The Week: Most Recent The Digital Age:Cybersecurity

Cyber is a fraudulent weapon in a nonexistent war

The Week — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:01:00 -0500

Just as the war on terror is winding down, a so-called cyber war is spinning up. How very fortunate for government contractors like BAE Systems.

Historically, we would call attempts by foreign countries to acquire information from American government and industry "espionage." The problem is that spies aren't all that scary. But cyber war? It's a perfectly meaningless phrase to frighten a perfectly credulous government. When contractors really want to tighten their coils, they make "cyber" the prefix to "terror."

In Richard Clarke's transcendently self-serving Cyber War, he offers up horror...

America's embarrassingly redundant and entangled cyber security complex

The Week — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:50:00 -0500

The cyber security capabilities of the United States have come under scrutiny in light of recent high-profile Chinese penetrations of American corporate networks. In many ways, cyber has become the handwavium of warfare — step two in a three-step process, sandwiched between "Meet the enemy in battle" and "Victory!"

Before the relatively new interest in cyber security, the fastest way for public agencies to increase their share of a budget was to build a special operations capability. That's why such noted demilitarized zones as Bloomington, Minn., have their own special operations forces...

Will Aaron Swartz's suicide spark copyright reform?

The Week — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:35:00 -0500

Aaron Swartz, the young architect of RSS and Reddit, was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment last Friday, an apparent suicide. He was 26. The emotionally fragile co-founder of progressive organization Demand Progress had been locked for nearly two years in a draining legal battle with the U.S. government, accused of illegally downloading more than 4 million files from scholarly database JSTOR using a laptop hidden inside a Massachusetts Institute of Technology closet. Although JSTOR and MIT both decided not to pursue charges, Swartz faced as many as 35 years in prison and $1 million...

Operation Red October: The top-secret global espionage campaign that's been running for five years

The Week — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:00:00 -0500

Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Labs has uncovered a high-level cyber-espionage campaign that has been targeting government agencies, research institutions, and diplomats for the past five years to gather "classified information and geopolitical intelligence," per a report published on Monday. Here's what we know about operation "Red October," which has some hallmarks of government-sponsored C++ computer viruses Flame and Stuxnet that came before it:

What's going on exactly?
A sophisticated digital infrastructure that's utilizing a chain of more than 60 command-and-control servers...

Why the internet is incensed by the suicide of activist Aaron Swartz

The Week — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:40:00 -0500

Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old technology wunderkind, hung himself on Friday, Jan. 10. Swartz was a co-founder of the incredibly popular social-sharing site Reddit, but had struggled in recent years after being relentlessly pursued by the U.S. attorney general's office for allegedly downloading millions of files illegally from MIT computers. In the days since Swartz's death, the internet has been consumed with and outraged by this tragic tale. Here's what you should know:

Who was Aaron Swartz?
One of the greatest minds of the internet generation. A talented programmer and "hero of the free culture...

Obama's war on hackers: 5 things you need to know

The Week — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:35:00 -0500

Here's a campaign promise we didn't hear much during the 2012 presidential election: President Obama will keep hackers out of America's water supply. It seems like something from the latest 007 movie — but the Obama administration is taking the threat seriously. He proclaimed October National Cyber Security Awareness month, beefed up the military's cybersecurity defenses in a secret directive, and supported (failed) legislation that would have protected the nation's infrastructure from hackers. Now, the president is expected to issue an executive order to accomplish that latter goal, a move...

Why it's time to kill the online password

The Week — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:50:00 -0500

"You have a secret that can ruin your life," cautions Mat Honan in the newest issue of Wired: Your password. That little six- to 16-character alphanumeric string controls your email, your bank account, and grants access to your address, credit card number, and perhaps even naked pictures of yourself. And no matter how complex or unique it is, your password simply isn't good enough. Over the summer, hackers destroyed the entirety of Honan's online life in a mere hour, cracking his Apple ID, Twitter account, Gmail password, and more. They wiped out years and years worth of files on his...

The 25 worst passwords of 2012

The Week — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:50:00 -0400

You probably don't think about your passwords much — and that's not a good thing. After all, it's the key that unlocks your email, your online bank account, your Facebook, your photo albums, and loads more. It may behoove you to examine your passwords and make sure they aren't on the latest list of the 25 worst passwords by business software firm SplashData, which is compiled once a year. The top three most common offenders — "password," "123456," and "12345678" — are unchanged from previous years, but there are a few dubious newcomers, including catchy terms like "ninja," "welcome...

