Really interesting research: “Unpacking Spear Phishing Susceptibility,” by Zinaida Benenson, Freya Gassmann, and Robert Landwirth. Abstract: We report the results of a field experiment where we sent to over 1200 university students an email or a Facebook message with a link to (non-existing) party pictures from a non-existing person, and later asked them about the … Read More “Spear Phishing Attacks” »
Category: Security technology
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WikiLeaks is still dumping CIA cyberweapons on the Internet. Its latest dump is something called “Pandemic”: The Pandemic leak does not explain what the CIA’s initial infection vector is, but does describe it as a persistent implant. “As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with … Read More “CIA’s Pandemic Toolkit” »
There’s lots of video of squid as undersea predators. This is one of the few instances of squid as prey (from a deep submersible in the Pacific): “We saw brittle stars capturing a squid from the water column while it was swimming. I didn’t know that was possible. And then there was a tussle among … Read More “Friday Squid Blogging: Squid as Prey” »
There is plenty of blame to go around for the WannaCry ransomware that spread throughout the Internet earlier this month, disrupting work at hospitals, factories, businesses, and universities. First, there are the writers of the malicious software, which blocks victims’ access to their computers until they pay a fee. Then there are the users who … Read More “WannaCry and Vulnerabilities” »
The password-manager 1Password has just implemented a travel mode that tries to protect users while crossing borders. It doesn’t make much sense. To enable it, you have to create a list of passwords you feel safe traveling with, and then you can turn on the mode that only gives you access to those passwords. But … Read More “Passwords at the Border” »
Interesting research on a version of RSA that is secure against a quantum computer: Post-quantum RSA Daniel J. Bernstein, Nadia Heninger, Paul Lou, and Luke Valenta Abstract: This paper proposes RSA parameters for which (1) key generation, encryption, decryption, signing, and verification are feasible on today’s computers while (2) all known attacks are infeasible, even … Read More “Post-Quantum RSA” »
This is kind of amazing: Inmates at a medium-security Ohio prison secretly assembled two functioning computers, hid them in the ceiling, and connected them to the Marion Correctional Institution’s network. The hard drives were loaded with pornography, a Windows proxy server, VPN, VOIP and anti-virus software, the Tor browser, password hacking and e-mail spamming tools, … Read More “Inmates Secretly Build and Network Computers while in Prison” »
In 2013, a mysterious group of hackers that calls itself the Shadow Brokers stole a few disks full of NSA secrets. Since last summer, they’ve been dumping these secrets on the Internet. They have publicly embarrassed the NSA and damaged its intelligence-gathering capabilities, while at the same time have put sophisticated cyberweapons in the hands … Read More “Who Are the Shadow Brokers?” »
Last year, I wrote about the potential for doxers to alter documents before they leaked them. It was a theoretical threat when I wrote it, but now Citizen Lab has documented this technique in the wild: This report describes an extensive Russia-linked phishing and disinformation campaign. It provides evidence of how documents stolen from a … Read More “Tainted Leaks” »
The excellent Montreal chef Marc-Olivier Frappier, of Joe Beef fame, has created a squid and chips dish for Brit & Chips restaurant. 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