• Russia Could Unleash Disruptive Cyberattacks Against the U.S. – but Efforts to Sow Confusion and Division Are More Likely

    As tensions mount between Russia and the West over Ukraine, the threat of Russian cyberattacks against the U.S. increases. Cybersecurity experts are concerned that in the wake of recent cyberattacks by hackers affiliated with Russia, the Russian government has the capability to carry out disruptive and destructive attacks against targets in the U.S. the Russian government is likely to think twice before unleashing highly disruptive attacks against the U.S., because the U.S. government could interpret such attacks, particularly those targeting critical infrastructure, as acts of war.

  • Moving the U.S. Government Toward a Zero-Trust Architecture

    The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a Federal strategy aiming to move the U.S. government toward a “zero trust” approach to cybersecurity. The new strategy is an important in in implementing the administration’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, which focuses on advancing security measures which significantly reduce the risk of successful cyberattacks against the digital infrastructure of the federal government.

  • Israeli Police: From Warrantless Cellphone Searches to Controversial Misuse of Spyware

    Israel’s rules governing privacy and related laws have experienced a dramatic past few weeks, capped by an explosive journalistic expose revealing that Israeli police have been using NSO Group spyware allegedly without warrants or explicit statutory authorization.

  • How 5G Puts Airplanes at Risk – an Electrical Engineer Explains

    In 2021 the U.S. government auctioned part of the C-band spectrum to wireless carriers in 2021 for $81 billion. The carriers are using C-band spectrum to provide 5G service at full speed, 10 times the speed of 4G networks. The C-band spectrum is close to the frequencies used by key electronics that aircraft rely on to land safely. Here’s why that can be a problem.

  • How the U.S. Is Making Gains in an Uphill Battle Against Russian Hackers

    U.S. policy and actions in response to cyberattacks connected to Russia have changed distinctly since the Biden administration took office. The Biden administration has taken unprecedented steps to impose costs on Russian cyber criminals and frustrate their efforts, but we should be realistic about what national cyber defense can and can’t do.

  • How to Support a Globally Connected Counter-Disinformation Network

    From undermining democracy to inciting genocide, the global dangers of disinformation on social media are now well known. Kevin Sheives writes that despite countless calls for better legal regulation or intensified content moderation, the efforts of governments and social media companies to combat this threat have proven either woefully inadequate or dangerous to democratic practice. “Civil society, not governments or social media companies, can best diminish disinformation,” he writes.

  • Security Flaws in China’s Mandatory Olympics App for Athletes

    Athletes arriving at the Winter Olympics in China will have to install a Chinese-made app, called MY2022, on their smartphones, and fill in detailed information about themselves. China says that app, which the athletes will have to carry with them and periodically update, will be used to report health and travel data when they are in China. Athletes who fail to install the app, or who fail to fill in and update the information, will be sent home. Cyber analysts have found serious security and privacy flaws in the app.

  • Home for the Holidays? The Global Implications of a State-Level Cyberattack

    The 4 December 2021 cyberattack on the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) appeared, at first blush to be a local-to-Maryland problem. Maggie Smith writes, however, that “the MDH hack points to a concerning development at the nexus of cybercrime and data supply chains,” as it “shows how fragile data supply chains can be and signals how easy it is to disrupt even the most critical data flows by stopping the upstream flow of data that provides the insights and statistics on which the nations’ decision-makers rely.”  

  • Massive Cyberattack Targeting Ukraine’s Government Websites

    Several Ukrainian government websites have been targeted in a massive cyberattack amid heightened tensions between the West and Russia, which has massed troops and military equipment near the border with Ukraine.

  • For Accurate Health Information: Mainstream News More Reliable Than Social, Alternative Media

    New study finds that accurate and truthful health-related information has been found by individuals who rely more on mainstream news. Meanwhile, people who depend on social media or less-established forms of “alternative” health media are more likely to subscribe to false beliefs about health.

  • Radicalization Pipelines: How Targeted Advertising on Social Media Drives People to Extremes

    Behind-the-scenes mechanisms feed an item you search for on Google, “like” on social media, or come across while browsing into custom advertising on social media. Those mechanisms are increasingly being used for more nefarious purposes than aggressive advertising. The threat is in how this targeted advertising interacts with today’s extremely divisive political landscape. As a social media researcher, I see how people seeking to radicalize others use targeted advertising to readily move people to extreme views.

  • U.S. Cyber Officials Bracing for Fallout from “Log4j” Vulnerability

    More than a month after the Log4j software vulnerability was first discovered, U.S. cybersecurity officials are still warning about it, saying that some criminals and nation state adversaries may be waiting to make use of their newfound access to critical systems.

  • The Metaverse Offers a Future Full of Potential – for Terrorists and Extremists, Too

    The metaverse is an immersive virtual reality version of the internet where people can interact with digital objects and digital representations of themselves and others, and can move more or less freely from one virtual environment to another. As terrorism researchers, we see a potential dark side to the metaverse. Although it is still under construction, its evolution promises new ways for extremists to exert influence through fear, threat and coercion. Considering our research on malevolent creativity and innovation, there is potential for the metaverse to become a new domain for terrorist activity.

  • Leveraging Social Media During a Disaster

    During a disaster, many people turn to social media seeking information. But communicating during disasters is challenging, especially using an interactive environment like social media where misinformation can spread easily.

  • Aiding Evaluation of Adversarial AI Defenses

    There are many inherent weaknesses that underlie existing machine learning (ML) models, opening the technology up to spoofing, corruption, and other forms of deception. Evaluation testbed, datasets, tools developed on GARD program were released to jump-start community and encourage creation of more robust defenses against attacks on ML models.