The cybersecurity world got really lucky last week. An intentionally placed backdoor in xz Utils, an open-source compression utility, was pretty much accidentally discovered by a Microsoft engineer—weeks before it would have been incorporated into both Debian and Red Hat Linux. From ArsTehnica : Malicious code added to xz …

Ross Anderson unexpectedly passed away Thursday night in, I believe, his home in Cambridge. I can’t remember when I first met Ross. Of course it was before 2008, when we created the Security and Human Behavior workshop. It was well before 2001, when we created the Workshop on …

It’s pretty devastating : Today, Ian Carroll, Lennert Wouters, and a team of other security researchers are revealing a hotel keycard hacking technique they call Unsaflok. The technique is a collection of security vulnerabilities that would allow a hacker to almost instantly open several models of Saflok-brand RFID-based keycard …

Andrew Appel shepherded a public comment —signed by twenty election cybersecurity experts, including myself—on best practices for ballot marking devices and vote tabulation. It was written for the Pennsylvania legislature, but it’s general in nature. From the executive summary: We believe that no system is perfect, with …

Enlarge / Aerial view of a sewage treatment plant. (credit: Getty Images) The Biden administration on Tuesday warned the nation’s governors that drinking water and wastewater utilities in their states are facing “disabling cyberattacks” by hostile foreign nations that are targeting mission-critical plant operations. “Disabling cyberattacks are striking water …

C++ guru Herb Sutter writes about how we can improve the programming language for better security. The immediate problem “is” that it’s Too Easy By DefaultTM to write security and safety vulnerabilities in C++ that would have been caught by stricter enforcement of known rules for type, bounds …

NIST has released version 2.0 of the Cybersecurity Framework: The CSF 2.0, which supports implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy, has an expanded scope that goes beyond protecting critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and power plants, to all organizations in any sector. It also has a new …

Good essay on software bloat and the insecurities it causes. The world ships too much code, most of it by third parties, sometimes unintended, most of it uninspected. Because of this, there is a huge attack surface full of mediocre code. Efforts are ongoing to improve the quality of …

Over on Lawfare, Jim Dempsey published a really interesting proposal for software liability: “Standard for Software Liability: Focus on the Product for Liability, Focus on the Process for Safe Harbor.” Section 1 of this paper sets the stage by briefly describing the problem to be solved. Section 2 canvasses …

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is pleased to announce the issuance of the Criteria to Assess the Information Security of Cloud Services (PiTuKri) International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 Type II attestation report. The scope of the report covers a total of 171 services and 29 global AWS Regions …

It’s happened. Details here, and tech details here (for messages in transit) and here (for messages in storage) Rollout to everyone will take months, but it’s a good day for both privacy and security. Slashdot thread. [...]

Interesting analysis : This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797. We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting in themselves, also suggest that its fundamental design principle is …

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we are committed to providing continued assurance to our customers through assessments, certifications, and attestations that support the adoption of current and new AWS services and features. We are pleased to announce the availability of the 2023 Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) assessment …

A ransomware gang, annoyed at not being paid, filed an SEC complaint against its victim for not disclosing its security breach within the required four days. This is over the top, but is just another example of the extreme pressure ransomware gangs put on companies after seizing their data …

Another example of a large and influential state doing things the federal government won’t: Boards of directors, or other senior committees, are charged with overseeing cybersecurity risk management, and must retain an appropriate level of expertise to understand cyber issues, the rules say. Directors must sign off on …

In December 2022, FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, announced a fully revised circular called Operational risks and resilience – banks that will take effect on January 1, 2024. The circular will replace the Swiss Bankers Association’s Recommendations for Business Continuity Management (BCM), which is currently recognized as …

The industry pushed back : Despite the EPA’s willingness to provide training and technical support to help states and public water system organizations implement cybersecurity surveys, the move garnered opposition from both GOP state attorneys and trade groups. Republican state attorneys that were against the new proposed policies said …

Online voting is insecure, period. This doesn’t stop organizations and governments from using it. (And for low-stakes elections, it’s probably fine.) Switzerland—not low stakes—uses online voting for national elections. Andrew Appel explains why it’s a bad idea: Last year, I published a 5-part series …

The NSA is starting a new artificial intelligence security center: The AI security center’s establishment follows an NSA study that identified securing AI models from theft and sabotage as a major national security challenge, especially as generative AI technologies emerge with immense transformative potential for both good and …

In April, Cybersecurity Ventures reported on extreme cybersecurity job shortage: Global cybersecurity job vacancies grew by 350 percent, from one million openings in 2013 to 3.5 million in 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. The number of unfilled jobs leveled off in 2022, and remains at 3.5 million …

Turns out that it’s easy to broadcast radio commands that force Polish trains to stop:...the saboteurs appear to have sent simple so-called “radio-stop” commands via radio frequency to the trains they targeted. Because the trains use a radio system that lacks encryption or authentication for those commands …

At Black Hat last week, the White House announced an AI Cyber Challenge. Gizmodo reports : The new AI cyber challenge (which is being abbreviated “AIxCC”) will have a number of different phases. Interested would-be competitors can now submit their proposals to the Small Business Innovation Research program for evaluation …

Enlarge (credit: Lorenzo Capunata/Getty ) The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (Arpa-H), a research support agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, said today that it is launching an initiative to find and help fund the development of cybersecurity technologies that can specifically improve …

The NSA discovered the intrusion in 2020—we don’t know how—and alerted the Japanese. The Washington Post has the story : The hackers had deep, persistent access and appeared to be after anything they could get their hands on—plans, capabilities, assessments of military shortcomings, according to three …

A bunch of networks, including US Government networks, have been hacked by the Chinese. The hackers used forged authentication tokens to access user email, using a stolen Microsoft Azure account consumer signing key. Congress wants answers. The phrase “ negligent security practices ” is being tossed about—and with good reason …