3002 matches found
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 haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Cory Doctorow on The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Cory Doctorow has writtten an extended rebuttal of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. He summarized the argument on Twitter. Shorter summary: it's not the surveillance part, it's the fact that these companies are monopolies. I think it's both. Surveillance capitalism has some...
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...
Identifying People by Their Browsing Histories
Interesting paper: "Replication: Why We Still Can't Browse in Peace: On the Uniqueness and Reidentifiability of Web Browsing Histories": We examine the threat to individuals' privacy based on the feasibility of reidentifying users through distinctive profiles of their browsing history visible to...
DiceKeys
DiceKeys is a physical mechanism for creating and storing a 192-bit key. The idea is that you roll a special set of twenty-five dice, put them into a plastic jig, and then use an app to convert those dice into a key. You can then use that key for a variety of purposes, and regenerate it from the...
Friday Squid Blogging: Rhode Island's State Appetizer Is Calamari
Rhode Island has an official state appetizer, and it's calamari. Who knew? 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...
Yet Another Biometric: Bioacoustic Signatures
Sound waves through the body are unique enough to be a biometric: "Modeling allowed us to infer what structures or material features of the human body actually differentiated people," explains Joo Yong Sim, one of the ETRI researchers who conducted the study. "For example, we could see how the...
Copying a Key by Listening to It in Action
Researchers are using recordings of keys being used in locks to create copies. Once they have a key-insertion audio file, SpiKey's inference software gets to work filtering the signal to reveal the strong, metallic clicks as key ridges hit the lock's pins and you can hear those filtered clicks...
Using Disinformation to Cause a Blackout
Interesting paper: "How weaponizing disinformation can bring down a city's power grid": Abstract: Social media has made it possible to manipulate the masses via disinformation and fake news at an unprecedented scale. This is particularly alarming from a security perspective, as humans have proven...
Vaccine for Emotet Malware
Interesting story of a vaccine for the Emotet malware: Through trial and error and thanks to subsequent Emotet updates that refined how the new persistence mechanism worked, Quinn was able to put together a tiny PowerShell script that exploited the registry key mechanism to crash Emotet itself. T...
Robocall Results from a Telephony Honeypot
A group of researchers set up a telephony honeypot and tracked robocall behavior: NCSU researchers said they ran 66,606 telephone lines between March 2019 and January 2020, during which time they said to have received 1,481,201 unsolicited calls -- even if they never made their phone numbers publ...
Friday Squid Blogging: Editing the Squid Genome
Scientists have edited the genome of the Doryteuthis pealeii squid with CRISPR. A first. 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...
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I'm giving a keynote address at the Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Law virtual conference on September 9, 2020. The list is maintained on this page...
Drovorub Malware
The NSA and FBI have jointly disclosed Drovorub, a Russian malware suite that targets Linux. Detailed advisory. Fact sheet. News articles. Reddit thread...
UAE Hack and Leak Operations
Interesting paper on recent hack-and-leak operations attributed to the UAE: Abstract: Four hack-and-leak operations in U.S. politics between 2016 and 2019, publicly attributed to the United Arab Emirates UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, should be seen as the "simulation of scandal" -- deliberate...
Cryptanalysis of an Old Zip Encryption Algorithm
Mike Stay broke an old zipfile encryption algorithm to recover $300,000 in bitcoin. DefCon talk here...
Collecting and Selling Mobile Phone Location Data
The Wall Street Journal has an article about a company called Anomaly Six LLC that has an SDK that's used by "more than 500 mobile applications." Through that SDK, the company collects location data from users, which it then sells. Anomaly Six is a federal contractor that provides...
Smart Lock Vulnerability
Yet another Internet-connected door lock is insecure: Sold by retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Home Depot, U-Tec's $139.99 UltraLoq is marketed as a "secure and versatile smart deadbolt that offers keyless entry via your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone and code." Users can share temporary...
Friday Squid Blogging: New SQUID
There's a new SQUID: A new device that relies on flowing clouds of ultracold atoms promises potential tests of the intersection between the weirdness of the quantum world and the familiarity of the macroscopic world we experience every day. The atomtronic Superconducting QUantum Interference Devi...
The NSA on the Risks of Exposing Location Data
The NSA has issued an advisory on the risks of location data. Mitigations reduce, but do not eliminate, location tracking risks in mobile devices. Most users rely on features disabled by such mitigations, making such safeguards impractical. Users should be aware of these risks and take action bas...
Cybercrime in the Age of COVID-19
The Cambridge Cybercrime Centre has a series of papers on cybercrime during the coronavirus pandemic. EDITED TO ADD 8/12: Interpol report...
BlackBerry Phone Cracked
Australia is reporting that a BlackBerry device has been cracked after five years: An encrypted BlackBerry device that was cracked five years after it was first seized by police is poised to be the key piece of evidence in one of the state's longest-running drug importation investigations. In...
