Category Archives: Current Events
Current Event: Physicists Successfully Store and Retrieve Nothing
Despite the satirical title, teams of Physicists from the U. of Calgary and the Tokyo Institute of Technology recently published papers (and here) detailing their feat of storing a ‘squeezed vacuum’ by apparently reducing the amplitude of a quantum-mechanically interpreted … Continue reading
Hacking ATMs
ATMs are surprisingly easy to hack according to CNET. From a report on ATMs, up to 90 percent of the ATMs in the U.K. could be at risk for worms, denial-of-service attacks, getting customer data intercepted, and having money stolen … Continue reading
Cold Temperatures Compromise Encryption Security
Researchers at Princeton University have found a very interesting and different approach to bypassing encryption. It has been demonstrated that when dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is frozen to extremely low temperatures, it retains whatever data is currently loaded onto … Continue reading
[Collaborative] Chinese hackers: harmless scriptkiddies or a growing adversary?
CNN got an inside view of the so-called “Chinese cyber militia” when a group of three Chinese hackers agreed to be interviewed. This group of hackers claim that “no site is one hundred percent safe,” and that they’ve even broken … Continue reading
In the news this week…
There’s been a lot of security-related issues in the news this week (just like every week, actually). I thought I’d fuel the discussions by listing a few of them. I thought I’d also provide some links to topics that 3ric … Continue reading
The Newton Virus spreads joy… and hopefully nothing else
The Newton Virus is a “harmless” virus that comes on a cute USB flash drive which copies itself onto the computer to which is attached (works for Mac only) and for only one time, it makes your desktop fall apart… … Continue reading
Facebook and XSS – a sample in action! :P
Today, I checked Facebook and got a spam wall post. I suspected it was an FB API + XSS exploit and looked into this matter. What a coincidence with the new project! =P So after the first Google result I … Continue reading
‘Swatting:’ A Very Personal Version of a ‘Smurf Attack’
Wired posted a story including a telephone version of the “Smurf Attack” we learned about in class. The story was posted because of new developments concerning the suspects but the actual attack was done back in 2005. On May 1, … Continue reading
Spammers find a way to abuse out-of-office replies
We’ve all recieved those helpful out-of-office replies when someone is not going to respond to your email for a while. At work, I always like recieving these because then I know I shouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a response … Continue reading
Collaborative Current Event: Counterfeit Cisco Network Hardware Imported From China Seized
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/02/29/us-canadian-agencies-seize-counterfeit-cisco-gear USA and Canadian law enforcement has seized US$78 million worth of Cisco routers, switches, and network cards in 400 seizures since the coordinated operation between the two nations was launched in 2005. The reason for the seizures is “illegal … Continue reading