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A group of researchers has revealed what it says is a vulnerability in a specific implementation of  CRYSTALS-Kyber , one of the encryption algorithms chosen by the U.S. government as quantum-resistant last year. The exploit relates to "side-channel attacks on up to the fifth-order masked implementations of CRYSTALS-Kyber in ARM Cortex-M4 CPU," Elena Dubrova, Kalle Ngo, and Joel Gärtner of KTH Royal Institute of Technology  said  in a paper. CRYSTALS-Kyber is one of four post-quantum algorithms  selected  by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) after a rigorous multi-year effort to identify a set of next-generation encryption standards that can withstand huge leaps in computing power. A side-channel attack, as the name implies, involves extracting secrets from a cryptosystem through measurement and analysis of physical parameters. Some examples of such parameters include supply current, execution time, and electromagnetic emission. The underlyi

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced that a family of authenticated encryption and hashing algorithms known as Ascon will be standardized for  lightweight cryptography  applications. "The chosen algorithms are designed to protect information created and transmitted by the Internet of Things (IoT), including its myriad tiny sensors and actuators," NIST  said . "They are also designed for other miniature technologies such as implanted medical devices, stress detectors inside roads and bridges, and keyless entry fobs for vehicles." Put differently, the idea is to adopt security protections via lightweight cryptography in devices that have a "limited amount of electronic resources." That said, NIST still recommends the Advanced Encryption Standard ( AES ) and SHA-256 for general use. Ascon is  credited  to a team of cryptographers from the Graz University of Technology, Infineon Technologies, Lamarr Security Researc

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The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency within the Department of Commerce,  announced  Thursday that it's formally retiring the SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm. SHA-1 , short for Secure Hash Algorithm 1, is a 27-year-old  hash function  used in cryptography and has since been  deemed   broken  owing to the risk of  collision attacks . While hashes are designed to be irreversible – meaning it should be impossible to reconstruct the original message from the fixed-length enciphered text – the lack of collision resistance in SHA-1 made it possible to generate the same hash value for two different inputs. In February 2017, a group of researchers from CWI Amsterdam and Google  disclosed  the first practical technique for producing collisions on SHA-1, effectively undermining the security of the algorithm. "For example, by crafting the two colliding PDF files as two rental agreements with different rent, it is possible to trick someone to create

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has  chosen  the first set of quantum-resistant encryption algorithms that are designed to "withstand the assault of a future quantum computer." The post-quantum cryptography ( PQC ) technologies include the  CRYSTALS-Kyber  algorithm for general encryption, and  CRYSTALS-Dilithium ,  FALCON , and  SPHINCS+  for digital signatures. "Three of the selected algorithms are based on a family of math problems called structured lattices, while SPHINCS+ uses hash functions," NIST, which kicked off the standardization process in January 2017,  said  in a statement. Cryptography, which underpins the security of information in modern computer networks, derives its strength from the difficulty of solving mathematical problems — e.g., factoring large composite integers — using traditional computers. Quantum computers, should they mature enough, pose a  huge impact  on the current pu

In cybersecurity, many of the best jobs involve working on government projects. To get a security clearance, you need to prove that you meet  NIST standards . Cybersecurity firms are particularly interested in people who understand the RMF, or Risk Management Framework — a U.S. government guideline for taking care of data. The NIST Cybersecurity & Risk Management Frameworks Course  helps you understand this topic, with over 21 hours of video instruction. The training is worth a total of $295, but readers of The Hacker News can  get the course today for only $39 . Special Offer  — Normally priced at $295, this Risk Management Framework course is  now only $39 for a limited time , with lifetime access included. That's a massive 86% discount! Designed by the United States Government, the Risk Management Framework provides a complete guide to securing sensitive data. It also ensures that cybersecurity professionals comply with the various laws, directives, executive orders, and re

Multiple cybersecurity authorities from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. on Wednesday released a  joint advisory  warning of threats targeting managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers. Key among the recommendations include identifying and disabling accounts that are no longer in use, enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on MSP accounts that access customer environments, and ensuring transparency in ownership of security roles and responsibilities. MSPs have emerged as an attractive attack route for cybercriminals to scale their attacks, as a vulnerable provider can be weaponized as an initial access vector to breach several downstream customers at once. The spillover effects of such intrusions, as witnessed in the wake of high-profile breaches aimed at  SolarWinds  and  Kaseya  in recent years, have once again underlined the need to secure the software supply chain. The targeting of MSPs by malicious cyber actors in an effort to "expl

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on Thursday released an updated cybersecurity guidance for managing risks in the supply chain, as it increasingly emerges as a lucrative attack vector. "It encourages organizations to consider the vulnerabilities not only of a finished product they are considering using, but also of its components — which may have been developed elsewhere — and the journey those components took to reach their destination," NIST said in a statement. The new  directive  outlines  major security controls and practices  that entities should adopt to identify, assess, and respond to risks at different stages of the supply chain, including the possibility of malicious functionality, flaws in third-party software, insertion of counterfeit hardware, and poor manufacturing and development practices. The development follows an Executive Order issued by the U.S. President on " Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity (14028) " las

