• Extradited Kremlin-Linked Russian Businessman Charged with Cybercrimes, along with Four Other Russian Suspects

    Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin was extradited from Switzerland to the United States last week over his involvement in a global scheme to trade on hacked confidential information. One of Klyushin’s codefendants, Ivan Ermakov, a former officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence, was charged in court in 2018 for his role in hacking and disinformation operations the GRU conducted in 2016 as part of Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential elections.

  • Problems in Regulating Social Media Companies’ Extremist, Terrorist Content Removal Policies

    The U.S. government’s ability to meaningfully regulate major social media companies’ terrorist and extremist content removal policies is limited.

  • Far Too Little Vote Fraud to Tip Election to Trump, AP Finds

    >The Associated Press conducted a thorough review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by former President Donald Trump.Joe Biden won the 79 Electoral College votes of these states by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The AP comprehensive review has found fewer than 475 potential fraud cases. The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the potentially fraudulent votes were for Biden, which they were not, and even if those ballots were actually counted, which in most cases they were not.

  • Securing U.S. Democracy

    Most of the homeland security architecture built in the past twenty years has been devoted to protecting Americans from an act of international terrorism. Carrie Cordero writes that as a result, Americans are safer than they were twenty years ago from a terrorist attack directed or inspired by foreign groups on U.S. soil. She says, though, that more significantly, the threats to American safety and security have compounded in the past two decades. “These disparate threats and circumstances have challenged the effectiveness of the homeland security enterprise.”

  • Foreign Disinformation Effort Raises Fears of Violence in U.S.

    Foreign intelligence services and global terrorist organizations are engaged in a broad effort to seed the United States with disinformation, and this effort appears to be working, raising new fears of a terrorist attack in the coming weeks, according to a senior DHS official.

  • Antisemitism Disseminated Across Social Media Platforms

    Gab, a self-described “free speech” platform, has a long history as a haven for antisemites, extremists and conspiracy theorists. On Gab, and on Gab’s Twitter account, extremists promote a range of antisemitic tropes, such as Jews having dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel, that Jews are to blame for the crucifixion of Jesus and that Jews control the U.S. government.

     

  • Hate Speech on Social Media Fueled By Users’ Shared Values, Moral Concerns

    People whose moral beliefs and values align closely with other members of their online communities — including those on social networks Gab and Reddit — are more prone to radicalization, according to new research.

  • Finding Clues to Why False News Snowballs on Social Media

    The spread of misinformation on social media is a pressing societal problem that tech companies and policymakers continue to grapple with. But why and how does false news spread? A new model shows that the more polarized and hyperconnected a social network is, the more likely misinformation will spread.

  • Information Disorder: A Crisis That Exacerbates All Other Crises

    The Aspen Institute has issued a report analyzing the dangers of truth decay – the report’s authors prefer the term “information disorder” — and making a number of recommendations. In their introductory remarks, the authors write that “Information disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises. When bad information becomes as prevalent, persuasive, and persistent as good information, it creates a chain reaction of harm.”

  • What's the Deal with the Log4Shell Security Nightmare?

    What started out as a Minecraft prank, has now resulted in a 5-alarm security panic as administrators and developers around the world desperately try to fix and patch systems before the cryptocurrency miners, ransomware attackers and nation-state adversaries rush to exploit thousands of software packages. Nicholas Weaver writes that “Not only does the vulnerability affect thousands of programs but the exploitation of this vulnerability is very straightforward.  Attackers are already starting to launch widespread attacks.  Further compounding the problem is the huge diversity of vulnerable systems, so those responsible for defending systems are going to have a very bad Christmas.”

  • Jabbed in the Back: Russian, Chinese COVID-19 Disinformation Campaigns

    The public health and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have also become a battle about the nature of truth itself. From the emergence of the first reports of a virus in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, opportunistic leaders in China, Russia, and elsewhere have used the virus as a pretext to further erode democracy and wage information warfare. They have inundated an already polluted information environment with disinformation and propaganda about the virus’s origins and cures, and, most recently, vaccines.

  • How China Could Cyberattack Taiwan

    China has the means to launch a disabling cyberattack against political rival Taiwan ahead of any military invasion, experts say, as the technology is already targeting the island’s political leadership. A straight-up military invasion would cost lives and mobilize U.S. forces for Taiwan’s defense. Disruptive cyberattacks could sow chaos and soften Taiwan’s defenses, potentially making an invasion less costly for Beijing, experts say.

  • New Cyber Protections against Stealthy “Logic Bombs”

    Cybersecurity researchers proposed new ways to protect 3D printed objects such as drones, prostheses, and medical devices from stealthy “logic bombs.”

  • Gait Authentication to Enhance Smartphone Security

    Real-world tests have shown that gait authentication could be a viable means of protecting smartphones and other mobile devices from cyber crime. A study showed that a method sensing an individual’s gait was on average around 85 percent accurate in recognizing the individual.

  • Viral Vendettas: Pandemic-Driven Growth of Online Conspiratorial Movements

    Graphika has just released a new report which  tracks the growth of conspiratorial movements online throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, seeking to understand how these communities have evolved, and to what extent they have enabled real-world and online harms.