• Game “Pre-Bunks” COVID-19 Conspiracies as Part of U.K.'s Fight against Fake News

    Go Viral!is a new game developed in partnership between the University of Cambridge and the U.K. government. Based on “inoculation theory,” it simulates an environment for users to play the role of fake news producer, so they can understand how COVID-19 misinformation circulates online.

  • Fooling Deepfake Detectors

    Because new security measures consistently catch many deepfake images and videos, people may be lulled into a false sense of security and believe we have the situation under control. Unfortunately, that might be further from the truth than we realize.

  • Protecting Device Software from Zero-Day Attacks with TrustMS

    An essential step to protecting mobile and embedded devices from cyberattacks is ensuring that software is not vulnerable to malicious attacks. More than 12,000 new common vulnerabilities were identified in 2019 alone. Verifying that devices are secure is a daunting challenge, as thousands of apps and driver updates are released each year and many will contain vulnerabilities that have not yet been discovered. Thanks to the newly-developed Trusted Mobile System (TrustMS), it is now possible to secure app software by preventing attackers from taking advantage of these vulnerabilities.

  • U.S.-Inspired Far-Right Extremism an “Insidious” Threat to Australia: Study

    Researchers from Macquarie and Victoria Universities have published the first study mapping the online activity of right-wing extremists in New South Wales, Australia. Their study has revealed a network of highly active, social, and complex communities that is difficult to monitor for potential offline violence and is highly successful in radicalizing at-risk individuals and introducing hateful and extreme rhetoric into Australian political discussions. The report highlighted the strong influence of American populist politics on right-wing extremism in Australia.

  • Greece: Leaders of Neo-Nazi Group Golden Dawn Convicted of Murder

    After a five-year-long trial, the Greek court on Wednesday found members of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn guilty of murder and assault. The neo-Nazi group’s leader was convicted of running a criminal organization. The 68 members of Golden Dawn, including 18 former lawmakers, faced many charges, including the murder of Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas, assaulting migrant fishermen, attacks on left-wing activists, and constituting a criminal organization.

  • Michigan Kidnapping Plot, Like So Many Other Extremist Crimes, Foreshadowed on Social Media

    More and more, far-right extremist violence is preceded by online declarations on social media. Craig Timberg and Isaac Stanley-Becker write that “such online declarations, brimming with anger and potentially violent intent, have become staples of extremism-fueled crime news in recent years,” and that “Before [such crimes] become real, [discussions of them] percolate online, courtesy of a social media ecosystem that is ubiquitous, barely moderated and well suited to helping aggrieved people find each other.” The plot by extremist Michigan militias to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer was no exception.

  • In a Battle of AI versus AI, Researchers Are Preparing for the Coming Wave of Deepfake Propaganda

    Deepfakes are here to stay. Managing disinformation and protecting the public will be more challenging than ever as artificial intelligence gets more powerful. People may soon be able to watch videos through a specialized tool, which tells them whether or not the videos they are watching are what they seem – or whether the videos are “deepfake,” videos made using artificial intelligence with deep learning. We are part of a growing research community that is taking on the deepfake threat, in which detection is just the first step.

  • Beyond 9/11: U.S. Security Needs in the 21st Century

    The year 2020 has featured an array of safety and security concerns for ordinary Americans, including disease and natural disasters. How can the U.S. government best protect its citizens? That is the focus of a new scholarly book with practical aims, Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century, The volume features chapters written by 19 security experts, and closely examines the role of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

  • Finding the Origins of a Hacker

    Industrial control systems run utilities that provide the electricity to keep the lights on or that deliver the water that people expect to gush out when they turn on a tap. Today those systems can be attacked via malicious code that an adversary inserts into the normal operating instructions.

  • The Clean Network Program: Digital Age Echoes of the “Long Telegram”?

    In August, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched the Clean Network program—“the Trump administration’s comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party.” The Clean Network program’s scope—stretching from submarine cables traversing the oceans to citizens downloading smartphone apps—reveals the breadth of the administration’s concerns about the political, ideological, and technological inroads China has made in cyberspace. These concerns recall the warning George Kennan gave in his famous “long telegram” in 1946 about the Soviet Union’s “elaborate and far flung apparatus for exertion of its influence in other countries.”

  • War, Terrorism, and Catastrophe in Cyber Insurance: Understanding and Reforming Exclusions

    Insurance is one of the most promising tools for addressing pervasive cyber insecurity. A robust market for insuring cyber incidents could, among other things, financially incentivize organizations to adopt better cyber hygiene—thereby reducing cyber risk for society as a whole. But cyber insurance, however, is not yet mature enough to fulfill its potential, Jon Bateman writes, and endless lawsuits hamper its effectiveness. Reforms and new solutions are sorely needed.

  • Election Manipulation Threatens Democracy, but There Are New tools to Combat Disinformation

    The spread of false narratives about the election through social media poses a serious threat to American democracy. The Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University has a collection of tools and studies that aid in the fight against election manipulation and disinformation.

  • SOCOM, U.S. Air Force Enlist Primer to Combat Disinformation

    Information overload is one of the most pressing challenges facing the U.S. military. Every day, humanity creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data, and less than one percent of the total amount of global data has ever been analyzed. Primer secures Phase II SBIR contract to enhance its natural language processing platform to counter disinformation.

  • Foreign Interference in U.S. Elections Focuses on Cultivating Distrust to Reduce Political Consensus

    The Soviet Union and then Russia institutionalized active political interference measures over many decades and advanced them into a comprehensive foreign policy tool. The strategy is used to undermine democratic governance processes in the United States and its allies, with the overarching aim to weaken the United States and its allies, while advancing Russia as a global power. Russian-backed attempts to create discord in the United States have made use of existing movements across the American political ideological spectrum and worked to create new ones.

  • UWF’s Master’s in Cybersecurity Online Program Ranks among Best Values in Nation

    In only its second year of existence, the University of Florida’s (UWF) nationally designated Master of Science in Cybersecurity online program – recognized as a leading program in cybersecurity education and workforce development — has been ranked as one of the best values in the nation, according to the 2020 Cybersecurity Guide rankings.