• Secure communication technology overcomes lack of trust between communicating parties

    Many scenarios in business and communication require that two parties share information without either being sure whether they can trust the other; examples include secure auctions and identification at ATM machines; researchers say that exploiting the strange properties of the quantum world could be the answer to dealing with such distrust

  • Louisiana parishes to encrypt police radio communication

    First-responder agencies in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana will soon be encrypting all emergency radios,  keeping emergency response chatter out of the ears of the public; the police says the   encrypted communication is needed  in order to keep criminals from gaining information on police by listening to scanners, but a police union and crime-prevention groups are worried that the encrypted system would prevent the media from monitoring police activity, and hobble neighborhood watch organizations from keeping their neighborhoods safe

  • Expert show how to crack every common password in under six hours

    GPU computing has improved considerably in recent years, and Jeremi Gosney, founder and CEO of Stricture Consulting Group, used a 25-GPU cluster that can run through 350 billion guesses per second to show how easy it would be to crack practically any password out there (easy, that is, if you can use a 25-GPU cluster )

  • New NIST report offers guidance in cryptographic key generation

    Protecting sensitive electronic information in different situations requires different types of cryptographic algorithms, but ultimately they all depend on keys, the cryptographic equivalent of a password; a new publication from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) aims to help people secure their data with good keys no matter which algorithm they choose

  • Quantum cryptography may soon go main stream

    Researchers have perfected a technique that offers a less expensive way to ensure the security of high-speed fiber-optic cables, protecting communication networks from unauthorized snooping; this means that existing telecom networks can now be secured with this ultimate form of encryption

  • Students writing their own tickets

    Four students at the University of New South Wales say they have cracked the secret algorithm used in Sydney’s public transportation system, which will allow them to print their own tickets

  • New solution helps thwart “smash-and-grab” credential theft

    Of the data breaches investigated in 2011, servers were among the primary target assets in 64 percent of investigations and those accounted for 94 percent of compromised records; a new solution from RSA scrambles, randomizes, and splits authentication credentials across multiple servers, data centers, and the cloud

  • ElcomSoft, Pico Computing show world's fastest password-cracking solution

    Pico Computing manufactures a range of high-end hardware acceleration platforms, offering a computational equivalent of more than 2,000 dual-core processors in a single 4U chassis; ElcomSoft updates its range of password recovery tools, employing Pico Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based hardware to accelerate the recovery of passwords

  • Military-grade mobile security for commercial markets

    Cummings Engineering announced the release of SecureMobile 1.0, powered its proprietary SAIFE encryption technology

  • Yucca Mountain as a data depository

    For nearly three decades, Yucca Mountain was the place designated as the country’s nuclear waste repository; after many years of study and exploration, the Obama administration, two years ago, decided not to ask for additional funds for the project; now there is another idea for the site: turning it into a giant, secure data center 

  • Free mobile security to U.S. government agencies

    A company offers its mobile security solutions, free of charge, to U.S. defense agencies; the offer is part of the NSA/CSS Co-operative Research and Development Agreement

  • Closing digital security gaps

    Two European research centers, one German the other from Luxemburg, have recently agreed on a mutual course for the strategic development of new and integrative approaches to addressing key IT security concerns

  • Companies hiring hackers to harden defenses

    To burglar-proof your home, it is best hire a burglar as a consultant, as he is more likely to find the security vulnerabilities and demonstrate how they can be exploited; following this approach, companies large and small are now hiring hackers to test the companies’ security system vulnerabilities and find ways to harden these systems to withstand intrusion

  • WWII-like message encryption now available for e-mail security

    A Singapore-based company offers an e-mail encryption system based on the Verman cipher, or one-time pad, which was invented in 1917 and used by spies in the Second World War; the Vernam cipher is unbreakable because it produces completely random cipher-text that secures data so that even the most powerful super computers can not break the encryption when it is used properly

  • Cambridge first year student wins U.K. Cybersecrity Challenge competition

    Cyber Security Challenge U.K. announces a winner and unveils this year’s new Challenge program (open for registrations as of yesterday); the winner, Jonathan Millican, competed with thousands of registered candidates in 6-month competition