Information Security and Cryptography — Fundamentals and Applications
June 8-10, 2020 in Zurich, Switzerland Lecturers: Prof. David Basin and Prof. Ueli Maurer
This seminar provides an in-depth coverage of Information Security and Cryptography from both a conceptual
and an application-oriented viewpoint. At the same time, the
mathematical, algorithmic, protocol-specific, and system-oriented
aspects are explained in a way understandable to a wide audience.
A full description of the seminar, including all topics covered, is available at https://www.infsec.ch/seminar2020.html. Early registration is until February 28th.
The seminar takes place in Zurich Switzerland. The lectures and all course material are in English. more
...Among the risks faced by companies is the risk of theft of technology,
data and intellectual property through a direct intrusion by private
parties or foreign actors, including those affiliated with or controlled
by state actors.
While not exclusive, examples of situations in which
technology, data or intellectual property may be stolen or compromised
through direct intrusion include cyber intrusions into a company’s
computer systems and physical theft through corporate espionage,
including with the assistance of insiders... more
Those smart TVs that sold for unheard of low prices over the holidays come with a catch. The price is super low, but the manufacturers get to monitor what you're watching and report back to third parties, for a fee.
Or, in some cases, companies like Amazon (with its Fire TV branded sets from Toshiba and Insignia) and TCL, with its branded Roku sets, look to throw those same personalized, targeted ads at you that you get when visiting Facebook and Google.
It doesn't have to be this way. You have the controls to opt out. Within just a few clicks, you can stop the manufacturers from snooping on you in the living room... more and a bonus sing-a-long!
“The biggest thing (coming in 2020) is connected everything,” said Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst for the research firm Creative Strategies. “Anything in the home — we’ll have more cameras, more mics, more sensors.” *
---- via The New York Times... The 2010s made one thing clear: Tech is everywhere in life... In 2020 and the coming decade, these trends are likely to gather momentum. They will also be on display next week at CES, an enormous consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas that typically serves as a window into the year’s hottest tech developments. more
* Thus, a need for more TSCM; the yin to espionage yang.
Every engineer has stories of bugs that they discovered through clever detective work. But such exploits are seldom of interest to other engineers, let alone the general public.
Nonetheless, a recent book authored by Eric Haseltine, titled The Spy in Moscow Station (Macmillan, 2019), is a true story of bug hunting that should be of interest to all.
It recounts a lengthy struggle by Charles Gandy, an electrical engineer at the United States’ National Security Agency, to uncover an elaborate and ingenious scheme by Soviet engineers to intercept communications in the American embassy in Moscow. more
Drones are considered mainstream business tools and are used from surveillance and delivery to agriculture and mining.
In 2020, we will see hackers trying to find out what drones know, said Lavi Lazarovitz, group research manager at Cyberark. This information can be vital for intelligence gathering, government control, corporate espionage, and more. It also means CDOs need to consider a security framework when introducing devices like drones from the onset. (and other issues) more
Christmas is over, which means there may be a few extra toys for children in the house.
Cybersecurity experts are warning parents to pay attention to what kinds of toys their children are playing with, saying some could be capable of doing much more than what you're aware of.
...toys with Bluetooth or that can connect to Wi-Fi have the potential to not only spy on those playing with them but could also collect data later capable of predicting children's thoughts and behaviors. more
UK - A school caretaker who installed a hidden camera in a toilet used by female teachers was sentenced to prison after the device recorded him committing the crime... When investigators searched Stupples' house, they discovered 76 videos and nearly 150,000 photos recorded from 50 separate instances of people using the toilet... Even as Stupples initially denied installing the hidden camera, his defense soon fell apart after prosecutors told the court how the accused was "very clearly visible" in one of the videos that showed him installing the device.more
US - Charges are expected to be filed Friday against a one-time registered
sex offender suspected of mounting a small video camera inside a grocery
store bathroom in Cathedral City. more
US - A Georgia army officer with high-ranking clearance has been arrested on
charges of distribution of child pornography after an FBI agent caught
him sharing nude pictures of a teenage relative captured via a spy
camera. more
CA - A 56-year-old Owen Sound man is facing voyeurism charges after police allege he had been secretly filming a resident for months. Detectives with the Owen Sound Police uncovered a video camera that had
been hidden in a fake heating vent in the washroom of an apartment... Police say the man worked maintenance for the building in which the
incident occurred and allege the camera was installed in anticipation of
a new tenant moving into the unit earlier this year. more
UK - A "deviant" voyeur secretly filmed a woman trying on a dress in a
supermarket changing room - but was caught when her nine-year-old
daughter saw what was happening. more
A Walt Disney World employee made an illegal audio recording of her interview with Disney security officials while being questioned about thefts at the theme parks, according to prosecutors.
