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Fact-Checking the Viral Conspiracies in the Wake of Hurricane Helene
Buoyed by firebrands like Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Helene stirred up a toxic stew of conspiracy theories and culture war politics.
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Some Online Conspiracy-Spreaders Don’t Even Believe the Lies They’re Spewing
There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.
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Online Misinformation Most Likely to Be Believed by Ideological Extremists: Study
There has been a dramatic rise of online misinformation, but the influence of misinformation is not universal. Rather, users with extreme political views are more likely than are others to both encounter and believe false news.
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You’d Never Fall for an Online Scam, Right?
Wrong, says cybersecurity expert. Con artists use time-tested tricks that can work on anyone regardless of age, IQ — what’s changed is scale.
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Online Signals of Extremist Mobilization
Olivia Brown’s study analyses the online behaviors of individuals who mobilized to right-wing extremist action, revealing that discussions about violent actions and logistical planning, rather than ideological content, are key indicators of mobilization.
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New Security Protocol Shields Data from Attackers During Cloud-Based Computation
The technique leverages quantum properties of light to guarantee security while preserving the accuracy of a deep-learning model.
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Research Showing Facebook's News-Feed Algorithm Curbs Election Misinformation Debunked
Though Facebook can limit untrustworthy content, new research suggests it often chooses not to. A flawed Meta-funded research helped to create the misperception, widely reported by the media, that Facebook and Instagram’s news feeds are largely reliable sources of trustworthy news.
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Neo-Nazi Telegram Users Panic Amid Crackdown and Arrest of Alleged Leaders of Online Extremist Group
An analysis by ProPublica and FRONTLINE shows a surge in activity on Telegram channels aligned with the Terrorgram Collective, as allies tried to rally support for their comrades in custody and sought to oust users they believed to be federal agents.
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DHS Awards $279.9 million in Grant Funding for State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program
DHS announced the availability of $279.9 million in grant funding for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program (SLCGP). Now in its third year, this program provides funding to state, local, and territorial (SLT) governments to help reduce cyber risk and build resilience against evolving cybersecurity threats.
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What We've Learned About the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Norwegian Links To Hezbollah's Pagers
A Bulgarian company with Norwegian links has surfaced in the supply chain of the pagers that detonated in Lebanon this week, killing 37 people and injuring several thousand others. The pagers, which were being used by members of Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East and designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on September 17.
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Pagers and Walkie-talkies Over Cellphones – a Security Expert Explains Why Hezbollah Went Low-Tech for Communications
In general, I believe the adversary in an asymmetric conflict using low-tech techniques, tactics and technology will almost always be able to operate successfully against a more powerful and well-funded opponent. But from a cybersecurity perspective, Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s pagers shows that any device in your life can be tampered with by an adversary at points along the supply chain – long before you even receive it.
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California Laws Target Deepfake Political Ads, Disinformation
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed three pieces of legislation restricting the role that artificial intelligence, specifically deepfake audio and video recordings, can play in election campaigns.
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Intelligence Suggests Iran Sought to Ensnare Trump, Biden in Hack-and-Leak
Iran’s efforts to upend U.S. politics ahead of November’s presidential election by targeting the campaign of former President Donald Trump went well beyond a standard hack-and-leak operation. According to U.S. intelligence officials, Tehran sought to ensnare the campaign of Trump’s then-opponent, incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden.
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New Technique to Improve Password Security
Internet passwords and security updates often appear at inopportune times and are thus ignored. Researchers to devise a new, simple, and effective approach that could significantly improve cybersecurity behavior.
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Cybersecurity Suite Now on Duty Defending the Nation
For the better part of a decade, dozens of Sandia engineers, each working on pieces of a new national security tool alongside federal partners, have revolutionized cybersecurity forensics with the Thorium platform and tool suite.
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The long view
Political Violence Offers Extremist “Trigger Events” for Recruiting Supporters
Extremists are exploiting political violence by using online platforms to recruit new people to their causes and amplify the use of violence for political goals. High-profile incidents of political violence are useful trigger events for justifying extremist ideologies and calls for retaliation.
Fake survey Answers from AI Could Quietly Sway Election Predictions
Public opinion polls and other surveys rely on data to understand human behavior. New research reveals that artificial intelligence can now corrupt public opinion surveys at scale—passing every quality check, mimicking real humans, and manipulating results without leaving a trace.
Building Trust into Tech: A Framework for Sovereign Resilience
Governments are facing a critical question: who can be trusted to build and manage their countries’ most sensitive systems? Vendor choices, for everything from cloud infrastructure to identity platforms, are no longer just commercial; they are strategic.
Researchers Unveil First-Ever Defense Against Cryptanalytic Attacks on AI
Security researchers have developed the first functional defense mechanism capable of protecting against “cryptanalytic” attacks used to “steal” the model parameters that define how an AI system works.