When I want to know the most recently published best practices in cyber security, I visit The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). From the latest password requirements (NIST 800-63) to IoT security for manufacturers (NISTIR 8259), NIST is always the starting point. NIST plays a key role as a US standard-setter, due to the organization's professionalism and the external experts who help to create NIST documents. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) was initially released in 2014 and last updated in 2018. The framework enables organizations to improve the security and resilience of critical infrastructure with a well-planned and easy-to-use framework. The continuing growth in SaaS, and the major changes to the work environment due to COVID-19 bring new security challenges. Although the CSF was written and updated while SaaS was on the rise, it is still geared towards the classic legacy critical infrastructure security challenges. However, organizations can bet

When dealing with user data, it's essential that we design our password policies around compliance. These policies are defined both internally and externally. While companies uphold their own password standards, outside forces like HIPAA and NIST have a heavy influence. Impacts are defined by industry and one's unique infrastructure. How do IT departments maintain compliance with NIST and HIPAA? We'll discuss each compliance measure and its importance in this article. What is NIST compliance? Defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST compliance aims to harden federal systems against cyber-attacks. While the agency is non-regulatory, it  is  part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which has plenty of influence over government agencies and their contractors. For example, NIST guidelines help agencies  satisfy the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act  (FISMA). NIST is instrumental in creating Federal Information Proce

Quantum Computers – Boon or Bane? Quantum computers can perform operations much more quickly and efficiently even with the use of less energy than conventional computers, but that's bad news for encryption — a process which scrambles data according to a massively complex mathematical code. In theory, quantum computers can break almost all the existing encryption algorithms used on the Internet today due to their immense computing power. Quantum computers are not just in theories; they're becoming a reality. With countries like China that holds the top two position in the world's most powerful supercomputers (Sunway TaihuLight and Tianhe-2), followed by the United States' Titan, the day is not far when Quantum computers will work on an industrial scale. Although it's hard to move quantum computing to an industrial scale, it has become a matter of concern for the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the fact that

SMS-based Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) has been declared insecure and soon it might be a thing of the past. Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA adds an extra step of entering a random passcode sent to you via an SMS or call when you log in to your account as an added layer of protection. For example, if you have 2FA enabled on Gmail, the platform will send a six-digit passcode to your mobile phone every time you sign in to your account. But, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a new draft of its Digital Authentication Guideline that says SMS-based two-factor authentication should be banned in future due to security concerns. Here's what the relevant paragraph of the latest DAG draft reads: "If the out of band verification is to be made using an SMS message on a public mobile telephone network, the verifier SHALL verify that the pre-registered telephone number being used is actually associated with a mobile network and not wi

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced to abandon the controversial  Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic  Random Bit Generator,  better known as  Dual_EC_DRBG in the wake of allegations that the National Security Agency. Back in December, Edward Snowden leaks revealed that RSA received $10 million bribe from NSA under a secret contract to implement their flawed cryptographic algorithm Dual_EC_DRBG in its bSafe Security tool as the default protocol in its products for keeping Encryption Weak . In response to the accusations on NSA and RSA, and despite RSA denied all the accusations. without wasting time NIST issued an announcement recommending against using Dual_EC_DRBG and abandon the cryptographic algorithm from its revised guidance provided in the Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators ( NIST Special Publication 800-90A, Rev.1 ). But it didn't remove it from its random number generator

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) had published a document on Jan 2011 that the SHA-1 algorithm will be risky and should be disallowed after year 2013, but it was recently noticed by Netcraft experts that NIST.gov website itself were using 2014 dated SSL certificate with SHA-1 hashes. " From January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2013, the use of SHA-1 is deprecated for digital signature generation. The user must accept risk when SHA-1 is used, particularly when approaching the December 31, 2013 upper limit. SHA-1 shall not be used for digital signature generation after December 31, 2013. " NIST in the document. Digital signatures facilitate the safe exchange of electronic documents by providing a way to test both the authenticity and the integrity of information exchanged digitally. Authenticity means when you sign data with a digital signature, someone else can verify the signature, and can confirm that the data originated from you and was not

The U.S. government repository of standards based vulnerability management website National Vulnerability Database (NVD) was hacked by some unknown attacker last week. The website of NVD ( https://nvd.nist.gov/index.html ) is down since Friday due to a malware infection on two web servers, discovered on Wednesday. The main page of website reads," The NIST National Vulnerability Database (NVD) has experienced an issue with its Web Services and is currently not available. We are working to restore service as quickly as possible. We will provide updates as soon as new information is available ." According to a post available on Google+ by Kim Halavakoski , who contacted NIST Public Inquiries Office to know about the issue," On Friday March 8, a NIST firewall detected suspicious activity and took steps to block unusual traffic from reaching the Internet. NIST began investigating the cause of the unusual activity and the servers were taken offline. Malware was