A good tutorial : But we can go beyond the polarization of electrons and really leverage the electron waviness. By interleaving thin layers of superconducting and normal materials, we can make the quantum electronic equivalents of transistors and diodes such as Superconducting Tunnel Junctions (SJTs) and Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices …
Really interesting research : “Exploitation and Sanitization of Hidden Data in PDF Files” Abstract: Organizations publish and share more and more electronic documents like PDF files. Unfortunately, most organizations are unaware that these documents can compromise sensitive information like authors names, details on the information system and architecture. All these …
Science has a paper (and commentary ) on generating 250 random terabits per second with a laser. I don’t know how cryptographically secure they are, but that can be cleaned up with something like Fortuna. [...]
Nick Weaver has an excellent post on the Microsoft Exchange hack: The investigative journalist Brian Krebs has produced a handy timeline of events and a few things stand out from the chronology. The attacker was first detected by one group on Jan. 5 and another on Jan. 6, and …
How is this even possible?...26% of companies Positive Technologies tested were vulnerable to WannaCry, which was a threat years ago, and some even vulnerable to Heartbleed. “The most frequent vulnerabilities detected during automated assessment date back to 20132017, which indicates a lack of recent software updates,” the …
Interesting paper: “ Shadow Attacks: Hiding and Replacing Content in Signed PDFs “: Abstract: Digitally signed PDFs are used in contracts and invoices to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of their content. A user opening a signed PDF expects to see a warning in case of any modification. In 2019, Mladenov …
A 30-million-year-old vampire squid fossil was found, lost, and then re-found in Hungary. 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 been seeing this paper by cryptographer Peter Schnorr making the rounds: “Fast Factoring Integers by SVP Algorithms.” It describes a new factoring method, and its abstract ends with the provocative sentence: “This destroys the RSA cryptosystem.” It does not. At best, it’s an improvement in factoring …
At a hospital. [...]
Microsoft has issued an emergency Microsoft Exchange patch to fix four zero-day vulnerabilities currently being exploited by China. [...]
Check Point has evidence that (probably government affiliated) Chinese hackers stole and cloned an NSA Windows hacking tool years before (probably government affiliated) Russian hackers stole and then published the same tool. Here’s the timeline : The timeline basically seems to be, according to Check Point: 2013: NSA’s …
NASA made an oblique reference to a coded message in the color pattern of the Perseverance Mars Lander ‘s parachute. More information. [...]
This is weird : Once an hour, infected Macs check a control server to see if there are any new commands the malware should run or binaries to execute. So far, however, researchers have yet to observe delivery of any payload on any of the infected 30,000 machines, leaving …
Early in 2020, cyberspace attackers apparently working for the Russian government compromised a piece of widely used network management software made by a company called SolarWinds. The hack gave the attackers access to the computer networks of some 18,000 of SolarWinds’s customers, including US government agencies such …
The Far Side on squid. 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. [...]
Excellent Brookings paper: “ Why data ownership is the wrong approach to protecting privacy.” From the introduction: Treating data like it is property fails to recognize either the value that varieties of personal information serve or the abiding interest that individuals have in their personal information even if they choose …
I am a co-author on a report published by the Hoover Institution: “ Chinese Technology Platforms Operating in the United States.” From a blog post : The report suggests a comprehensive framework for understanding and assessing the risks posed by Chinese technology platforms in the United States and developing tailored responses …
Researchers found, and Microsoft has patched, a vulnerability in Windows Defender that has been around for twelve years. There is no evidence that anyone has used the vulnerability during that time. The flaw, discovered by researchers at the security firm SentinelOne, showed up in a driver that Windows Defender …
Alex Birsan writes about being able to install malware into proprietary corporate software by naming the code files to be identical to internal corporate code files. From a ZDNet article : Today, developers at small or large companies use package managers to download and import libraries that are then assembled …
Really good op-ed in the New York Times about how vulnerable the GPS system is to interference, spoofing, and jamming — and potential alternatives. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act included funding for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Transportation to jointly conduct demonstrations of various alternatives to GPS …
From the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 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. [...]
This report is six months old, and I don’t know anything about the organization that produced it, but it has some alarming data about router security. Conclusion: Our analysis showed that Linux is the most used OS running on more than 90% of the devices. However, many routers …
The 20th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2021) will be held online in June. We just published the call for papers. [...]
Virginia is about to get a data privacy law, modeled on California’s law. [...]
Interesting research on persistent web tracking using favicons. (For those who don’t know, favicons are those tiny icons that appear in browser tabs next to the page name.) Abstract: The privacy threats of online tracking have garnered considerable attention in recent years from researchers and practitioners alike. This …