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Proud Sponsor of the Boston Chapter of InfraGard
They brought strong operating systems and networking expertise. They quickly earned the respect of, and collaborated effectively with, our technical staff. Consistently their recommendations were technically sound.
First American Financial Pays Farcical $500K Fine
In May 2019, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that the website of mortgage settlement giant First American Financial Corp. [NYSE:FAF] was leaking more than 800 million documents — many containing sensitive financial data — related to real estate transactions dating back more than 16 years. This week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settled its investigation into the matter after the Fortune 500 company agreed to pay a paltry penalty of less than $500,000.
Peloton Vulnerability Found and Fixed
Researchers have discovered a vulnerability in Peloton stationary bicycles, one that would give the attacker complete control over the device.
The attack requires physical access to the Peloton, so it’s not really a practical attack. President Bi…
Intentional Flaw in GPRS Encryption Algorithm GEA-1
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a mobile data standard that was widely used in the early 2000s. The first encryption algorithm for that standard was GEA-1, a stream cipher built on three linear-feedback shift registers and a non-linear combining function. Although the algorithm has a 64-bit key, the effective key length is only 40 bits, due to “an exceptional interaction of the deployed LFSRs and the key initialization, which is highly unlikely to occur by chance.”
GEA-1 was designed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute in 1998. ETSI was — and maybe still is — under the auspices of …
Paul van Oorschot’s Computer Security and the Internet
Paul van Oorschot’s webpage contains a complete copy of his book: Computer Security and the Internet: Tools and Jewels. It’s worth reading.
Ukrainian Police Nab Six Tied to CLOP Ransomware
Authorities in Ukraine this week charged six people alleged to have been part of the CLOP ransomware group, a cybercriminal gang said to have extorted more than half a billion dollars from victims. Some of CLOP’s victims this year alone include Stanford University Medical School, the University of California, and University of Maryland.
VPNs and Trust
TorrentFreak surveyed nineteen VPN providers, asking them questions about their privacy practices: what data they keep, how they respond to court order, what country they are incorporated in, and so on.
Most interesting to me is the home countries of these companies. Express VPN is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. NordVPN is incorporated in Panama. There are VPNs from the Seychelles, Malaysia, and Bulgaria. There are VPNs from more Western and democratic countries like the US, Switzerland, Canada, and Sweden. Presumably all of those companies follow the laws of their home country…
Andrew Appel on New Hampshire’s Election Audit
Really interesting two part analysis of the audit conducted after the 2020 election in Windham, New Hampshire.
Based on preliminary reports published by the team of experts that New Hampshire engaged to examine an election discrepancy, it appears that a buildup of dust in the read heads of optical-scan voting machines (possibly over several years of use) can cause paper-fold lines in absentee ballots to be interpreted as votes… New Hampshire (and other states) may need to maintain the accuracy of their optical-scan voting machines by paying attention to three issues:…
How Does One Get Hired by a Top Cybercrime Gang?
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last week announced the arrest of a 55-year-old Latvian woman who’s alleged to have worked as a programmer for Trickbot, a malware-as-a-service platform responsible for infecting millions of computers and seeding many of those systems with ransomware.
Just how did a self-employed web site designer and mother of two come to work for one of the world’s most rapacious cybercriminal groups and then leave such an obvious trail of clues indicating her involvement with the gang? This post explores answers to those questions, as well as some of the ways Trickbot and other organized cybercrime gangs gradually recruit, groom and trust new programmers.
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
- I’ll be part of a European Internet Forum virtual debate on June 17, 2021. The topic is “Decrypting the encryption debate: How to ensure public safety with a privacy-preserving and secure Internet?”
- I’m speaking at the all-online Society for Philosophy and Technology Conference 2021, June 28-30, 2021.
- I’m keynoting the 5th International Symposium on Cyber Security Cryptology and Machine Learning (via Zoom), July 8-9, 2021.
- I’m speaking (via internet) at SHIFT Business Festival…
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
- I’ll be part of a European Internet Forum virtual debate on June 17, 2021. The topic is “Decrypting the encryption debate: How to ensure public safety with a privacy-preserving and secure Internet?”
- I’m speaking at the all-online Society for Philosophy and Technology Conference 2021, June 28-30, 2021.
- I’m keynoting the 5th International Symposium on Cyber Security Cryptology and Machine Learning (via Zoom), July 8-9, 2021.
- I’m speaking (via Internet) at SHIFT Business Festival…