Ubuntu Disables Spectre/Meltdown Protections

Posted on By infossl
cyberattack, malware, operating systems, Security technology, Uncategorized

A whole class of speculative execution attacks against CPUs were published in 2018. They seemed pretty catastrophic at the time. But the fixes were as well. Speculative execution was a way to speed up CPUs, and removing those enhancements resulted in significant performance drops. Now, people are rethinking the trade-off. Ubuntu has disabled some protections, … Read More “Ubuntu Disables Spectre/Meltdown Protections” »

How Cybersecurity Fears Affect Confidence in Voting Systems

Posted on By infossl
cyberattack, democracy, essays, Security technology, trust, Uncategorized, voting

American democracy runs on trust, and that trust is cracking. Nearly half of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, question whether elections are conducted fairly. Some voters accept election results only when their side wins. The problem isn’t just political polarization—it’s a creeping erosion of trust in the machinery of democracy itself. Commentators blame ideological tribalism, … Read More “How Cybersecurity Fears Affect Confidence in Voting Systems” »

The Age of Integrity

Posted on By infossl
AI, LLM, Security technology, Uncategorized

We need to talk about data integrity. Narrowly, the term refers to ensuring that data isn’t tampered with, either in transit or in storage. Manipulating account balances in bank databases, removing entries from criminal records, and murder by removing notations about allergies from medical records are all integrity attacks. More broadly, integrity refers to ensuring … Read More “The Age of Integrity” »

White House Bans WhatsApp

Posted on By infossl
cybersecurity, Meta, national security policy, Security technology, Uncategorized, whatsapp

Reuters is reporting that the White House has banned WhatsApp on all employee devices: The notice said the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.” TechCrunch … Read More “White House Bans WhatsApp” »

What LLMs Know About Their Users

Posted on By infossl
AI, data collection, data privacy, LLM, Security technology, surveillance, Uncategorized

Simon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all. Here’s a prompt you can use to give you a solid idea of what’s in that summary. I first saw … Read More “What LLMs Know About Their Users” »

Largest DDoS Attack to Date

Posted on By infossl
cyberattack, denial of service, Security technology, Uncategorized

It was a recently unimaginable 7.3 Tbps: The vast majority of the attack was delivered in the form of User Datagram Protocol packets. Legitimate UDP-based transmissions are used in especially time-sensitive communications, such as those for video playback, gaming applications, and DNS lookups. It speeds up communications by not formally establishing a connection before data … Read More “Largest DDoS Attack to Date” »