• Age-old communication problem solved using quantum entanglement

    One of the major problems in communication is known as the Byzantine agreement: Messages between three different parties are subject to faulty information; researchers succeeded in overcoming the qutrit difficulties by setting up a system that creates four-qubit entangled states

  • Economic barriers to better IT security

    In the real world, investment in risk avoidance may not be profitable; establishing economic incentives for IT suppliers to produce more secure products is a major problem because software publishers are not held liable for the shortcomings of their products; a new paper examines this conundrum

  • U.S. officials: "Cyber Warfare Is Already Here"

    U.S. officials say China, Russia, and possibly other nation-states are capable of collecting or exploiting data held on U.S. information systems; Director of National Intelligence says especially worrisome is the ability of other countries to destroy data in the system: “And the destroying data could be something like money supply, electric power distribution, transportation sequencing and that sort of thing”

  • New consortium to develop safety critical software

    High Integrity and Safety Critical Software (HI&SCS) is “the critical enabling technology” (U.K. Ministry of Defense’s words) for modern defense platforms, network enabled capability, and complex infrastructure; York University to lead a industry-academia consortium to develop such software; consortium will emulate the U.S. Software Engineering Institute

  • Breakthrough: Transcribing entanglement into and out of quantum memory

    Caltech researchers demonstrate for the first time an important capability required for the control of quantum information and quantum networks: Coherent conversion of photonic entanglement into and out of separated quantum memories

  • U.S., U.K. military secrets e-mailed to factory hand

    English factory hand bought a domain name which resembled the domain name of neighboring RAF base; for the last few years he has been receiving thousands of classified and highly sensitive e-mails from the U.S. Air Force — including the flight plan of Air Force One during President Bush’s visit to the U.K.; efforts to have the RAF or USAF address the problem failed; domain finally shut down last week

  • U.K. government lost more than 1,000 laptops in recent years

    The worries about how the U.K. government protects sensitive data continue: A report to parliament admits that the government has lost or had stolen more than 1,000 laptops in recent years

  • iRobot brings robotic WLAN to urban battlefield

    Everything you want a robot to be: Portable, small, inexpensive, intelligent, and robust; iRobot will develop robots to serve as relay node for urban battle-field WLAN

  • Banking security measures can tackle terrorism and terrorist financing

    Mobile phones can be part of the banks’ security to prevent terrorist financing through fraud, but it can also be a direct tool in the pursuit of homeland security

  • More than $3 billion lost in 2007 in phishing attacks

    New survey shows the 3.6 million U.S. adults lost an average $886 each to phishing schemes, totaling in $3.2 billion loss; the good news: More victims were able to recover some of their losses relative to previous years; phishing and malware attacks will continue to increase through 2009 because it is still a lucrative business for the perpetrators

  • How to protect corporate secrets from outsiders -- and insiders

    A secret can be lost in the blink of an eye, but getting information back under wraps can take forever; John Edwards offers a few useful tips on how corporations can become more secure

  • Researchers: Computers' "secure" memory systems utterly insecure

    Attacks on computer memory reveals vulnerability of widely used security systems; information stored in a computer’s permanent memory readily accessible to hackers; laptops especially vulnerable

  • Indian high-tech companies tighten security procedures

    Indian high-tech and software companies, with their constant need for new employees, are easy targets for terrorist infiltration; these companies now take much tougher approach to vetting — and continuously checking — employees

  • Bain's effort to acquire 3Com on verge of collapse

    Bain Capital and a Chinese partner wanted to buy 3Com for $2.2 billion; 3Com’s TippingPoint unit sells security software used by U.S. government agencies, and persistent questions were raised over the national security ramifications of the deal; Bain and Huawei Technologies have now withdrawn their application to CFIUS

  • New malware capture method

    A DHS-funded project promises to give security researchers a new way to kill botnets and targeted malware attacks before they infect computers