• More Violent Pro-ISIS, Extreme Right Content on Facebook & Instagram

    The Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which monitors the methods used by extremists to exploit the Internet and social media platforms to recruit followers and incite violence, reports that violent Islamist and extreme right content continues to be available on social media platforms.

  • Hacking for Homeland Security

    On Monday (4 September), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the launch of the third Hacking for Homeland Security (H4HS). Participating students will focus on challenges associated with cybersecurity information sharing within transportation, the latency issue at screening checkpoints, and address greenspace issues after natural disasters.

  • Only Playing: Extreme-Right Gamification

    Extremist ideas inspire violence in a few, but for the many, participation increasingly resembles a consequence-free game separate from reality. “As technologies develop further, either in the form of Facebook’s metaverse or other forms of mixed or augmented reality that blur the line between online and offline, the potential disconnect between play and real-world violence is only going to grow more acute,” experts say.

  • Nearing the Tipping Point Needed to Reform Facebook, Other Social Media?

    The recent series of five articles from the Wall Street Journal exposed Facebook’s complicity in spreading toxic content. Yet, social media platforms continue to enjoy free rein despite playing what many consider to be an outsized and destabilizing role in delivering content to billions of individuals worldwide. No one said reigning in social media was going to be easy. But the harm caused of social media is simply too big for us to fail.

  • “Smart” Security for Smart Devices

    Modern society is inundated with different types of smart devices designed to make people’s lives easier. each device has some amount of built-in security to help combat the threat of cyberattacks, the increased prevalence of these devices in recent years has created an industry-wide need for a new, “smart” approach to protect all smart devices from cyberattacks.

  • Apps for Popular Smart Home Devices Contain Security Flaws

    As Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as connected locks, motion sensors, security cameras and smart speakers become increasingly ubiquitous in households across the country, their surging popularity means more people are at risk of cyber intrusions. Researchers have found that the smartphone companion applications of 16 popular smart home devices contain “critical cryptographic flaws” that could allow attackers to intercept and modify their traffic.

  • Vulnerability Found in Widely Used Method for Securing Phone Data

    Researchers demonstrated a new way of attacking two different types of low-end Android phones. The attack relies on placing a radio sensor within a few centimeters of a device, close enough to detect the weak radio waves that are inadvertently emitted by a phone’s processor.

  • EU: Russia Involved in “Ghostwriter” Cyberattacks

    The European Union has warned the Kremlin that it could “consider taking further steps” over Moscow’s complicity in recent cyberattacks targeting the bloc’s members.

  • Preventing Abuse in Encrypted Communication

    Mitigating abuses of encrypted social media communication on outlets such as WhatsApp and Signal, while ensuring user privacy, is a massive challenge on several fronts, including technological, legal, and social.

  • U.S. Sanctions Russian-Based Cryptocurrency Exchange for Laundering Ransomware Money

    A Russian-based cryptocurrency exchange has been sanctioned by the U.S. over its role in facilitating illegal payments from ransomware attacks. U.S. Treasury officials said it was the first sanctions leveled against a cryptocurrency exchange laundering money for cybercriminals.

  • Northeastern University Wins New CyberForce Conquer the Hill competition

    Critical U.S. infrastructure is increasingly dependent on the internet, making security a high priority. But about 500,000 cybersecurity jobs went unfilled from April 2020 through March, according to CyberSeek, a project from the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education. To fill that skills gap, CyberForce challenges college teams to build and defend a simulated energy infrastructure from cyberattacks.

  • Cybercriminals Use Pandemic to Attack Schools and Colleges

    From Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, 2021, educational organizations were the target of over 5.8 million malware attacks, or 63% of all such attacks. Ransomware attacks alone impacted 1,681 U.S. schools, colleges and universities in 2020. Globally 44% of educational institutions were targeted by such attacks.

  • U.S.: Russia of Stonewalling on Cybercrime

    U.S. law enforcement and cyber officials say that U.S. warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin over shielding cybercriminals holed up in Russia appear to have made little impact.

  • Teaching Vehicle Cybersecurity

    University of Detroit Mercy recently received a $1.12-million award from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to establish the Regional Vehicle Cybersecurity Institute, a regional-based, cybersecurity consortium. “Without an increase to the workforce now, the cybersecurity risk to DoD and commercial ground vehicles will keep falling further behind the increasing threats from actors in multi-domain contested environments,” said one expert.

  • Video Fake News: Believed More, Shared More Than Text, Audio Versions

    People are more likely to believe fake news in a video format compared to text and audio forms of the same story. People are also more willing to share these videos with people in their network.