This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking twice at RSA Conference 2024 in San Francisco. I’ll be on a panel on software liability on May 6, 2024 at 8:30 AM, and…
Category: Schneier on Security
Smuggling Gold by Disguising it as Machine Parts
Someone got caught trying to smuggle 322 pounds of gold (that’s about 1/4 of a cubic foot) out of Hong Kong. It was disguised as machine parts: On March 27, customs officials x-rayed two air compressors and discovered that they…
Backdoor in XZ Utils That Almost Happened
Last week, the internet dodged a major nation-state attack that would have had catastrophic cybersecurity repercussions worldwide. It’s a catastrophe that didn’t happen, so it won’t get much attention—but it should. There’s an important moral to the story of the…
History of RSA Conference. Bruce Schneier. The First ‘Exhibitor’ in 1994.
Listen to the Audio on SoundCloud.com Bruce Schneier was at the first ever RSA Conference in 1991, and he was the first ‘exhibitor’ in 1994 when he asked Jim Bidzos, Creator of the RSA Conference, if he could sell copies…
In Memoriam: Ross Anderson, 1956-2024
Last week I posted a short memorial of Ross Anderson. The Communications of the ACM asked me to expand it. Here’s the longer version. This article has been indexed from Schneier on Security Read the original article: In Memoriam: Ross…
US Cyber Safety Review Board on the 2023 Microsoft Exchange Hack
US Cyber Safety Review Board released a report on the summer 2023 hack of Microsoft Exchange by China. It was a serious attack that From the executive summary: The Board finds that this intrusion was preventable and should never have…
Friday Squid Blogging: SqUID Bots
They’re AI warehouse robots. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here. This article has been indexed from Schneier on…
Maybe the Phone System Surveillance Vulnerabilities Will Be Fixed
It seems that the FCC might be fixing the vulnerabilities in SS7 and the Diameter protocol: On March 27 the commission asked telecommunications providers to weigh in and detail what they are doing to prevent SS7 and Diameter vulnerabilities from…
Surveillance by the New Microsoft Outlook App
The ProtonMail people are accusing Microsoft’s new Outlook for Windows app of conducting extensive surveillance on its users. It shares data with advertisers, a lot of data: The window informs users that Microsoft and those 801 third parties use their…
Class-Action Lawsuit against Google’s Incognito Mode
The lawsuit has been settled: Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday. The agreement, part…
xz Utils Backdoor
The cybersecurity world got really lucky last week. An intentionally placed backdoor in xz Utils, an open-source compression utility, was pretty much accidentally discovered by a Microsoft engineer—weeks before it would have been incorporated into both Debian and Red Hat…
Declassified NSA Newsletters
Through a 2010 FOIA request (yes, it took that long), we have copies of the NSA’s KRYPTOS Society Newsletter, “Tales of the Krypt,” from 1994 to 2003. There are many interesting things in the 800 pages of newsletter. There are…
Magic Security Dust
Adam Shostack is selling magic security dust. It’s about time someone is commercializing this essential technology. This article has been indexed from Schneier on Security Read the original article: Magic Security Dust
Ross Anderson
Ross Anderson unexpectedly passed away Thursday night in, I believe, his home in Cambridge. I can’t remember when I first met Ross. Of course it was before 2008, when we created the Security and Human Behavior workshop. It was well…
Friday Squid Blogging: The Geopolitics of Eating Squid
New York Times op-ed on the Chinese dominance of the squid industry: China’s domination in seafood has raised deep concerns among American fishermen, policymakers and human rights activists. They warn that China is expanding its maritime reach in ways that…
Lessons from a Ransomware Attack against the British Library
You might think that libraries are kind of boring, but this self-analysis of a 2023 ransomware and extortion attack against the British Library is anything but. This article has been indexed from Schneier on Security Read the original article: Lessons…
Hardware Vulnerability in Apple’s M-Series Chips
It’s yet another hardware side-channel attack: The threat resides in the chips’ data memory-dependent prefetcher, a hardware optimization that predicts the memory addresses of data that running code is likely to access in the near future. By loading the contents…
Security Vulnerability in Saflok’s RFID-Based Keycard Locks
It’s pretty devastating: Today, Ian Carroll, Lennert Wouters, and a team of other security researchers are revealing a hotel keycard hacking technique they call Unsaflok. The technique is a collection of security vulnerabilities that would allow a hacker to almost…
Google Pays $10M in Bug Bounties in 2023
BleepingComputer has the details. It’s $2M less than in 2022, but it’s still a lot. The highest reward for a vulnerability report in 2023 was $113,337, while the total tally since the program’s launch in 2010 has reached $59 million.…
Friday Squid Blogging: Operation Squid
Operation Squid found 1.3 tons of cocaine hidden in frozen fish. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here. This…