Alicia Reese later shared that secret recording with Patrick Spikes, a former Disney employee who is accused of breaking into a theme park attraction and stealing props, deputies allege.
Prosecutors have charged Reese with an illegal interception of oral communications, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Reese and Spikes have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. Reese, who had been an employee of ESPN Club restaurant at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort, was interviewed by two Disney security investigators in March about thefts from the company. more
Founders and business professionals can learn a lot about the failure landscape from Robin Banerjee’s new book,Who Blunders and How: The Dumb Side of the Corporate World. The eleven chapters are written in a conversational style and span 265 pages, full of examples, analysis and tips...
(Guess what made the list.)
Some rivalries between business groups have led to allegations of unethical advertising practices, and even corporate espionage... more
It's easy to "blunder" when it comes to corporate espionage. By definition, espionage is a covert practice. Because you don't see it, you don't believe it is happening. Successful espionage is invisible. Only failures make the news. Successful corporations employ specialists to monitor for espionage.
Independent researchers, who requested to stay anonymous, compiled and
shared with us a list of 200 most popular passwords that were leaked in
data breaches just this year. The database is quite impressive — 500
million passwords in total. And if you think that’s a lot of leaked
passwords, we have some bad news for you — it’s just the tip of the
iceberg. more
Here are the Top 20 to get you started...
Top 2020 New Years Resolution... Fortify your passwords.
This company in Taiwan has been reducing the size of video cameras year after year. I would like to say this is the smallest possible, but they continue to surprise.
If you have privacy concerns caused by the flood of covert video surveillance cameras, stop by hereand learn how to fight back.
In 2020, tried-and-tested cyber crimes – such as extortion, obfuscation and phishing – will remain, but new risks will inevitably emerge.
Full 5G implementations will introduce new security threats and the increased migration to the cloud will see more organizations facing risks from their cloud and supply chain.
In addition, the sheer number of connected assets and infrastructures will open doors to threats, and fake images, videos, or audio will be used to manipulate enterprise business procedures.
Machine learning and AI will be abused to listen in on connected devices like smart TVs and speakers to snoop on personal and business conversations, which can then provide material for extortion or corporate espionage. more
MI - Flint Police are investigating after an electronic surveillance device was found inside Flint City Hall.
The device was found in the mayor's office, Interim Police Chief Phil Hart said.
Hart said he cannot speak as to what the capabilities of the electronic surveillance device are at this time.
No other information has been released because it is still under investigation. more
Former Flint Police Chief Timothy Johnson believed the device could've been in City Hall when Former Mayor Karen Weaver was in office.
He said she was concerned when she moved into City Hall that it had been bugged with recording devices. So Johnson said they checked her office, even removing ceiling tiles.* But, he explained, Weaver's was the only office they checked. more
This time around, a team of security researchers found a terrifying flaw with the Android camera apps that could let malicious apps completely take control over a phone’s camera to spy on users without their knowledge.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that photos and videos can contain extremely sensitive information, and therefore, you should think twice about giving an app permission to use a camera...
Android camera apps often store photos and videos to an SD card, granting an app permission to storage gives it access to the entire contents of that card, according to the researchers. And the truly terrifying thing is that attackers wouldn’t even need to request access to the camera.
To demonstrate the vulnerability, the team at Checkmarx recorded a proof-of-concept video. Using a mockup Weather app, the team was able to not only take photo and video from a Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 3, it also was able to glean GPS data from those photos.
The team was able to detect when the phone was face down and could then remotely direct the rear camera to take photos and video. Another creepy bit is that attackers could potentially enact a “stealth mode,” where camera shutter noises are silenced and after taking photos, return the phone to its lock screen like nothing happened.
But perhaps most disturbingly, the video demonstrates a scenario where attackers could start recording a video while someone was in the middle of call, record two-way audio, and take photos or video of the victim’s surroundings—all without the target knowing. more
Information Security and Cryptography —
