• Fake News: People with Greater Emotional Intelligence Are Better at Spotting Misinformation

    The spread of misinformation – in the form of unsubstantiated rumor and intentionally deceitful propaganda – is nothing new. However, the global proliferation of social media, the 24-hour news cycle and consumers’ ravenous desire for news – immediately and in bite-size chunks – means that today, misinformation is more abundant and accessible than ever. But our new study shows fake news doesn’t affect everyone equally. People with greater emotional intelligence are better at spotting it.

  • A Remedy for the Spread of False News?

    Stopping the spread of political misinformation on social media may seem like an impossible task. But a new study co-authored by MIT scholars finds that most people who share false news stories online do so unintentionally, and that their sharing habits can be modified through reminders about accuracy.

  • 2020 Cybercrime Losses Exceeded $4.2 Billion: FBI

    The FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report includes information from 791,790 complaints of suspected internet crime—an increase of more than 300,000 complaints from 2019—and reported losses exceeding $4.2 billion.

  • Russia, Iran Meddled in November's Election; China Did Not: U.S. Intelligence

    A just-released assessment by U.S. intelligence officials finds Russia and Iran did seek to influence the outcome of the November 2020 presidential election. But the assessment also concludes that, despite repeated warnings by a number of top Trump officials, China ultimately decided to sit it out. In the run-up to the November election, President Donald Trump, DNI John Ratcliffe, NSC Adviser Robert O’Brien, and AG William Barr. Among other Trump supporters, argued the Chinese interference in the election posed as much of a threat to the election as Russian interference, with Barr arguing that China posed an even greater threat. The intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions that “China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election,” will likely lead to new questions about how the intelligence was presented to the public.

  • Accelerating Use of Fully Homomorphic Encryption

    Protecting and preserving personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, intelligence insights, and other forms of sensitive information has never been more critical. A steady cadence of data breaches and attacks are reported seemingly daily. As the use of cloud computing and virtual networks becomes increasingly pervasive for storing, processing, and moving information, concerns around data vulnerability, access, and privacy are similarly on the rise. Four research teams take on development of novel hardware accelerator to enable new levels of data and privacy protection.

  • Are Telegram and Signal Havens for Right-Wing Extremists?

    Since the violent storming of Capitol Hill and subsequent ban of former U.S. President Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter, the removal of Parler from Amazon’s servers, and the de-platforming of incendiary right-wing content, messaging services Telegram and Signal have seen a deluge of new users. Steven Feldstein and Sarah Gordon write that the two services rely on encryption to protect the privacy of user communication, which has made them popular with protesters seeking to conceal their identities against repressive governments in places like Belarus, Hong Kong, and Iran. “But the same encryption technology has also made them a favored communication tool for criminals and terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and the Islamic State.” Telegram has purged Islamic State from the platform, and it could the same with far-right violent extremists.

  • After the Insurrection, America’s Far-Right Groups Get More Extreme

    As the U.S. grapples with domestic extremism in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, warnings about more violence are coming from domestic intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Two experts – the authors of a recent book on extremist violence in the United States – say that some members have left extremist groups in the wake of the Jan. 6 violence. But the members who remain, and the new members they are attracting, are increasing the radicalization of far-right groups.

  • Rapidly Restoring the Electrical Grid after Cyberattack

    Some 330 million Americans rely on the nation’s critical infrastructure to keep the country humming. Disruptions to electrical grids, communications systems, and supply chains can be catastrophic, yet all of these are vulnerable to cyberattack. RADICS program delivers novel technologies, custom testbed, and evaluation exercises to enable utilities and first responders to quickly restore critical infrastructure amidst a cyberattack.

  • Spotting Deepfakes by Looking at Light Reflection in the Eyes

    Computer scientists have developed a tool that automatically identifies deepfake photos by analyzing light reflections in the eyes. The tool proved 94 percent effective with portrait-like photos in experiments.

  • U.S. Set to Retaliate against Russia, China for Massive Cyber Attacks

    Senior officials in the Biden administration on Friday said that the administration is finalizing its decision on how to retaliate forcefully for state-sponsored hacking, as fears in the United States and Western Europe are growing over the consequences of two recent major cyberattacks. Officials said that U.S. retaliatory measures – “some seen, some unseen” – will be coming in matter of weeks, nit months.

  • America's Place in Cyberspace: The Biden Administration’s Cyber Strategy Takes Shape

    In cyber policy, the SolarWinds and Microsoft hacks have dominated the first weeks of President Joseph Biden’s administration. Even so, the administration has outlined its cyber strategy in speeches by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and in the president’s Interim Strategic National Security Guidance [PDF]. The emerging strategy is anchored in, and is reflective of, the ideological, geopolitical, technological, and diplomatic pillars of Biden’s broader vision for U.S. foreign policy and national security.

  • Two R&D Projects to Enhance Mobile Network Traffic Security

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are jointly announcing the final two research and development (R&D) awards for the newly launched Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI) project.

  • How Biden’s Cyber Strategy Echoes Trump’s

    On March 3, the Biden administration released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance. Herb Lin writes that the interim guidance document is, by definition, a work in progress, and one would expect a final guidance document to be roughly consistent with the interim guidance but also to contain a more substantial elaboration on the interim guidance. With two exceptions — emphasizing diversity in the national talent base and strongly implies government investment in cybersecurity –”all other areas addressed in the Biden interim guidance, I believe the statements are substantially the same. If this is true, it suggests great continuity in cyber policy and strategy between administrations as different as Biden’s and Trump’s. Of course, the Trump National Cyber Strategy wasn’t all that different from Obama’s cyber strategy, either.”

  • Sea-Level Rise up to Four Times Global Average for Coastal Communities

    Coastal populations are experiencing relative sea-level rise up to four times faster than the global average – according to new research. is the first to analyze global sea-level rise combined with measurements of sinking land.

  • The Microsoft Exchange Hack and the Great Email Robbery

    The world is probably days away from the “Great Email Robbery,” in which a large number of threat actors around the globe are going to pillage and ransom the email servers of tens of thousands of businesses and local governments, Nicholas Weaver writes. Or at least pillage those that the purported Chinese actors haven’t already pillaged.” And now the Biden administration has a real hard policy problem: What now? The SolarWinds hack may have been significant, but [the Exchange attack] will affect far more institutions,” Weaver writes. “The Exchange attack showed complete disregard for possible consequences on behalf of those responsible for the breach,” but “without consequences, such broad attacks will simply continue.”