The company was hacked, and customer information accessed. No passwords were compromised. [...]

This is new : Newly revealed research shows that a number of major car brands, including Honda, Nissan, Infiniti, and Acura, were affected by a previously undisclosed security bug that would have allowed a savvy hacker to hijack vehicles and steal user data. According to researchers, the bug was in …

Facebook—Meta—was just fined $276 million (USD) for a data leak that included full names, birth dates, phone numbers, and location. Meta’s total fine by the Data Protection Commission is over $700 million. Total GDPR fines are over €2 billion (EUR) since 2018. [...]

Diplomatic code cracked after 500 years: In painstaking work backed by computers, Pierrot found “distinct families” of about 120 symbols used by Charles V. “Whole words are encrypted with a single symbol” and the emperor replaced vowels coming after consonants with marks, she said, an inspiration probably coming from …

Laptop technicians routinely violate the privacy of the people whose computers they repair: Researchers at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, recovered logs from laptops after receiving overnight repairs from 12 commercial shops. The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that …

Nothing beats a dog’s nose for detecting explosives. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough dogs : Last month, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a nearly 100-page report about working dogs and the need for federal agencies to better safeguard their health and wellness. The GOA says that as …

Researchers claim that supposedly anonymous device analytics information can identify users: On Twitter, security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry have found that Apple’s device analytics data includes an iCloud account and can be linked directly to a specific user, including their name, date of birth, email …

Brian Krebs writes about how the Zeppelin ransomware encryption scheme was broken: The researchers said their break came when they understood that while Zeppelin used three different types of encryption keys to encrypt files, they could undo the whole scheme by factoring or computing just one of them: An …

Researchers have new evidence of how squid brains develop : Researchers from the FAS Center for Systems Biology describe how they used a new live-imaging technique to watch neurons being created in the embryo in almost real-time. They were then able to track those cells through the development of the …

Kirkus reviews A Hacker’s Mind : A cybersecurity expert examines how the powerful game whatever system is put before them, leaving it to others to cover the cost. Schneier, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and author of such books as Data and Goliath and Click Here To Kill …

Time-triggered Ethernet (TTE) is used in spacecraft, basically to use the same hardware to process traffic with different timing and criticality. Researchers have defeated it : On Tuesday, researchers published findings that, for the first time, break TTE’s isolation guarantees. The result is PCspooF, an attack that allows a …

Twitter is having intermittent problems with its two-factor authentication system: Not all users are having problems receiving SMS authentication codes, and those who rely on an authenticator app or physical authentication token to secure their Twitter account may not have reason to test the mechanism. But users have been …

Computer code developed by a company called Pushwoosh is in about 8,000 Apple and Google smartphone apps. The company pretends to be American when it is actually Russian. According to company documents publicly filed in Russia and reviewed by Reuters, Pushwoosh is headquartered in the Siberian town of …

Last month, we were warned not to install Qatar’s World Cup app because it was spyware. This month, it’s Egypt’s COP27 Summit app : The app is being promoted as a tool to help attendees navigate the event. But it risks giving the Egyptian government permission to …

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at the 24th International Information Security Conference in Madrid, Spain, on November 17, 2022. The list is maintained on this page. [...]

The International Committee of the Red Cross wants some digital equivalent to the iconic red cross, to alert would-be hackers that they are accessing a medical network. The emblem wouldn’t provide technical cybersecurity protection to hospitals, Red Cross infrastructure or other medical providers, but it would signal to …

Perfect for an evening out. 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. [...]

I have a new book coming out in February. It’s about hacking. A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back isn’t about hacking computer systems; it’s about hacking more general economic, political, and social systems. It generalizes …

Here in 2022, we have a newly declassified 2016 Inspector General report—”Misuse of Sigint Systems”—about a 2013 NSA program that resulted in the unauthorized (that is, illegal) targeting of Americans. Given all we learned from Edward Snowden, this feels like a minor coda. There’s nothing really …

The major browsers natively trust a whole bunch of certificate authorities, and some of them are really sketchy : Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, nonprofit Firefox and others allow the company, TrustCor Systems, to act as what’s known as a root certificate authority, a powerful spot in the …

CISA is now pushing phishing-resistant multifactor authentication. Roger Grimes has an excellent post reminding everyone that “phishing-resistant” is not “phishing proof,” and that everyone needs to stop pretending otherwise. His list of different attacks is particularly useful. [...]

This technique measures device response time to determine distance: The scientists tested the exploit by modifying an off-the-shelf drone to create a flying scanning device, the Wi-Peep. The robotic aircraft sends several messages to each device as it flies around, establishing the positions of devices in each room. A …

I have been meaning to write about Joe Sullivan, Uber’s former Chief Security Officer. He was convicted of crimes related to covering up a cyberattack against Uber. It’s a complicated case, and I’m not convinced that he deserved a guilty ruling or that it’s a …

In 1878, a 55-foot-long giant squid washed up on the shores of Glover’s Harbour, Newfoundland. It’s the largest giant squid ever recorded—although scientists now think that the size was an exaggeration or the result of postmortem stretching—and there’s a full-sized statue of it near …

The NSA (together with CISA) has published a long report on supply-chain security: “ Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices Guide for Suppliers. “: Prevention is often seen as the responsibility of the software developer, as they are required to securely develop and deliver code, verify third party components, and …