Tag: Security
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Dissecting the Witty Worm
A clever new paper by Abhishek Kumar, Vern Paxson, and Nick Weaver analyzes the Witty Worm, which infected computers running certain security software in March 2004. By analyzing the spray of random packets Witty sent around the Internet, they managed to learn a huge amount about Witty’s spread, including exactly where the virus was injected…
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Coming: Mobile Phone Viruses
Clive Thompson at Slate has a scary-sounding new piece about cellphone viruses. As phones get smart – as they start running general-purpose operating systems and having complex software interfaces – they will tend to develop the kinds of software bugs that viruses can exploit. And as phones become more capable, virus-infected phones will be able…
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Cornell Researchers on P2P Quality Control
Kevin Walsh and Emin Gün Sirer, of Cornell University, have a new paper on Credence, a system for detecting unwanted files in P2P networks. It’s a kind of reputation system for files, designed to detect in advance that certain files are not what they claim to be. One use of this technology is to detect…
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Pharm Policy
I wrote Monday about pharming attacks, in which a villain corrupts the DNS system, which translates textual names (like “www.freedom-to-tinker.com”) into the IP addresses (like “216.157.129.231”) that are used to route traffic on the Internet. By doing this, the villain can impersonate an Internet site convincingly. Today I want to talk about how to address…
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Unwanted Calls and Spam on VoIP
Fred Cohen is predicting that VoIP will bring with it a flood of unsolicited commercial phone calls. (VoIP, or “Voice over Internet Protocol,” systems deliver telephone-like service, making connections via the Internet rather than using the wires of the plain old telephone system.) Cohen argues that VoIP will drive down the cost of international calling…
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Pharming
Internet spoofing attacks have been getting more and more sophisticated. The latest evil trick is “Pharming,” which relies on DNS poisoning (explanation below) to trick users about which site they are viewing. Today I’ll explain what pharming is. I’ll talk about fixes later in the week. Spoofing attacks, in general, try to get a user…
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Harvard Business School Boots 119 Applicants for "Hacking" Into Admissions Site
Harvard Business School (HBS) has rejected 119 applicants who allegedly “hacked” in to a third-party site to learn whether HBS had admitted them. An AP story, by Jay Lindsay, has the details. HBS interacts with applicants via a third-party site called ApplyYourself. Harvard had planned to notify applicants whether they had been admitted, on March…
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Tagging Technology
Bruce Schneier points to a new product Smart Water. Each bottle has its own unique tag, and the water in it contains tagging elements (e.g., microdots), that will stick to an object if you spray the Smart Water on it. Then, if the item is stolen, the company says that the police can use the…
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French Researcher Faces Criminal Charges for Criticizing Antivirus Product
Guillaume Tena, a researcher also known as Guillermito, is now being tried on criminal copyright charges, and facing jail time, in France. He wrote an article analyzing an antivirus product called Viguard, and pointing out its flaws. The article is in French, and standard online translators seem to choke on it. My French is poor…
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Whom Should We Search at the Airport?
Here’s an interesting security design problem. Suppose you’re in charge of airport security. At security checkpoints, everybody gets a primary search. Some people get a more intensive secondary search as a result of the primary search, if they set off the metal detector or behave suspiciously during the primary search. In addition, you can choose…