• DoD' “Hack the Pentagon” follow-up initiative

    The Defense Department has awarded a contract to HackerOne and Synack to create a new contract vehicle for DoD components and the services to launch their own ”bug bounty” challenges, similar to the “Hack the Pentagon” pilot program, with the ultimate objective to normalize the crowd-sourced approach to digital defenses.

  • New cyber threat: Hacking 3D manufacturing systems

    Researchers demonstrated the first complete sabotage attack on a 3D additive manufacturing (AM) system, illustrating how a cyberattack and malicious manipulation of blueprints can fatally damage production of a device or machine. More than 100 industries, including aerospace, automotive, and defense, employ additive printing processes. The AM industry accounted for $5.165 billion of revenue in 2015. Furthermore, 32.5 percent of all AM-generated objects are used as functional parts.

  • “Lurking malice” found in cloud hosting services

    A study of twenty major cloud hosting services has found that as many as 10 percent of the repositories hosted by them had been compromised — with several hundred of the “buckets” actively providing malware. Such bad content could be challenging to find, however, because it can be rapidly assembled from stored components that individually may not appear to be malicious.

  • WikiLeaks founder’s Internet connection cut by a “state party”

    WikiLeaks said yesterday (Monday) that the Internet connection of its founder, Julian Assange, had been “severed by a state party.” During the past few months, WikiLeaks has collaborated with Russian government intelligence agencies to publish tens of thousands of private e-mails stolen by Russian government hackers from the computer systems of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign in an effort to help Donald Trump win the 8 November elections. The United States said it would respond “proportionally” to the Russian interference in the U.S. elections.

  • U.S. mulls how to respond to Russian interference in the U.S. elections

    The United States earlier this week has accused Russia of interfering in the U.S. electoral process. Cyber experts found the digital fingerprints of two Russian government hacker groups were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and the Clinton campaign, but it was still a major step for the United States officially and formally to charge that Russia was behind the hacking – an unmistakable evidence that Russia was throwing its weight behind one of the candidates.

  • The Siberian candidate: Russia’s 2-pronged campaign to undermine the U.S. political system

    We now know what the U.S. intelligence community has known for a while: Vladimir Putin has instructed the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) and GRU (the Russian military’s main intelligence agency) to use their considerable cyberwarfare capabilities to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 8 November. The Russian digital campaign of interference in the U.S. electoral process has intensified. We can only guess what additional actions the Russian government hackers will take in the days immediately before 8 November – and on election day itself.

  • “Security fatigue” may cause computer users to feel hopeless and act recklessly

    After updating your password for the umpteenth time, have you resorted to using one you know you’ll remember because you’ve used it before? Have you ever given up on an online purchase because you just didn’t feel like creating a new account? If you have done any of those things, it might be the result of “security fatigue.” It exposes online users to risk and costs businesses money in lost customers.

  • Penn State cybersecurity club gets competitive

    The members of the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization (CCSO) are embroiled in a game of capture-the-flag. They’re in hot pursuit of the pennant, hoping to find it before their competitors. But instead of dashing across fields and through the woods, they’re gathered in a conference room sharing pizza. And instead of searching for a brightly colored flag, they use their cybersecurity skills to find a “flag” that is actually a special computer file.

  • Russia using hacking to influence 2016 elections: U.S.

    The United States, in an official statement issued jointly today by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence (DNI), and a high-level official at Department of Homeland Security (DHS), accused Russia of trying to influence the 2016 U.S. elections by using Russian government hackers. The U.S. says the Russian government hackers stole and published archived e-mails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The official statement also refers to the attempted hacks into the voting systems and voter registration databases in twenty states, but says that the evidence about Russian government involvement in those hacks is not yet conclusive.

  • Our ability to spot phishing e-mails is far from perfect

    Each year, tens of millions of phishing e-mails make it to your inbox, uncaught by your e-mail client’s spam filter. Of those, millions more slide past our own judgment and are clicked and opened. A recent study has revealed just how likely we are to take the bait.

  • Data-mining can be used for detecting multiple hackers

    Security efforts to combat hackers usually focus on one method of attack, but computer scientists have developed a strategy more effective at tackling various types of attacks. Data mining, the process of analyzing big sets of data and organizing it into useful information, is used in all corners of industry, and the computer scientists say that a spam filtering system based on data mining can identify various adversaries, or hackers.

  • DHS awards U Texas San Antonio $3 million to develop, deliver cybersecurity training

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected a team led by the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) to develop and deliver cybersecurity training through the Continuing Training Grants (CTG) Program. The 2016 CTG is a $3 million grant to develop and deliver cybersecurity training to support the national preparedness goal to make the United States more secure and resilient.

  • Putin’s cyber play: What are all these Russian hackers up to?

    Russia has been implicated in many breaches of U.S. networks in recent months, most notably the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hacks. On 28 September, FBI Director James Comey told a congressional hearing that Russian hackers have been testing cyberdefenses of voter registration databases in more than a dozen states. What is Russia trying to do with its hacking efforts? One clear goal for the Russian hackers involved in these recent attacks is to make the presidential campaign harder for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and easier for her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Russia is also trying to spread distrust of official viewpoints, particularly those coming from the EU or NATO. With any Western fringe group Russia can attract, it is attempting to stall Western decisions, sow discontent and distrust, and draw apart societies and partnerships.

  • Hackers “poking around” U.S. voter registration sites in more than a dozen states: Comey

    James Comey, the FBI director, said his agency has discovered more attempts to hack voter registration sites in more than a dozen states according to two law enforcement officials. The FBI, and investigators working for other law enforcement agencies, say indications are the hackers belong to two cyber units working for the Russian government.

  • Secure passwords can be sent through the human body, instead of air

    Sending a password or secret code over airborne radio waves like WiFi or Bluetooth means anyone can eavesdrop, making those transmissions vulnerable to hackers who can attempt to break the encrypted code. Now, computer scientists and electrical engineers have devised a way to send secure passwords through the human body — using benign, low-frequency transmissions generated by fingerprint sensors and touchpads on consumer devices.