One of the common ways to hack a computer is to mess with its input data. That is, if you can feed the computer data that it interprets — or misinterprets — in a particular way, you can trick the computer into doing things that it wasn’t intended to do. This is basically what a … Read More “Hacking a Gene Sequencer by Encoding Malware in a DNA Strand” »
Category: computersecurity
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This is a weird story: researchers have discovered that an audio driver installed in some HP laptops includes a keylogger, which records all keystrokes to a local file. There seems to be nothing malicious about this, but it’s a vivid illustration of how hard it is to secure a modern computer. The operating system, drivers, … Read More “Keylogger Found in HP Laptop Audio Drivers” »
There’s a concept from computer security known as a class break. It’s a particular security vulnerability that breaks not just one system, but an entire class of systems. Examples might be a vulnerability in a particular operating system that allows an attacker to take remote control of every computer that runs on that system’s software. … Read More “Class Breaks” »
Susan Landau has an excellent essay on why it’s more important than ever to have backdoor-free encryption on our computer and communications systems. Protecting the privacy of speech is crucial for preserving our democracy. We live at a time when tracking an individual — a journalist, a member of the political opposition, a citizen engaged … Read More “Securing Communications in a Trump Administration” »
Looks interesting. Finnish residents can take it for credit. Powered by WPeMatico
In December, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was interviewed at the CATO Institute Surveillance Conference. One of the things he said, after talking about some of the security measures his company has put in place post-Snowden, was: “If you have important information, the safest place to keep it is in Google. And I can assure … Read More “Everyone Wants You To Have Security, But Not from Them” »
It’s not just national intelligence agencies that break your https security through man-in-the-middle attacks. Corporations do it, too. For the past few months, Lenovo PCs have shipped with an adware app called Superfish that man-in-the-middles TLS connections. Here’s how it works, and here’s how to get rid of it. And you should get rid of … Read More “Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Lenovo Computers” »
This is what happens when a PR person gets hold of information he really doesn’t understand. “Mustang” is the 16th most common password on the Internet according to a recent study by SplashData, besting both “superman” in 21st place and “batman” in 24th Mustang is the only car to appear in the top 25 most … Read More “Ford Proud that "Mustang" Is a Common Password” »
Earlier this month, a mysterious group that calls itself Guardians of Peace hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer systems and began revealing many of the Hollywood studio’s best-kept secrets, from details about unreleased movies to embarrassing emails (notably some racist notes from Sony bigwigs about President Barack Obama’s presumed movie-watching preferences) to the personnel data … Read More “Lessons from the Sony Hack” »