Category: Cyber Security

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Schneier on Security- AIs as Computer Hackers

February 2, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

Hacker “Capture the Flag” has been a mainstay at hacker gatherings since the mid-1990s. It’s like the outdoor game, but played on computer networks. Teams of hackers defend their own computers while attacking other teams’. It’s a controlled setting for what computer hackers do in real life: finding and fixing vulnerabilities in their own systems and exploiting them in others’. It’s the software vulnerability lifecycle.

These days, dozens of teams from around the world compete in weekend-long marathon events held all over the world. People train for months. Winning is a big deal. If you’re into this sort of thing, it’s pretty much the most fun you can possibly have on the Internet without committing multiple felonies…

Schneier on Security- Passwords Are Terrible (Surprising No One)

February 1, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

This is the result of a security audit:

More than a fifth of the passwords protecting network accounts at the US Department of the Interior—including Password1234, Password1234!, and ChangeItN0w!—were weak enough to be cracked using standard methods, a recently published security audit of the agency found.

[…]

The results weren’t encouraging. In all, the auditors cracked 18,174—or 21 percent—­of the 85,944 cryptographic hashes they tested; 288 of the affected accounts had elevated privileges, and 362 of them belonged to senior government employees. In the first 90 minutes of testing, auditors cracked the hashes for 16 percent of the department’s user accounts…

Schneier on Security- Ransomware Payments Are Down

January 31, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

Chainalysis reports that worldwide ransomware payments were down in 2022.

Ransomware attackers extorted at least $456.8 million from victims in 2022, down from $765.6 million the year before.

As always, we have to caveat these findings by noting that the true totals are much higher, as there are cryptocurrency addresses controlled by ransomware attackers that have yet to be identified on the blockchain and incorporated into our data. When we published last year’s version of this report, for example, we had only identified $602 million in ransomware payments in 2021…

Schneier on Security- NIST Is Updating Its Cybersecurity Framework

January 30, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

NIST is planning a significant update of its Cybersecurity Framework. At this point, it’s asking for feedback and comments to its concept paper.

  1. Do the proposed changes reflect the current cybersecurity landscape (standards, risks, and technologies)?
  2. Are the proposed changes sufficient and appropriate? Are there other elements that should be considered under each area?
  3. Do the proposed changes support different use cases in various sectors, types, and sizes of organizations (and with varied capabilities, resources, and technologies)?
  4. Are there additional changes not covered here that should be considered?
    …

Schneier on Security- Kevin Mitnick Hacked California Law in 1983

January 27, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

Early in his career, Kevin Mitnick successfully hacked California law. He told me the story when he heard about my new book, which he partially recounts his 2012 book, Ghost in the Wires.

The setup is that he just discovered that there’s warrant for his arrest by the California Youth Authority, and he’s trying to figure out if there’s any way out of it.

As soon as I was settled, I looked in the Yellow Pages for the nearest law school, and spent the next few days and evenings there poring over the Welfare and Institutions Code, but without much hope…

Schneier on Security- On Alec Baldwin’s Shooting

January 26, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

We recently learned that Alec Baldwin is being charged with involuntary manslaughter for his accidental shooting on a movie set. I don’t know the details of the case, nor the intricacies of the law, but I have a question about movie props.

Why was an actual gun used on the set? And why were actual bullets used on the set? Why wasn’t it a fake gun: plastic, or metal without a working barrel? Why does it have to fire blanks? Why can’t everyone just pretend, and let someone add the bang and the muzzle flash in post-production?

Movies are filled with fakery. The …

Experian Glitch Exposing Credit Files Lasted 47 Days

January 25, 2023 BrianKrebs 0

On Dec. 23, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity alerted big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian that identity thieves had worked out how to bypass its security and access any consumer’s full credit report — armed with nothing more than a person’s name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Experian fixed the glitch, but remained silent about the incident for a month. This week, however, Experian acknowledged that the security failure persisted for nearly seven weeks, between Nov. 9, 2022 and Dec. 26, 2022.

Schneier on Security- US Cyber Command Operations During the 2022 Midterm Elections

January 25, 2023 Bruce Schneier 0

The head of both US Cyber Command and the NSA, Gen. Paul Nakasone, broadly discussed that first organization’s offensive cyber operations during the runup to the 2022 midterm elections. He didn’t name names, of course:

We did conduct operations persistently to make sure that our foreign adversaries couldn’t utilize infrastructure to impact us,” said Nakasone. “We understood how foreign adversaries utilize infrastructure throughout the world. We had that mapped pretty well. And we wanted to make sure that we took it down at key times.”

Nakasone noted that Cybercom’s national mission force, aided by NSA, followed a “campaign plan” to deprive the hackers of their tools and networks. “Rest assured,” he said. “We were doing operations well before the midterms began, and we were doing operations likely on the day of the midterms.” And they continued until the elections were certified, he said…