Never mind sophisticated and persistent threats, what about simple and opportunistic ones? Have we closed the door on attacks that require little investment on the part of attackers? In particular, are we still shipping software without the most basic of security policies ? B. Knieriem, X. Zhang, P. Levine, F. Breitinger & I. Baggili surveyed …
There is a considerable amount of evidence on the control and censorship of social media in China. On top of this there has long been suspected that there is a system of astroturfing, or the posting of large numbers of comments from fake accounts to direct online conversation. In China people hired to make these …
Jonathon Lusthaus and Federico Varese provide more insight into the phenomena of online crime groups. To provide more of an understanding of the offline nature of online groups they took two field trips to Romania to investigate the region around Râmnicu Vâlcea, a local known for cybercrime. The Region of Ca Piteşti, which contains this …
A group from Northwest University, China, and the University of Bath and Lancaster University in the UK have come up with a method for determining android unlock patterns. The method uses video footage captured by a smartphone and an algorithm that can determine likely codes that match the movement of the finger or hand across …
Vinay Kaura provides some insight into the impact of the Internet on insurgency in the region of Kashmir. This region has famously been in conflict for more than half a century and has crossed over into the digital realm. The problems are deeply complex and the informatization of the region has created additional layers with …
Dr. Michele Mosca reminds us an unfortunate truth as laid bare by Max Planck “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Quantum Computing is an area …
Highly secure systems are often ‘Air Gapped’, or removed from any internet connected network to make it more difficult to illegally or maliciously access them. Attacks in recent years have shown that it is possible and perhaps not even particularly complex to have users load malicious software onto an air gapped computer (e.g. with a …
Samantha Bates at Simon Fraser University has examined the emotional and mental health effects on survivors of revenge pornography. This form of non-consensual distribution of intimate images occurs after partners exchange intimate photos during a relationship, but when the relationship breaks down, one of the former partners distribute the images to the family, friends, employers …
Terrorism and the Internet is a hot button topic with the dangers posed by online groups being the subject of near constant debate and news headlines. A question that bears closer examination is the effect that the Internet has on would be terrorists. Does content or contact online cause a change in behaviour or does …
Timothy Rich at Western Kentucky University was interested to see if appeals in Advanced Fee Fraud emails for the recipient to trust them were effective at all. To do this he surveyed a large number of advanced fee fraud type emails to develop models of standard email text. These texts were then modified to include …