Security technology, squid
Flying squid are real. 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. Powered by WPeMatico
Month: May 2018
authentication, fraud, identitytheft, mail, Security technology
Someone changed the address of UPS corporate headquarters to his own apartment in Chicago. The company discovered it three months later. The problem, of course, is that in the US there isn’t any authentication of change-of-address submissions: According to the Postal Service, nearly 37 million change-of-address requests known as PS Form 3575 were … Read More “Maliciously Changing Someone’s Address” »
cybersecurity, intelligence, nationalsecuritypolicy, Security technology
The White House has eliminated the cybersecurity coordinator position. This seems like a spectacularly bad idea. Powered by WPeMatico
cellphones, lawenforcement, privacy, searches, Security technology, surveillance, tracking
The New York Times is reporting about a company called Securus Technologies that gives police the ability to track cell phone locations without a warrant: The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds. It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies … Read More “Accessing Cell Phone Location Information” »
amazon, apple, google, internetofthings, Security technology, voicerecognition
Researchers have demonstrated the ability to send inaudible commands to voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. Over the last two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside … Read More “Sending Inaudible Commands to Voice Assistants” »
cryptography, eavesdropping, email, encryption, pgp, Security technology, signal, vulnerabilities, whatsapp
A new PGP vulnerability was announced today. Basically, the vulnerability makes use of the fact that modern e-mail programs allow for embedded HTML objects. Essentially, if an attacker can intercept and modify a message in transit, he can insert code that sends the plaintext in a URL to a remote website. Very clever. The EFAIL … Read More “Details on a New PGP Vulnerability” »
cryptanalysis, cryptography, email, encryption, pgp, protocols, Security technology, vulnerabilities
EFF is reporting that a critical vulnerability has been discovered in PGP and S/MIME. No details have been published yet, but one of the researchers wrote: We’ll publish critical vulnerabilities in PGP/GPG and S/MIME email encryption on 2018-05-15 07:00 UTC. They might reveal the plaintext of encrypted emails, including encrypted emails sent in the past. … Read More “Critical PGP Vulnerability” »
backdoors, china, essays, military, Security technology
Earlier this month, the Pentagon stopped selling phones made by the Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei on military bases because they might be used to spy on their users. It’s a legitimate fear, and perhaps a prudent action. But it’s just one instance of the much larger issue of securing our supply chains. All of … Read More “Supply-Chain Security” »
backdoors, encryption, lawenforcement, police, Security technology
This article says that the Virginia Beach police are looking to buy encrypted radios. Virginia Beach police believe encryption will prevent criminals from listening to police communications. They said officer safety would increase and citizens would be better protected. Someone should ask them if they want those radios to have a backdoor. Powered by WPeMatico
cyberattack, cybersecurity, nationalsecuritypolicy, Security technology, securityawareness, voting
This survey and report is not surprising: The survey of nearly forty Republican and Democratic campaign operatives, administered through November and December 2017, revealed that American political campaign staff — primarily working at the state and congressional levels — are not only unprepared for possible cyber attacks, but remain generally unconcerned about the threat. The … Read More “The US Is Unprepared for Election-Related Hacking in 2018” »