrests, imprisonments, and executions. Were now learning that the CIA is still "using an irresponsibly secured system...

Differences in App Security/Privacy Based on Country

Depending on where you are when you download your Android apps, it might collect more or less data about you. The apps we downloaded from Google Play also showed differences based on country in their security and privacy capabilities. One hundred twenty-seven apps varied in what the apps were...

Cold War Bugging of Soviet Facilities

Found documents in Poland detail US spying operations against the former Soviet Union. The file details a number of bugs found at Soviet diplomatic facilities in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, as well as in a Russian government-owned vacation compound, apartments used by Russia...

New Report on IoT Security

The Atlantic Council has published a report on securing the Internet of Things: "Security in the Billions: Toward a Multinational Strategy to Better Secure the IoT Ecosystem." The report examines the regulatory approaches taken by four countries--the US, the UK, Australia, and Singapore--to secur...

Leaking Passwords through the Spellchecker

Sometimes browser spellcheckers leak passwords: When using major web browsers like Chrome and Edge, your form data is transmitted to Google and Microsoft, respectively, should enhanced spellcheck features be enabled. Depending on the website you visit, the form data may itself include...

Friday Squid Blogging: Another Giant Squid Washes Up on New Zealand Beach

This one has chewed-up tentacles. Note that this is a different squid than the one that recently washed up on a South African beach. 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...

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...

Prompt Injection/Extraction Attacks against AI Systems

This is an interesting attack I had not previously considered. The variants are interesting, and I think were just starting to understand their implications...

Automatic Cheating Detection in Human Racing

This is a fascinating glimpse of the future of automatic cheating detection in sports: Maybe you heard about the truly insane false-start controversy in track and field? Devon Allen--a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles--was disqualified from the 110-meter hurdles at the World Athletics...

Credit Card Fraud That Bypasses 2FA

Someone in the UK is stealing smartphones and credit cards from people who have stored them in gym lockers, and is using the two items in combination to commit fraud: Phones, of course, can be made inaccessible with the use of passwords and face or fingerprint unlocking. And bank cards can be...

Large-Scale Collection of Cell Phone Data at US Borders

The Washington Post is reporting that the US Customs and Border Protection agency is seizing and copying cell phone, tablet, and computer data from "as many as" 10,000 phones per year, including an unspecified number of American citizens. This is done without a warrant, because "…courts have long...

Friday Squid Blogging: Mayfly Squid

This is surprisingly funny. 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...

Massive Data Breach at Uber

Its big: The breach appeared to have compromised many of Ubers internal systems, and a person claiming responsibility for the hack sent images of email, cloud storage and code repositories to cybersecurity researchers and The New York Times. "They pretty much have full access to Uber," said Sam...

Relay Attack against Teslas

Nice work: Radio relay attacks are technically complicated to execute, but conceptually easy to understand: attackers simply extend the range of your existing key using what is essentially a high-tech walkie-talkie. One thief stands near you while youre in the grocery store, intercepting your key...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: Im speaking as part of a Geneva Centre for Security Policy course on Cyber Security in the Context of International Security, online, on September 22, 2022. Im speaking at IT-Security INSIDE 2022 in Zurich, Switzerland, on Septembe...

Weird Fallout from Peiter Zatko’s Twitter Whistleblowing

People are trying to dig up dirt on Peiter Zatko, better known as Mudge. For the record, I have not been contacted. Im not sure if I should feel slighted...

FBI Seizes Stolen Cryptocurrencies

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the FBI has recovered over $30 million in cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers earlier this year. Its only a fraction of the $540 million stolen, but its something. The Axie Infinity recovery represents a shift in law enforcements ability to trac...

New Linux Cryptomining Malware

Its pretty nasty: The malware was dubbed "Shikitega" for its extensive use of the popular Shikata Ga Nai polymorphic encoder, which allows the malware to "mutate" its code to avoid detection. Shikitega alters its code each time it runs through one of several decoding loops that AT&T said each...

Friday Squid Blogging: Colossal Squid in New Zealand Museum

Its in Timaru. 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...

Responsible Disclosure for Cryptocurrency Security

Stewart Baker discusses why the industry-norm responsible disclosure for software vulnerabilities fails for cryptocurrency software. Why can’t the cryptocurrency industry solve the problem the way the software and hardware industries do, by patching and updating security as flaws are found? Two...

Facebook Has No Idea What Data It Has

This is from a court deposition: Facebooks stonewalling has been revealing on its own, providing variations on the same theme: It has amassed so much data on so many billions of people and organized it so confusingly that full transparency is impossible on a technical level. In the March 2022...

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...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Images

iStock has over 13,000 royalty-free images of squid. 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...

Montenegro Is the Victim of a Cyberattack

Details are few, but Montenegro has suffered a cyberattack: A combination of ransomware and distributed denial-of-service attacks, the onslaught disrupted government services and prompted the country’s electrical utility to switch to manual control. … But the attack against Montenegro’s...

Clever Phishing Scam Uses Legitimate PayPal Messages

Brian Krebs is reporting on a clever PayPal phishing scam that uses legitimate PayPal messaging. Basically, the scammers use the PayPal invoicing system to send the email. The email lists a phone number to dispute the charge, which is not PayPal and quickly turns into a request to download and...

High-School Graduation Prank Hack

This is a fun story, detailing the hack a group of high school students perpetrated against an Illinois school district, hacking 500 screens across a bunch of schools. During the process, the group broke into the school’s IT systems; repurposed software used to monitor students’ computers;...

FTC Sues Data Broker

This is good news: The Federal Trade Commission FTC has sued Kochava, a large location data provider, for allegedly selling data that the FTC says can track people at reproductive health clinics and places of worship, according to an announcement from the agency. "Defendants violations are in...

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...

Friday Squid Blogging: 14-foot Giant Squid Washes Ashore in Cape Town

Its an Architeuthis dux, the second this year. 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...

Security and Cheap Complexity

Ive been saying that complexity is the worst enemy of security for a long time now. Heres me in 1999. And its been true for a long time. In 2018, Thomas Dullien of Googles Project Zero talked about "cheap complexity." Andrew Appel summarizes: The anomaly of cheap complexity. For most of human...

Man-in-the-Middle Phishing Attack

Heres a phishing campaign that uses a man-in-the-middle attack to defeat multi-factor authentication: Microsoft observed a campaign that inserted an attacker-controlled proxy site between the account users and the work server they attempted to log into. When the user entered a password into the...

Mudge Files Whistleblower Complaint against Twitter

Peiter Zatko, aka Mudge, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC against Twitter, claiming that they violated an eleven-year-old FTC settlement by having lousy security. And he should know; he was Twitters chief security officer until he was fired in January. The Washington Post has the...