TechLetters #161 - Death indirectly following ransomware; Drones and cyber during wars are changing military strategy; Factorisation of number 247 on a quantum computer
Some news: I have signed a contract with a Publisher to publish a 2nd book. It should be released later this year. The first one is about cybersecurity.
Security
32 year old security bug. Security vulnerability in... qsort. Yes, the glibc's sort algorithm. In nearly every Linux installation. "All versions from at least September 1992 are affected". That makes it a more than 30 years old bug. In my book I consider the issue of old bugs, too: "20-year-old security vulnerabilities?" :)
Comprehensive report about ransomware threat. From RUSI. “caused individuals to lose their jobs, evoked feelings of shame and self-blame, extended to private and family life, and contributed to serious health issues”. “a member of IT staff at an organisation who took their own life following a ransomware incident”
An essay by general Valerii Zaluzhnyi on how Ukraine's defence struggle should continue. And on the contemporary design of the armed struggle. Find the good mix of technology, modern weapons, political and economic situation. "the main option for gaining an advantage is to master the entire arsenal of relatively cheap, modern and extremely effective assets that are rapidly developing"."main reason for the change in the strategy, forms and methods of employment of forces, of course, is the development of weapons and equipment, especially unmanned systems" The importance and role of cyberwarfare in the larger puzzle. "combined attack operation of unmanned aerial vehicles and cyber assets".
US issues sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. "6 officials in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command ... responsible for a series of malicious cyber activities against critical infrastructure". Like water systems (programmable controllers).
Technology Policy
UK parliament report on AI/LLM. Stresses that too much attention is paid to AI/LLM risks, which are unlikely to realize. "Tools to mass produce high quality and openly available destructive cyber weapons appear limited at present."
Other
The largest integer factored using a quantun comouter is 247. This effectively breaks RSA-8 cryptosystem (RSA-9 was unbreakable) in 35 seconds. This has no security implications, obviously.
In case you feel it's worth it to forward this content further:
Subscribed
If you’d like to share: