Remember the Spectre and Meltdown attacks from last year? They were a new class of attacks against complex CPUs, finding subliminal channels in optimization techniques that allow hackers to steal information. Since their discovery, researchers have found additional similar vulnerabilities. A whole bunch more have just been discovered. I don’t think we’re finished yet. A … Read More “Another Intel Chip Flaw” »
WhatsApp fixed a devastating vulnerability that allowed someone to remotely hack a phone by initiating a WhatsApp voice call. The recipient didn’t even have to answer the call. The Israeli cyber-arms manufacturer NSO Group is believed to be behind the exploit, but of course there is no definitive proof. If you use WhatsApp, update your … Read More “WhatsApp Vulnerability Fixed” »
The International Spy Museum has reopened in Washington, DC. Powered by WPeMatico
Human Rights Watch has reverse engineered an app used by the Chinese police to conduct mass surveillance on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. The details are fascinating, and chilling. Boing Boing post. Powered by WPeMatico
Last Wednesday was a Cephalopod Appreciation Society event in Seattle. I missed it. 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 pair of Russia-designed cryptographic algorithms — the Kuznyechik block cipher and the Streebog hash function — have the same flawed S-box that is almost certainly an intentional backdoor. It’s just not the kind of mistake you make by accident, not in 2014. Powered by WPeMatico
In 2015, the Intercept started publishing “The Drone Papers,” based on classified documents leaked by an unknown whistleblower. Today, someone who worked at the NSA, and then at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, was charged with the crime. It is unclear how he was initially identified. It might have been this: “At the agency, prosecutors said, … Read More “Another NSA Leaker Identified and Charged” »
Excellent article on fraudulent seller tactics on Amazon. The most prominent black hat companies for US Amazon sellers offer ways to manipulate Amazon’s ranking system to promote products, protect accounts from disciplinary actions, and crush competitors. Sometimes, these black hat companies bribe corporate Amazon employees to leak information from the company’s wiki pages and business … Read More “Amazon Is Losing the War on Fraudulent Sellers” »
In 2016, a hacker group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released a trove of 2013 NSA hacking tools and related documents. Most people believe it is a front for the Russian government. Since, then the vulnerabilities and tools have been used by both government and criminals, and put the NSA’s ability to secure its own … Read More “Leaked NSA Hacking Tools” »
Evil Clippy is a tool for creating malicious Microsoft Office macros: At BlackHat Asia we released Evil Clippy, a tool which assists red teamers and security testers in creating malicious MS Office documents. Amongst others, Evil Clippy can hide VBA macros, stomp VBA code (via p-code) and confuse popular macro analysis tools. It runs on … Read More “Malicious MS Office Macro Creator” »