Miscellaneous

Image from Pixabay

A few weeks ago I was at a conference. I took a lot of notes and I can watch the recorded sessions. What is the best thing to do with all that? After some browsing I made a decision: I am going to treat you to some quotes and let my own thoughts loose on them.

As a warm-up, here’s an obvious one: “If you have only met someone online, then that person is always a stranger.” This comes from a presentation on resilience against scams. You’ll have to agree with this statement, but do you also act accordingly? Or do you still want to believe that this nice person is also honest? That is very difficult. In the last century, when the internet was not yet mean, I met someone in an online forum (does anyone still remember CompuServe?). We had nice conversations about the state of the world and about observations in daily life. Later we started emailing directly, and at my wedding I met him in real life for the first time. If I had taken the above quote to heart, I would have missed out on this friendship. Back then, cybercrime did not exist and online life was a lot easier.

A handy tip to avoid becoming a victim of scammers: never pay to get paid. In other words: if someone promises you the moon but needs your money up front to make that happen, then something is wrong. It started with that Nigerian prince who wanted to share a fortune with you but needed some money to release that fortune, and nowadays you may be offered a job where a little effort will be richly rewarded – but certain costs have to be made first. Don't fall for it.

Then there’s this nice tip that you can immediately benefit from: change the name of your guest network to “faster wifi”. All your guests – and especially your children’s guests – will want to be on that network. And that is exactly where you want them. Because your guest network is separate from the network that provides access to your private data. At odds with this is the idea of connecting all your Internet of Things (IoT) devices to the guest network. The idea behind this is that IoT devices can be hacked relatively easily and that you would rather not have a hacker have access to your data. But do you want all your guests to have access to your dishwasher, dryer and solar panels? Difficult choices.

Sometimes a statement from one speaker ties in with that of another. Like these two: “8% of the users in your organization cause 80% of the risk” and “New employees are the biggest threat: they easily click on links because they do not understand the risks.” I would mainly link the first quote to employees who are in the “cannot & do’nt want to” quadrant: they don’t know how to behave safely and they are also not willing to adjust their behavior, which makes them difficult to reach. But according to the second speaker, the danger lies mainly in new employees. You can do something about that. That is why we have been involved in the onboarding program for new employees for years now. We treat the new colleagues to a presentation in which we playfully guide them through the most important aspects of information security, business continuity and privacy. And we advertise the Security (b)log, so that they will come back to our important message.

If there was one subject that ran through all those hundreds of presentations, it was artificial intelligence. One speaker thought that 90% of so-called AI experts have no idea what they are talking about, and that the other 10% know very little. And that is normal, he argued, because AI consists of many sub-disciplines and it is important that experts know a lot about their own sub-discipline. Just as you wouldn’t go to see a brain surgeon with heart problems, you should also seek out the right specialist in the field of AI.

Finally, a quote that stuck with me because it hits home so well: “ Generative AI is autocorrect/type ahead on steroids.” Let me break it down for you. Generative AI is the form of artificial intelligence known to the general public, which generates something on its own; you know it from ChatGPT, for example. You know autocorrect mainly from your phone; on the one hand, it protects you from typing errors, but sometimes it causes embarrassing situations because the “correction” turns out to be annoying (in my case, “Hi Nick” was once replaced by “Hi pig”). Type ahead is its cousin, and you also know it from your email program that, while you’re still typing an address: I know who you mean! Well, and all this on steroids, that is generative AI. With all the conveniences that come with it, but also with an amplification of all the inconveniences. I stopped the message to Nick in time, but if genAI is happily hallucinating and telling us a story that makes no sense, that’s a lot harder to discover.

There will be no Security (b)log next week.

 

And in the big bad world…

• Meta can now use European data to train its AI.
• Signal opposes Microsoft Recall.
• Comedian Arjen Lubach wonders whether Trump can digitally shut down the Netherlands. [DUTCH]
• this example shows how this shutting down works. [DUTCH]
• Telegram shares data with authorities and defends freedom of expression.
• Windows becomes quantum-proof.
• Eindhoven University of Technology has published the report on the January cyber attack. [DUTCH]
• You can recognize deepfakes by looking for blood flowing through the veins in the face. [DUTCH]

 

Dangerous by (de)sign

Picture by author

Take a good look at the photo and try to figure out why I shot this picture with only one purpose: to write a blog about it.

We are in a hotel. At the bottom of the screen there’s a staircase going down. Above it there’s this warning sign: “Caution – watch your step”. How many people have fallen down these stairs because they were looking at the sign? It draws your attention, distracting your focus from the danger itself: the stairs. You’ll walk into the pitfall with your eyes wide open. Literally.

Sometimes security measures are abused to make you feel safe while you are in a dangerous situation. For example, there are phishing emails that warn you about phishing. If you click on the 'for more information' link, you will be taken to the phishing information page of the real company. This can give you the false sense of looking at a legitimate email. Because criminals wouldn’t point out the existence of crime to you, would they? They are not going to give you a clue that something could be wrong, they don't want you to think about that, do they?

Cybercrime is all about trust. If you can gain your victim’s trust, you’re in. You can gain their trust by presenting yourself as a reliable party who, as an extra service, warns you of dangers. In doing so, they sneak into your world and together you look at the big bad world. That creates a bond. And with that, trust.

