Interesting research: “Finding The Greedy, Prodigal, and Suicidal Contracts at Scale“: Abstract: Smart contracts — stateful executable objects hosted on blockchains like Ethereum — carry billions of dollars worth of coins and cannot be updated once deployed. We present a new systematic characterization of a class of trace vulnerabilities, which result from analyzing multiple invocations … Read More “Security Vulnerabilities in Smart Contracts” »
Category: academicpapers
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This is fascinating research about how the underlying training data for a machine-learning system can be inadvertently exposed. Basically, if a machine-learning system trains on a dataset that contains secret information, in some cases an attacker can query the system to extract that secret information. My guess is that there is a lot more research … Read More “Extracting Secrets from Machine Learning Systems” »
Since you don’t have enough to worry about, here’s a paper postulating that space aliens could send us malware capable of destroying humanity. Abstract: A complex message from space may require the use of computers to display, analyze and understand. Such a message cannot be decontaminated with certainty, and technical risks remain which can pose … Read More “Malware from Space” »
Researchers have discovered new variants of Spectre and Meltdown. The software mitigations for Spectre and Meltdown seem to block these variants, although the eventual CPU fixes will have to be expanded to account for these new attacks. Powered by WPeMatico
Research shows that what a food is called affects how we think about it. Research paper. 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
Stuxnet famously used legitimate digital certificates to sign its malware. A research paper from last year found that the practice is much more common than previously thought. Now, researchers have presented proof that digitally signed malware is much more common than previously believed. What’s more, it predated Stuxnet, with the first known instance occurring in … Read More “Signed Malware” »
It’s really hard to estimate the cost of an insecure Internet. Studies are all over the map. A methodical study by RAND is the best work I’ve seen at trying to put a number on this. The results are, well, all over the map: “Estimating the Global Cost of Cyber Risk: Methodology and Examples“: Abstract: … Read More “Estimating the Cost of Internet Insecurity” »
The mating and death characteristics of some squid are fascinating. Research paper. 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
A new vulnerability in WhatsApp has been discovered: …the researchers unearthed far more significant gaps in WhatsApp’s security: They say that anyone who controls WhatsApp’s servers could effortlessly insert new people into an otherwise private group, even without the permission of the administrator who ostensibly controls access to that conversation. Matthew Green has a good … Read More “WhatsApp Vulnerability” »
This is clever: Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel have built a proof-of-concept system for counter-surveillance against spy drones that demonstrates a clever, if not exactly simple, way to determine whether a certain person or object is under aerial surveillance. They first generate a recognizable pattern on whatever subject — a window, … Read More “Detecting Drone Surveillance with Traffic Analysis” »