Interesting paper: “Dial One for Scam: A Large-Scale Analysis of Technical Support Scams“: Abstract: In technical support scams, cybercriminals attempt to convince users that their machines are infected with malware and are in need of their technical support. In this process, the victims are asked to provide scammers with remote access to their machines, who … Read More “Research on Tech-Support Scams” »
Category: academicpapers
Auto Added by WPeMatico
This is just plain weird: Rosenthal, a neurobiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, was a grad student studying a specific protein in squid when he got an an inkling that some cephalopods might be different. Every time he analyzed that protein’s RNA sequence, it came out slightly different. He realized the RNA was occasionally substituting … Read More “Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Can Edit Their Own RNA” »
Interesting law journal article: “Encryption and the Press Clause,” by D. Victoria Barantetsky. Abstract: Almost twenty years ago, a hostile debate over whether government could regulate encryption — later named the Crypto Wars — seized the country. At the center of this debate stirred one simple question: is encryption protected speech? This issue touched all … Read More “Encryption Policy and Freedom of the Press” »
Interesting acoustic attack against the MEMS accelerometers in devices like FitBits. Millions of accelerometers reside inside smartphones, automobiles, medical devices, anti-theft devices, drones, IoT devices, and many other industrial and consumer applications. Our work investigates how analog acoustic injection attacks can damage the digital integrity of the capacitive MEMS accelerometer. Spoofing such sensors with intentional … Read More “Acoustic Attack Against Accelerometers” »
Kalyna is a block cipher that became a Ukrainian national standard in 2015. It supports block and key sizes of 128, 256, and 512 bits. Its structure looks like AES but optimized for 64-bit CPUs, and it has a complicated key schedule. Rounds range from 10-18, depending on block and key sizes. There is some … Read More “Kalyna Block Cipher” »
Every year, the NSA has a competition for the best cybersecurity paper. Winners get to go to the NSA to pick up the award. (Warning: you will almost certainly be fingerprinted while you’re there.) Submission guidelines and nomination page. Powered by WPeMatico
I have written a paper with Orin Kerr on encryption workarounds. Our goal wasn’t to make any policy recommendations. (That was a good thing, since we probably don’t agree on any.) Our goal was to present a taxonomy of different workarounds, and discuss their technical and legal characteristics and complications. Abstract: The widespread use of … Read More “New Paper on Encryption Workarounds” »
Interesting research: “A Study of MAC Address Randomization in Mobile Devices When it Fails“: Abstract: Media Access Control (MAC) address randomization is a privacy technique whereby mobile devices rotate through random hardware addresses in order to prevent observers from singling out their traffic or physical location from other nearby devices. Adoption of this technology, however, … Read More “Security Vulnerabilities in Mobile MAC Randomization” »
Researchers have demonstrated using Intel’s Software Guard Extensions to hide malware and steal cryptographic keys from inside SGX’s protected enclave: Malware Guard Extension: Using SGX to Conceal Cache Attacks Abstract:In modern computer systems, user processes are isolated from each other by the operating system and the hardware. Additionally, in a cloud scenario it is crucial … Read More “Using Intel's SGX to Attack Itself” »
Squid evolved during an “evolutionary war” — the Mesozoic Marine Revolution — about 100 million years ago. 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. Powered by WPeMatico