However, that same email will undoubtedly contain another link, that will take you to a fake website. Because the email seems so trustworthy, you are more likely to click on that as well. Gotcha!

The question remains: why on earth would they put a warning sign above a staircase? That must have something to do with the American claim culture. “It’s very unfortunate that you fell down the stairs, but hey, we warned you, so you can’t sue us.” Everybody knows that you have to be careful with stairs – even without a sign. Moreover, this was the only staircase in the hotel with a warning sign. Someone must have fallen into the depths at that spot at some point, after which this staircase was designated as a Dangerous Area.

 

And in the big bad world…

• messages 'on behalf of the government' are always good for building confidence.
• It is not a good idea to have your email hosted by an American company.
• AI leads to more paranoia.
• These cybercriminals got a taste of their own medicine.
• Europe has its own vulnerability database now.
• The European security organisation Enisa has been linked to the power outage in Spain and Portugal.
• You will have to take action again if you don’t want Meta to train their AI with your data.
• Cyber espionage is now a crime in the Netherlands. [DUTCH]

 

Meeting the stars

Image from Pixabay

 

I've met stars. Bruce Schneier gave a speech, Adi Shamir and Whitfield Diffie were on a panel, Ron Rivest was an arm's length away and Dave Maasland was sitting next to me in the pub.

You probably only know these names if you are in my line of business – although Dutch readers might know Dave Maasland from his tv appearances. Keep reading anyway, because even without knowing these people you can learn something here.

Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir are the 'R' and the 'S' in RSA. You may know that name from your two-factor authentication, the extra security step you sometimes have to take to log in somewhere. RSA is now a company that makes these (and other) kinds of tools, but originally RSA is a cryptographic algorithm that is important for the encryption of our data exchange. The 'A' is for Len Adleman, by the way, but I didn't see him at this conference – the RSA Conference! Whitfield Diffie, who was on the same panel as Adi Shamir, is known for another cryptographic algorithm (Diffie-Hellman).

In that panel, a number of cryptographers gave their view of the world. Shamir sneered at bitcoin and its ilk: the world would be better off without cryptocurrencies. Diffie noted that consumer products are apparently considered good enough for high-security applications – Signalgate, the affair in which high-ranking American officials were using Signal, was still fresh in the memory. Incidentally, Diffie agreed that Signal's security is well put together. The panel also discussed the threat of quantum computing, which in short means that the security offered by RSA, among others, can be cracked in the future. Moreover, foreign regimes are already stealing our data, in order to run it through the quantum computer in due course. That is why it is important to develop replacement crypto algorithms as quickly as possible, but that is not easy. Diffie: "It's like having to develop an algorithm in 1945 that still works today." Shamir advised, in line with a European recommendation, to use double encryption for the time being.

Bruce Schneier is also famous in our world. He has been distributing his free newsletter all over the world for years, providing insights and opinions on new developments. His speech was about trusting artificial intelligence. Trust is a complicated concept, he argued, especially when it comes to trusting strangers ('social trust'). We tend to considering AI as a friend, but it is a service. Moreover, it is a double agent: it serves both you and its provider. But we have no choice; we have to entrust ourselves to AI. The era of agentic AI is dawning: you’ll have a personal assistant who arranges things for you. The AI agent has access to your email and your calendar and knows everything about you. You do want this, because that way it can support you best. Schneier used a dining reservation as an example. In the past, you called the restaurant, nowadays you make a reservation via their website and soon you let the AI agent find a restaurant and make a reservation. It knows what food you like and when you have time.

So we need trustworthy AI. Integrity will be the main issue, according to Schneier, because most attacks on AI are about the correctness of data. He gave the example of stickers placed on lampposts to trick self-driving cars. Legislation is needed to achieve trustworthy AI, but current legislation (such as the European AI Act) regulates the AI itself instead of the people behind the AI, and that is the wrong way to go, Schneier says. He advocates a public AI model with political accountability, as a counterbalance to corporate AI.

Information security officers are only human, which is why the organization also brought a number of 'real' stars on stage. Such as filmmaker Ron Howard (Apollo 13 and A beautiful mind (two Oscars), just to name two), who was interviewed by his daughter and colleague. Or basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who won over the audience with his openness and a motivating story. And finally there was actor/singer/comedian Jamie Foxx, who provided a comical closing note. But he also gave us a pat on the back: “What you do is perhaps the most important job in the history of mankind.” According to him, community is the magic word.

After that, my three colleagues and I, and 44 thousand other conference attendees, returned to our own time zone. Together we made it an interesting and fun week. And the bond between our team and the SOC has also become closer. You did a good job there, JW.

 

And in the big bad world…

• Bruce Schneier was interviewed following his RSA speech.
• Schneier praises advice from the British NCSC on advanced cryptography.
• a safety mark for AI is impossible. [DUTCH]
• Signalgate now revolves around an insecure – even hacked – clone of the Signal app.
• the Chinese cyber threat is greater than the Russian one.
• a US intelligence chief lacked basic password hygiene.
• AI is great at geo-guessing.