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Hack the Pentagon — US Government Challenges Hackers to Break its Security

Hack the Pentagon — US Government Challenges Hackers to Break its Security

Mar 03, 2016
Update: ' Hack The Pentagon ' has opened registration for its pilot bug bounty program of $150,000 for hackers in return for the vulnerabilities they find in its public facing websites. The Defense Department has enlisted the bug bounty startup HackerOne to manage the pilot program. Interested hackers can Register Now to participate in the Bug Bounty program. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has the plan to boost their internal and network security by announcing what it calls "the first cyber Bug Bounty Program in the history of the federal government," officially inviting hackers to take up the challenge. Dubbed " Hack the Pentagon ," the bug bounty program invites the hackers and security researchers only from the United States to target its networks as well as the public faced websites which are registered under DoD. The bug bounty program will begin in April 2016, and the participants could win money (cash rewards)
Can Scientists 'Upload Knowledge' Directly into your Brain to Teach New Skills?

Can Scientists 'Upload Knowledge' Directly into your Brain to Teach New Skills?

Mar 03, 2016
Imagine the world where you do not have to make any efforts to learn new skills or knowledge. Just like new programs are uploaded to a Robot to teach them new skills, What if new skills are uploaded to your brain to make you learn, say, playing Guitar, a whole language like French or German or anything else you wish? Do you want a technique, if exists, to make this possible? Of course, YES! Who would not? Now, multiple media channels are reporting that a team of researchers from HRL Laboratories in California has developed a new technology that could be used to feed any skill into the human brain without much effort. But, Is it possible in reality? Let's have a look at what media is reporting and what scientists have actually discovered. Here's what Media is Reporting: Media is reporting that researchers have found a way to "upload knowledge to your brain." Researchers claimed to have developed a simulator that can feed data dire
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
France could Fine Apple $1 Million for each iPhone it Refuses to Unlock

France could Fine Apple $1 Million for each iPhone it Refuses to Unlock

Mar 02, 2016
The United States is not the only one where Apple is battling with the federal authorities over iPhone encryption. Apple could face $1 Million in Fine each time the company refused to unlock an iPhone in France. Despite its victory in a New York court yesterday, Apple may not be so successful elsewhere in fighting against federal authorities over iPhone encryption battle. Yann Galut, a member of France's Socialist Party, has submitted an amendment to a bill aimed at strengthening the French government's ability to fight against terrorism — by arguing that… Apple should pay a Million Euro ( $1.08 Million ) fine for every iPhone Apple refuses to unlock when asked to by law enforcement, The Local reported . The same €1 Million penalty could apply to Google as well under similar conditions, forcing the tech companies to help its investigators extract data from a suspect's smartphone in terrorism cases. The French police seized eight smartphones last year in terror investiga
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
Turing Award — Inventors of Modern Cryptography Win $1 Million Cash Prize

Turing Award — Inventors of Modern Cryptography Win $1 Million Cash Prize

Mar 02, 2016
And the Winners of this year's Turing Award are: Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman . The former chief security officer at Sun Microsystems Whitfield Diffie and the professor at Stanford University Martin E. Hellman won the 2015 ACM Turing Award, which is frequently described as the "Nobel Prize of Computing" . Turing Award named after  Alan M. Turing , the British mathematician and computer scientist who was a key contributor to the Allied cryptanalysis of the German Enigma cipher and the German "Tunny" encoding machine in World War II. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced the Turing Award the same day when FBI Director  James Comey  appeared before a congressional committee to discuss how  encryption has become Threat  to law enforcement. The ACM  announced the award on Tuesday, which includes the top prize of $1 Million that has been awarded to two men who invented the "public-key cryptography" – a technique that
Kanye West, Who wants to destroy ‘The Pirate Bay’, Caught using Torrent Site

Kanye West, Who wants to destroy 'The Pirate Bay', Caught using Torrent Site

Mar 02, 2016
The 38-year-old rapper Kanye West is at the centre of controversy once again. West is himself a Pirate Lover just like everyone else, and he proved it today by sharing a photo of his laptop screen on Twitter. The rapper tweeted an ill-judged picture on Tuesday night to show what he was listening to on YouTube ( Sufjan Stevens' 'Death With Dignity' song ), but his fans discovered something he would have hide if realized before sharing that snap. Taking a closer look at the address bar was quite revealing, showing two very interesting tabs: The notorious file-sharing website The Pirate Bay MediaDownloader Pirate Bay Offers Tech Support to Kanye West West's recent album The Life of Pablo was involved in a piracy concern. He was so outraged when he saw his recent album was being pirated by 500,000 downloads in just two days that he considered taking legal action against The Pirate Bay . However, in a recent tweet West accidentally revealed his own pirate habi
FBI Admits — It was a 'Mistake' to Reset Terrorist's iCloud Password

