Yearly Archives: 2009

Security Review: UW Bookstore

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Frung

Everyone knows the bookstore sells books only after a tremendous markup. But does that really mean they can afford to employ lax security? Consider the situation of the books department: all of the textbooks for every class in the university … Continue reading →

Posted in Physical Security, Security Reviews | Tagged | 7 Comments

Security Review: Edible Chips

Posted on January 16, 2009 by cuijunwu

The California based company Proteus has created an edible computer chip designed to mark a new way of monitoring patient drug intake. The process involves two pieces of technology: a small chip containing sensors and a small patch worn by … Continue reading →

Posted in Security Reviews | 2 Comments

Taxpayer Data at IRS Remains Vulnerable

Posted on January 16, 2009 by yonderin

The Government Accountability Office (GOA) realeased a report last week stating vulnerabilities in the security system used by the IRS to protect taxpayer data. The report showed the IRS has number of security issues in the way that it protect … Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged | 3 Comments

US Passports now all have RFID tags

Posted on January 16, 2009 by qwerty

The security review on the EU passports reminded me of this one:  As of October 2006, all US passports will contain RFID chips in them, which, when read reveal all the information that is printed on the passport itself, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Security Reviews | 4 Comments

South Korean Woman Tricks Fingerprint Scanner in Japan

Posted on January 16, 2009 by lidor7

Back in April 2008, a South Korean woman who was banned from entering Japan for 5 years slipped through security at airports using a fake password and some special tape.  The immigration control system in Japan features a state-of-the-art biometrics … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events | 5 Comments

Security Review | SIDA Badges and Airport Access Control

Posted on January 16, 2009 by lee

The Technology SIDA (Secure Identification Display Area) badges are identification devices issued to airport personnel, which establish which areas of the airport an employee is authorised to access. Each airport has its own SIDA badge classification system and issuing authority. … Continue reading →

Posted in Physical Security, Security Reviews | 2 Comments

Towards Biometric Passports

Posted on January 16, 2009 by sunetrad

            The EU recently passed a bill to introduce computerized biometric passports which will include people’s fingerprints as well as their photographs. It joined a host of other countries which have taken similar steps towards increasing the security of their … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events | 4 Comments

Current event: Downadup worm infects 1.1 million machines in 24 hours

Posted on January 15, 2009 by cxlt

A worm known as Downadup, or also Conficker by some security companies, is spreading rampantly by exploiting a bug found – and patched – months ago in Windows machines.  F-Secure believes that the worm has already compromised 35 million machines … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Policy | 6 Comments

Current Event: Security Vulnerability in Safari RSS

Posted on January 13, 2009 by sojc701

According to the open source programmer Brian Mastenbrook, he has found a security flaw in Safari Rss feeds. He said that Apple’s Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous | Tagged | 2 Comments

Storm worm cracked, but defenses may not fly

Posted on January 11, 2009 by oterod

The Storm worm, noticed for the first time on January 17th, 2007, is one of the more notorious worms of the last few years. Targetted initially towards individual Windows machines, victims were often infected after receiving a bait e-mail with … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Events, Ethics, Policy, Privacy, Research | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments