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Trump-Kim Meeting Was a Magnet For Russian Cyberattacks

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The recent meeting in Singapore between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un appears to have attracted an inordinate amount of interest in US activities from threat actors based in Russia.

Brittany Day
Jun 16, 2018

Dozens of Vulnerabilities Discovered in DoD's Enterprise Travel System

White-hat hackers participating in a US Department of Defense bug bounty initiative recently rooted out 65 unique security vulnerabilities in the Defense Travel System (DTS), an enterprise application used by millions of DoD workers worldwide.

Brittany Day
May 31, 2018

UK: We'll Return Fire Against Deadly State Cyber-Attacks

The UK’s attorney general has clarified the government’s position on state-sponsored cyber-attacks, saying the country will fight back against any nation seeking to cause it harm and continue to attribute serious online threats.

Brittany Day
May 24, 2018

DHS Unveils National Cybersecurity Risk Strategy

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unveiled on Tuesday, 14 May, a new national strategy to be implemented to address evolving cybersecurity risks. The DHS strategy outlines strategic and operational goals and priorities to successfully execute the full range of the DHS secretary’s cybersecurity responsibilities.

Brittany Day
May 17, 2018

US Government Cybersecurity at a Crossroads

Amid a report today that the Trump White House plans to cut the administration's cybersecurity coordinator position altogether, new data shows how US federal government agencies continue to struggle to close security holes in their software.

Brittany Day
May 16, 2018

Cyberattack shuts down Tennessee election website

On May 1st, a website in Tennessee tracking county election results suffered a cyberattack and subsequent incursions before it went down, a security firm concluded.

Brittany Day
May 12, 2018

Online voting is impossible to secure. So why are some governments using it?

Dr. Vanessa Teague is one frustrated cryptographer. A researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia, Teague has twice demonstrated massive security flaws in the online voting systems used in state elections in Australia — including one of the largest deployments of online voting ever, the 2015 New South Wales (NSW) state election, with 280,000 votes cast online.

Brittany Day
May 09, 2018

A GEORGIA HACKING BILL GETS CYBERSECURITY ALL WRONG

In March, the Georgia State General Assembly passed a bill that would make it illegal to access a computer or network "without authority." Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has until Tuesday to decide whether to sign it into law or veto it.

Brittany Day
May 05, 2018

Should we open source election software?

Late last year, R. James Woolsey and Brian Fox wrote an op-ed piece about the security benefits of open sourcing election software. Woolsey is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Fox is the creator of several open source components, including the GNU Bash shell, and a board member of the National Association of Voting Officials.

Brittany Day
Apr 28, 2018

German Government Chooses Open Source For Its Federal Cloud Solution

It’s not hidden that apart from costing tons of money, the use of proprietary software also brings along hidden security caveats. These are the two primary reasons why the usage of open source software is being pushed in public agencies all around the world, especially in European countries.

Brittany Day
Apr 18, 2018

OPEN SOURCE WON. SO, NOW WHAT?

The government is now a little more open. This week, the White House released its first official federal source code policy, detailing a pilot program that requires government agencies to release 20 percent of any new code they commission as open source software, meaning the code will be available for anyone to examine, modify, and reuse in their own projects.

Brittany Day
Apr 06, 2018

Israeli Security Attacks AMD by Publishing Zero-Day Exploits

Last week, the Israeli security company CTS Labs published a series of exploits against AMD chips. The publication came with the flashy website, detailed whitepaper, cool vulnerability names -- RYZENFALL, MASTERKEY, FALLOUT, and CHIMERA -- and logos we've come to expect from these sorts of things.

Brittany Day
Mar 22, 2018

FBI: we don’t want a backdoor; we just want you to break encryption

“We’re not looking for a ‘back door'” that breaks encryption, the FBI said on Wednesday. Don’t even know what that is, really, said director Christopher Wray: He thinks it’s some type of “secret, insecure means of access” – is that right?

Alex
Mar 13, 2018

FBI again calls for magical solution to break into encrypted phones

FBI Director Christopher Wray again has called for a solution to what the bureau calls the "Going Dark" problem, the idea that the prevalence of default strong encryption on digital devices makes it more difficult for law enforcement to extract data during an investigation.

Anthony Pell
Mar 09, 2018

Homeland Security's IT security continues to fall short

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has released its “Evaluation of DHS' Information Security Program for Fiscal Year 2017” (pdf). In short, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is running outdated software, has unpatched critical vulnerabilities — including the flaw to allow WannaCry ransomware — and some workstation security patches haven’t been deployed for years.

Anthony Pell
Mar 09, 2018

UK Cops Tried ‘DDoS-Style’ Tactics on Drug Dealers’ Phones

UK police have trialed a new tactic designed to disrupt the drug trade by remotely disabling dealers’ phones, according to comments made by law enforcement officials during a recent police conference.

Dave Wreski
Mar 06, 2018

A Sneak Peek at the New NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) updated Cybersecurity Framework, scheduled for release later this year, should provide some welcome new advice for organizations struggling to manage cyber-risk in the current threat environment.

Dave Wreski
Mar 05, 2018

Russia behind compromise of seven states' voter registration systems

While at least two of the states compromised - Wisconsin and Florida - voted for Trump by slim margins, one and 1.2 percent, respectively, NBC News cited three intelligence officials as saying that no votes had been altered nor had anyone been deleted from voter rolls.

Anthony Pell
Mar 01, 2018

EFF: We found 100+ license plate readers wide open on the Internet

Law enforcement agencies around the country have been all too eager to adopt mass surveillance technologies, but sometimes they have put little effort into ensuring the systems are secure and the sensitive data they collect on everyday people is protected.

Anthony Pell
Oct 30, 2015

CISA data-sharing bill passes Senate with no privacy protections

A controversial draft law, which one senator called a "surveillance bill by another name," has passed the Senate. CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (S. 754), will allow private companies to share cyber-threat data with the federal government, including personal user data, in an effort to prevent cyberattacks, such as those on the scale of Target, Home Depot, and Sony.

Alex
Oct 28, 2015

German State Abandons Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

White House Warns: Move to Memory-Safe Languages

European Court of Human Rights Declares Backdoored Encryption Illegal