FBI Admits — It was a 'Mistake' to Reset Terrorist's iCloud Password

Mar 02, 2016
Yes, FBI Director James Comey admitted that the investigators made a " mistake " with the San Bernardino investigation during a congressional hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee. Apple is facing a court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone belonged to San Bernardino Shooter by developing a backdoored version of iOS that can disable the security feature on the locked iPhone. Apple's Chief Executive Tim Cook has maintained his stand over Privacy and Security , saying the company will fight the court order because it is dangerous for the security and privacy of all of its users. As the company earlier said, Apple had been helping the FBI with the investigation in San Bernardino case since early January by providing an iCloud backup of Farook's iPhone under a court order and ways to access Farook's iPhone… ...but the problem, according to Apple, was that the feds approached the company after attempting a ' blunder ' themselv
FBI Director — "What If Apple Engineers are Kidnapped and Forced to Write (Exploit) Code?"

FBI Director — "What If Apple Engineers are Kidnapped and Forced to Write (Exploit) Code?"

Mar 02, 2016
What If Apple Engineers are Kidnapped and Forced to Write (Exploit) Code? Exactly this was what FBI Director James Comey asked in the congressional hearing on Tuesday. The House Judiciary Committee hearing on "The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy" over the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI ended up being full of drama. The key to the dispute is whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can force Apple to develop a special version of its mobile operating system that would help the agency unlock an iPhone  belonged to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook . FBI Director James Comey was there with a prepared testimony about why the FBI wants Apple to create a backdoor into the killer's iPhone. Comey: Encryption is a Long-Term Threat to Law Enforcement Yesterday, a New York magistrate judge refused a similar order in a drug case in which the authorities asked Apple to help with the data stored in an
Facebook's Vice President Arrested in Brazil for Refusing to Share WhatsApp Data

Facebook's Vice President Arrested in Brazil for Refusing to Share WhatsApp Data

Mar 01, 2016
Apple is not the only technology giant battling against authorities over a court order; Facebook is also facing the same. Brazil's federal police arrested Facebook Latin America Vice President for failing to comply with court orders to help investigators in a drug trafficking case that involves WhatsApp, a popular messaging app owned by Facebook that has over 100 Million users in Brazil. Facebook VP Diego Jorge Dzodan was arrested on his way to work in São Paulo, Brazil today because the company refused to provide details of a WhatsApp user involved in organized crime and drug trafficking. Dzodan is still in police custody and is responding to police questioning in Sao Paulo, Local media reported . According to a statement released by a spokesperson from WhatsApp: "We are disappointed that law enforcement took this extreme step. WhatsApp cannot provide information we do not have. We cooperated to the full extent of our ability in this case, and while we re
DROWN Attack — More than 11 Million OpenSSL HTTPS Websites at Risk

DROWN Attack — More than 11 Million OpenSSL HTTPS Websites at Risk

Mar 01, 2016
A new deadly security vulnerability has been discovered in OpenSSL that affects more than 11 Million modern websites and e-mail services protected by an ancient, long deprecated transport layer security protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSLv2). Dubbed DROWN , the highly critical security hole in OpenSSL was disclosed today as a low-cost attack that could decrypt your sensitive, secure HTTPS communications, including passwords and credit card details… ...and that too in a matter of hours or in some cases almost immediately, a team of 15 security researchers from various universities and the infosec community warned Tuesday. Here's what the security researchers said: "We've been able to execute the attack against OpenSSL versions that are vulnerable to CVE-2016-0703 in under a minute using a single PC. Even for servers that do not have these particular bugs, the general variant of the attack, which works against any SSLv2 server, can be conducted in under 8 hour
New York Judge Rules FBI Can't Force Apple to Unlock iPhone

New York Judge Rules FBI Can't Force Apple to Unlock iPhone

Mar 01, 2016
Apple - 1; The FBI - 0 Apple Won a major court victory against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an ongoing legal battle similar to San Bernardino. In a New York case, a federal magistrate judge has ruled in favor of Apple, rejecting the U.S. government's request to force Apple to help the FBI extract data from a locked iPhone. This ruling from United States Magistrate Judge James Orenstein for the Eastern District of New York is a significant boost to Apple's pro-privacy stance to resist the agency's similar efforts over unlocking iPhone 5C of an alleged San Bernardino terrorist. The ruling [ PDF ] was issued on Monday as part of the criminal case against Jun Feng , who was pleaded guilty in October last year to drug charges. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized Feng's iPhone 5 last year, but even after consulting the FBI, it was unable to access the iPhone. According to both the DEA and FBI, it's impossible for them to ov
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