• Improving Security for Smart Systems

    In an increasingly connected and smart world, sensors collect and share large amounts of data to help people make decisions. Researchers has recently developed a way to statistically analyze such complex sensor data, so that the computer algorithms that make data-based decisions can be more resilient and better able to cope with small errors.

  • U.S. Officials Hope Confidence Campaign Pays Off for Midterm Elections

    “Americans should go to the ballot box with confidence,” Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Election Security Agency (CISA), told a cybersecurity forum late last month. Yet U.S. officials also acknowledge the threats to Tuesday’s elections are serious and are being treated with proper caution.

  • In Disasters, People Are Abandoning Official Info for Social Media. How to Know What to Trust

    In an emergency, where do you turn to find out what’s going on and what you should do to stay safe? The rise of social media has seen community groups, volunteers and non-government organizations nudging out official channels. While these informal sources often provide faster, more local information, they may also be less reliable than government sources.

  • The Conspiracy Theorist “Worldview” and the Language of Their Argument

    A study has analyzed the difference between mainstream and conspiracy articles. It found that conspiracies rely on other conspiracies as “evidence,” jumping around different topics, less coherently than mainstream texts, but relying on a web of interconnected ideas to connect the dots.

  • Cybersecurity Professionals May Be Burning Out at a Faster Rate Than Frontline Health Care

    More attention should be paid to the fast rate of burn-out among cybersecurity professionals. Hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity jobs are vacant owing to lack of cybersecurity talent – and that number is growing, among other things, by thousands of cybersecurity professionals who leave the field after a few short years.

  • DHS Unveils New Cybersecurity Performance Goals for Critical Infrastructure

    DHS released the Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs), voluntary practices that outline the highest-priority baseline measures businesses and critical infrastructure owners of all sizes can take to protect themselves against cyber threats.

  • Ensuring Our Workforce Is Cyber Ready

    Remaining vigilant and prepared to protect our nation’s cybersecurity is one of DHS S&T’s highest priorities. To meet this goal, S&T is harnessing the intellectual power of America’s universities and leveraging some of the best and brightest subject matter experts and academic minds via S&T Centers of Excellence (COE).

  • Extracting Personal Information from Anonymous Cell Phone Data

    Researchers haves extracted personal information, specifically protected characteristics like age and gender, from anonymous cell phone data using machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, raising questions about data security.

  • Improving Recovery of Critical Systems after Cyberattacks

    Researchers aim to develop fast, accurate and efficient recovery mechanisms that, when coupled with the expeditious damage assessment techniques he has already developed, will offer an “integrated suite solution.” This will allow affected CI systems to continue running while providing as many critical functionalities as possible.

  • Nobel-Winning Quantum Weirdness Undergirds an Emerging High-Tech Industry, Promising Better Ways of Encrypting Communications and Imaging Your Body

    There are several emerging technologies which rely on the non-intuitive quantum phenomenon of entanglement: Unhackable communications devices, high-precision GPS and high-resolution medical imaging. For the most part, quantum entanglement is still a subject of physics research, but it’s also a component of commercially available technologies, and it plays a starring role in the emerging quantum information processing industry.

  • Ukraine Warns of Looming Russian Cyberattacks

    Ukraine is again urging its companies and private organizations to immediately bolster their cybersecurity ahead of what could be a new wave of Russian attacks. The government advisory further warned that the vulnerabilities could allow Russia to launch a renewed series of targeted cyberattacks on Ukraine aimed at disabling communication and information systems.

  • How Can Countries Protect Critical Infrastructure from Cyberattacks?

    Hacking attacks on power grids, telecom networks, or governments can paralyze entire societies. That makes them a powerful military weapon, as the war in Ukraine demonstrates. How can countries protect themselves?

  • Thinking Like a Cyberattacker to Protect User Data

    A component of computer processors that connects different parts of the chip can be exploited by malicious agents who seek to steal secret information from programs running on the computer. Researchers develop defense mechanisms against attacks targeting interconnection of chips in computers.

  • Violent Extremist Music Prevalent on Spotify, While Platform Largely Declines to Act

    Music has long been an effective way to radicalize extremists, allowing artists to both entertain and indoctrinate vulnerable listeners. Researchers have identified 40 racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (RMVE) artists with a presence on Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform.

  • Fighting Foreign Interference

    Many in Europe did not take the foreign interference threat seriously until Russia launched its war against Ukraine on 24 February, even though European nations were already subjected to a form of hybrid warfare from Russia with cyberattacks on hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic, attacks on public institutions, attempts to corrupt leaders and financing of political parties. China’s emerging interference campaign emulates Russia’s. Their goal is :to ensure the democracies no longer functioned and gave way to authoritarian regimes,” says a European expert.