Twitter Hacker Arrested
A 17-year-old Florida boy was arrested and charged with last week's Twitter hack. News articles. Boing Boing post. Florida state attorney press release. This is a developing story. Post any additional news in the comments. EDITED TO ADD 8/1: Two others have been charged as well. EDITED TO ADD 8/1...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Proteins for a Better Face Mask
Researchers are synthesizing squid proteins to create a face mask that better survives cleaning. And you thought there was no connection between squid and COVID-19. The military thinks this might have applications for self-healing robots. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about t...
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...
Fake Stories in Real News Sites
Fireeye is reporting that a hacking group called Ghostwriter broke into the content management systems of Eastern European news sites to plant fake stories. From a Wired story: The propagandists have created and disseminated disinformation since at least March 2017, with a focus on undermining NA...
Survey of Supply Chain Attacks
The Atlantic Council has a released a report that looks at the history of computer supply chain attacks. Key trends from their summary: 1. Deep Impact from State Actors: There were at least 27 different state attacks against the software supply chain including from Russia, China, North Korea, and...
Images in Eye Reflections
In Japan, a cyberstalker located his victim by enhancing the reflections in her eye, and using that information to establish a location. Reminds me of the image enhancement scene in Blade Runner. That was science fiction, but now image resolution is so good that we have to worry about it...
Friday Squid Blogging: Introducing the Seattle Kraken
The Kraken is the name of Seattle's new NFL franchise. I have always really liked collective nouns as sports team names like the Utah Jazz or the Minnesota Wild, mostly because it's hard to describe individual players. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories ...
Update on NIST's Post-Quantum Cryptography Program
NIST has posted an update on their post-quantum cryptography program: After spending more than three years examining new approaches to encryption and data protection that could defeat an assault from a quantum computer, the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST has winnowed the 69...
Adversarial Machine Learning and the CFAA
I just co-authored a paper on the legal risks of doing machine learning research, given the current state of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Abstract: Adversarial Machine Learning is booming with ML researchers increasingly targeting commercial ML systems such as those used in Facebook, Tesla,...
Fawkes: Digital Image Cloaking
Fawkes is a system for manipulating digital images so that they aren't recognized by facial recognition systems. At a high level, Fawkes takes your personal images, and makes tiny, pixel-level changes to them that are invisible to the human eye, in a process we call image cloaking. You can then u...
Hacking a Power Supply
This hack targets the firmware on modern power supplies. Yes, power supplies are also computers. Normally, when a phone is connected to a power brick with support for fast charging, the phone and the power adapter communicate with each other to determine the proper amount of electricity that can ...
On the Twitter Hack
Twitter was hacked this week. Not a few people's Twitter accounts, but all of Twitter. Someone compromised the entire Twitter network, probably by stealing the log-in credentials of one of Twitter's system administrators. Those are the people trusted to ensure that Twitter functions smoothly. The...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Found on Provincetown Sandbar
Headline: "Dozens of squid found on Provincetown sandbar." Slow news day. 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...
Twitter Hackers May Have Bribed an Insider
Motherboard is reporting that this week's Twitter hack involved a bribed insider. Twitter has denied it. I have been taking press calls all day about this. And while I know everyone wants to speculate about the details of the hack, we just don't know -- and probably won't for a couple of weeks...
NSA on Securing VPNs
The NSA's Central Security Service -- that's the part that's supposed to work on defense -- has released two documents a full and an abridged version on securing virtual private networks. Some of it is basic, but it contains good information. Maintaining a secure VPN tunnel can be complex and...
Enigma Machine for Sale
A four-rotor Enigma machine -- with rotors -- is up for auction...
A Peek into the Fake Review Marketplace
A personal account of someone who was paid to buy products on Amazon and leave fake reviews. Fake reviews are one of the problems that everyone knows about, and no one knows what to do about -- so we all try to pretend doesn't exist...
Friday Squid Blogging: China Closing Its Squid Spawning Grounds
China is prohibiting squid fishing in two areas -- both in international waters -- for two seasons, to give squid time to recover and reproduce. This is the first time China has voluntarily imposed a closed season on the high seas. Some experts regard it as an important step forward in China's...
EFF's 30th Anniversary Livestream
It's the EFF's 30th birthday, and the organization is having a celebratory livestream today from 3:00 to 10:00 pm PDT. There are a lot of interesting discussions and things. I am having a fireside chat at 4:10 pm PDT to talk about the Crypto Wars and more. Stop by. And thank you for supporting EF...
Business Email Compromise (BEC) Criminal Ring
A criminal group called Cosmic Lynx seems to be based in Russia: Dubbed Cosmic Lynx, the group has carried out more than 200 BEC campaigns since July 2019, according to researchers from the email security firm Agari, particularly targeting senior executives at large organizations and corporations...
Traffic Analysis of Home Security Cameras
Interesting research on home security cameras with cloud storage. Basically, attackers can learn very basic information about what's going on in front of the camera, and infer when there is someone home. News article. Slashdot thread...
Half a Million IoT Passwords Leaked
It is amazing that this sort of thing can still happen: ...the list was compiled by scanning the entire internet for devices that were exposing their Telnet port. The hacker then tried using 1 factory-set default usernames and passwords, or 2 custom, but easy-to-guess password combinations. Telne...