Cyber Security news, guides and analysis
Scattered Spider Hackers Plead Guilty on Day 1 of Trial
Two men pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom this week to criminal charges stemming from an August 2024 cyberattack that crippled Transport for London, the...
Professional Athletes and Wearables
I haven’t thought about the privacy issues surrounding professional athletes and wearables. Wearables present serious privacy issues for “Average Joe” consumers, who are entrusting tech...
‘Popa’ Botnet Linked to Publicly-Traded Israeli Firm
For the past four years, a sprawling Android-based botnet called Popa has forced millions of consumer TV boxes to relay Internet traffic linked to advertising...
Anthropic’s Fable and the State of AI
On June 9th, Anthropic released its Fable generative AI model. Three days later, the US government classified it as a dangerous munition, and used its...
Embedding Forbidden Text in Spyware to Discourage AI Analysis
At least one malware developer is adding text about nuclear and biological weapons to their spyware, in an effort to stop automatic AI analysis. Details:...
AI Use by the US Government
On 14 April, the Trump administration quietly acknowledged the widespread use of AI to automate government processes. The office of management and budget (OMB) disclosed...
Smashing Security podcast #472: AI gets hacked, and BitLocker gets bypassed
What if your AI coding assistant could be tricked into stealing your own company's secrets - by reading a single booby-trapped bug report? No phishing...
The FCC Wants to Eliminate Burner Phones
A proposed FCC rule would kill burner phones: phones whose accounts are not attached to a particular person. The FCC plans to do this by...
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m giving a keynote at Cybernation 2026 in Berlin, Germany, on...
Bernie Sanders’ AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Plan
Let no one accuse Bernie Sanders of ducking the big questions. Writing in the New York Times last week, the senator asked: “Will the future...
Smashing Security podcast #471: This AI worm just rewrote its own rules
Researchers at the University of Toronto have built a worm that thinks for itself. Using free off-the-shelf AI models it works out how to break...
Smashing Security podcast #470: This AI security flaw might be impossible to fix
A website called "UK visa portal" has been quietly collecting passport scans, selfies, and personal data from thousands of travellers who thought they were applying...