New paper: “Taking Stock: Estimating Vulnerability Rediscovery,” by Trey Herr, Bruce Schneier, and Christopher Morris: Abstract: How often do multiple, independent, parties discover the same vulnerability? There are ample models of vulnerability discovery, but little academic work on this issue of rediscovery. The immature state of this research and subsequent debate is a problem for … Read More “Measuring Vulnerability Rediscovery” »
Category: zeroday
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In April, the Shadow Brokers — presumably Russia — released a batch of Windows exploits from what is presumably the NSA. Included in that release were eight different Windows vulnerabilities. Given a presumed theft date of the data as sometime between 2012 and 2013 — based on timestamps of the documents and the limited Windows … Read More “Zero-Day Vulnerabilities against Windows in the NSA Tools Released by the Shadow Brokers” »
Fortune magazine just published a good article about Google’s Project Zero, which finds and publishes exploits in other companies’ software products. I have mixed feeling about it. The project does great work, and the Internet has benefited enormously from these efforts. But as long as it is embedded inside Google, it has to deal with … Read More “Good Article About Google’s Project Zero” »
Last week, Microsoft issued a security patch for Windows XP, a 16-year-old operating system that Microsoft officially no longer supports. Last month, Microsoft issued a Windows XP patch for the vulnerability used in WannaCry. Is this a good idea? This 2014 essay argues that it’s not: The zero-day flaw and its exploitation is unfortunate, and … Read More “Is Continuing to Patch Windows XP a Mistake?” »
The US Drug Enforcement Agency has purchased zero-day exploits from the cyberweapons arms manufacturer Hacking Team. BoingBoing post. Powered by WPeMatico
WikiLeaks has started publishing a large collection of classified CIA documents, including information on several — possibly many — unpublished (i.e., zero-day) vulnerabilities in computing equipment used by Americans. Despite assurances that the US government prioritizes defense over offense, it seems that the CIA was hoarding vulnerabilities. (It’s not just the CIA; last year we … Read More “WikiLeaks Not Disclosing CIA-Hoarded Vulnerabilities to Companies” »
WikiLeaks just released a cache of 8,761 classified CIA documents from 2012 to 2016, including details of its offensive Internet operations. I have not read through any of them yet. If you see something interesting, tell us in the comments. EDITED TO ADD: There’s a lot in here. Many of the hacking tools are redacted, … Read More “WikiLeaks Releases CIA Hacking Tools” »
Duqu 2.0 is a really impressive piece of malware, related to Stuxnet and probably written by the NSA. One of its security features is that it stays resident in its host’s memory without ever writing persistent files to the system’s drives. Now, this same technique is being used by criminals: Now, fileless malware is going … Read More “Duqu Malware Techniques Used by Cybercriminals” »
Last week, Apple issued a critical security patch for the iPhone: iOS 9.3.5. The incredible story is that this patch is the result of investigative work by Citizen Lab, which uncovered a zero-day exploit being used by the UAE government against a human rights defender. The UAE spyware was provided by the Israeli cyberweapons arms … Read More “iPhone Zero-Day Used by UAE Government” »
The National Security Agency is lying to us. We know that because of data stolen from an NSA server was dumped on the Internet. The agency is hoarding information about security vulnerabilities in the products you use, because it wants to use it to hack others’ computers. Those vulnerabilities aren’t being reported, and aren’t getting … Read More “The NSA Is Hoarding Vulnerabilities” »