• Harnessing Chaos to Protect Devices from Hackers

    Researchers have found a way to use chaos to help develop digital fingerprints for electronic devices that may be unique enough to foil even the most sophisticated hackers. Just how unique are these fingerprints? The researchers believe it would take longer than the lifetime of the universe to test for every possible combination available.

  • Global Security Trends

    The National Intelligence Council (NIC) on Thursday released the seventh edition of its quadrennial Global Trends report. Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World is an unclassified assessment of the forces and dynamics that the NIC anticipates are likely to shape the national security environment over the next twenty years. Global competition for influence will intensify. “During the next two decades, the intensity of competition for global influence is likely to reach its highest level since the Cold War,” the report notes.

  • Cybersecurity Guide Tailored to the Hospitality Industry

    A new practical cybersecurity guide from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can help hotel owners reduce the risks to a highly vulnerable and attractive target for hackers: the hotel property management system (PMS), which stores guests’ personal information and credit card data. 

  • The U.S. Government Needs to Overhaul Cybersecurity. Here’s How.

    After the 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the SolarWinds breach, and—just weeks after SolarWinds—the latest Microsoft breach, it is by now clear that the U.S. federal government is woefully unprepared in matters of cybersecurity. Jonathan Reiber and Matt Glenn write that “it is time for a different model for cybersecurity. U.S. military bases have layers of walls, guards, badge readers, and authentication measures to control access. The United States needs the same mindset for its cybersecurity.”

  • Cybersecurity Tech for Emergency Communications Centers

    DHS S&T is expanding pilot testing of a technology to improve the cybersecurity defenses of the nation’s emergency communications infrastructure. Odenton, Md.-based SecuLore Solutions in the research and development (R&D) of a cybersecurity defense solution based on predictive analytics and cyber data that helps detect and mitigate cybersecurity attacks against legacy emergency communications systems and new Next Generation 911 (NG911) and Internet Protocol-based technologies.

  • The EU Online Terrorism Regulation: A Bad Deal

    On 12 September 2018, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online—dubbed the Terrorism Regulation, or TERREG for short—that contained some alarming ideas.

  • Capitol Riot Exposed QAnon’s Violent Potential

    Many followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory see themselves as digital warriors battling an imaginary cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who rule the world from the convenience of their keyboards. But the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump exposed the potential for violence in a movement that reared its head on the fringes of the internet in 2018 and now boasts millions of adherents around the world.

  • What Would Happen If States Started Looking at Cyber Operations as a “Threat” to Use Force?

    How are threats of force conveyed in cyberspace? Duncan B. Hollis and Tsvetelina van Benthem write that when, in the spring of 2020, hackers compromised the SolarWinds Orion software by “trojanizing” the so-called Sunburst backdoor, they raised a question: “If the presence of backdoors in a victim’s network allows for future exploits capable of causing functionality losses generating destruction (or even deaths), could their presence be seen as threatening such results? More broadly, when does a cyber operation that does not itself constitute a use of force threaten force?”

  • An AI-Based Counter-Disinformation Framework

    There are different roles that AI can play in counter-disinformation efforts, but the current shortfalls of AI-based counter-disinformation tools must be addressed first. Such an effort faces technical, governance, and regulatory barriers, but there are ways these obstacles could be effectively addressed to allow AI-based solutions to play a bigger role in countering disinformation.

  • New Initiative Aims to Ensure 5G Networks Are Reliable, Secure

    The transition to 5G will affect every device connected to the internet. Later this year, a team of Stanford researchers will demonstrate how a tight formation of computer-controlled drones can be managed with precision even when the 5G network controlling it is under continual cyberattack. The demo’s ultimate success or failure will depend on the ability of an experimental network control technology to detect the hacks and defeat them within a second to safeguard the navigation systems.

  • Russian-Backed Hackers Target German Lawmakers

    Suspected Russian state-backed hackers with a history of running disinformation campaigns against NATO have targeted dozens of German lawmakers, German media reported on 26 March. The hackers used spear-phishing e-mails to target the private e-mail accounts of members of the German parliament and regional state assemblies, in the latest suspected Russian-backed effort against lawmakers in the country.

  • Many QAnon Followers Report Having Mental Health Diagnoses

    QAnon followers, who may number in the millions, are often viewed as a group associated with baseless and debunked conspiracy, terrorism, and radical action, such as the 6 January Capitol insurrection. But radical extremism and terror may not be the real concern from this group. A social psychologist who studies terrorists, and a security scholar, in their research for their forthcoming book — Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon — noticed that QAnon followers are different from the radicals they usually study in one key way: They are far more likely to have serious mental illnesses.

  • Covert Action, Espionage, and the Intelligence Contest in Cyberspace

    In recent months, the world learned that China carried out an indiscriminate hack against Microsoft Exchange, while Russia hacked U.S. information technology firm SolarWinds and used cyber capabilities in an attempt to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Michael Poznansky writes that the attacks raise important questions about how best to characterize these and other kinds of disruptive cyber events. Cyber-enabled espionage and covert cyber operations both qualify as intelligence activities, but they are also distinct in key ways from one another. “Failing to appreciate these differences impedes our ability to understand the richness of cyber operations, underlying motivations, the prospect for signaling, and metrics of success,” he writes.

  • Computer Chip Pitted against 500+ Hackers. The Chip Won.

    An “unhackable” computer chip lived up to its name in its first bug bounty competition, foiling over 500 cybersecurity researchers who were offered tens of thousands of dollars to analyze it and three other secure processor technologies for vulnerabilities. MORPHEUS technology from the University of Michigan emerged unscathed from a DARPA virtual hackathon.

  • A Dozen Experts with Questions Congress Should Ask the Tech CEOs — On Disinformation and Extremism

    On Thursday, 25 March, two subcomittees of the House Energy & Commerce Committee will hold a joint hearing on “the misinformation and disinformation plaguing online platforms. Yaël Eisenstat and Justin Hendrix write that Thursday hearings will be the first time the tech CEOs will face Congress since the January 6th siege on the U.S. Capitol, where different groups of individuals sought to prevent the certification of the presidential election because they were led by Donald Trump to believe in the lie that the election was stolen. “Should social media companies continue their pattern of negligence, governments must use every power – including new legislation, fines and criminal prosecutions – to stop the harms being created,” says one expert. “Lies cost lives.”