Could hackers use pacemakers to commit mass murder?

The Week — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:15:00 -0400

The idea of a hacker breaking into your computer and ruining your reputation is terrifying enough. But the damage they could do to your body is potentially even worse. New research suggests that pacemakers could be accessed by hackers and used to send deadly shocks to their hosts. Here's what you should know:

Remind me again: What exactly does a pacemaker do?
A pacemaker is an electrical device that helps control irregular heartbeats using electrical pulses. They are about the size of a pocket watch, and are placed under the skin near the heart.

And they are easily hacked?
Well, not easily...

Did Anonymous just unmask a man who allegedly drove a teen to suicide?

The Week — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:39:00 -0400

Vancouver native Amanda Todd, 15, was found dead last week in an apparent suicide, evidently pushed over the edge by persistently cruel bullying, online and in real life. And now, the vigilante hacker group Anonymous claims to have identified — and unmasked — her virtual harasser. A guide to the developing story:

What exactly happened?
Before she allegedly committed suicide, Amanda detailed how the harassment started in a confessional YouTube video she posted in September. Without naming names, the teen said through a series of cue cards that when she was in seventh grade...

Digital nightmare: How hackers ruined my online life

The Week — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:30:00 -0400

IN THE SPACE of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed. My Google account was taken over, then deleted. My Twitter account was compromised and used to broadcast racist and homophobic messages. And worst of all, my Apple ID account was broken into, and hackers erased all of the data on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook, including irreplaceable pictures of my family.

In many ways, this was my fault. My accounts were connected. Once the hackers got my Amazon password, they were able to get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. Had I...

Are terrorists posing as hot girls on Facebook to spy on soldiers?

The Week — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:05:00 -0400

"Taliban insurgent" and "savvy Facebook spy" are not phrases you expect to see linked, but an Australian military report pairs them up — with life-and-death implications not just for Aussie troops in Afghanistan but for U.S. forces around the world. The Australian report, drawing heavily from U.S. Defense Department material, offers lots of tips and rules for security-minded social networking, says Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel, including a head-smacking alert about "Taliban members running fake sexy lady Facebook pages, befriending soldiers, and spying on the soldiers using the social networking...

How future criminals could hack your brain and steal your PIN

The Week — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:40:00 -0400

"Brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs — sounds like a fictional cyberpunk creation, the stuff of virtual reality," says DJ Pangburn at Death and Taxes. "Not so." BCI controllers are very real, and use your brainwaves to control onscreen action in things such as video games. Companies like Emotiv sell them off the shelf, and the technology is starting to gain traction. But now, scientists are warning that these mind-reading headsets could one day be used to glean your personal information, potentially giving hackers access to your PIN, or the location of your home. Yep, says Gregory Ferenstein...

How Obama and Mitt Romney's campaign apps invade your privacy

The Week — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:57:00 -0400

In 2008 the internet played a galvanizing role in electing a new president — Obama raised half a billion dollars online alone — and the candidates this year will be even more digitally connected to voters. Millions of people have downloaded smartphone apps on both iOS and Android to show their support for President Obama or Mitt Romney, possibly to their own detriment. A report from web security firm GFI says that both candidates' apps — "Obama for America" and "Mitt's VP" — are amassing a surprising amount of user data, and most users probably don't even realize it...

How hackers erased one tech writer's entire online life

The Week — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:09:00 -0400

In one night, Wired technology writer Mat Honan saw his entire digital existence horrifically erased before his eyes. Using security loopholes in Amazon, Apple, Google, and Twitter, hackers were able to piece together enough information to remotely wipe clean his iPhone, iPad, and MacBook — including irreplaceable pictures he had stored of his baby's first year of life. "Those security lapses are my fault," says Honan, detailing the cautionary tale on Wired. "And I deeply, deeply regret them." Here's what you should know to better protect yourself:

How did Honan find out he was hacked?
The...

Is Skype eavesdropping on you?

The Week — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:08:00 -0400

Skype, the online phone and messaging service, is expanding "its cooperation with law enforcement authorities to make online chats and other user information available to police," say Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima at The Washington Post. That revelation follows a stream of speculation in the blogosphere that Skype, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2011, has made changes to its nearly impenetrable communications system to eavesdrop on user conversations, a move that internet privacy advocates have described as "terrifying" and "sickening." Here, a guide to the controversy:

Is Skype really...