Stone martens

Image: Pixabay

Not only nice people live in our neighborhood. There is also a stone marten. And do you know what that little creature is particularly fond of? The wiring and hoses in cars. Years ago, the windshield-washer fluid line in our car was chewed through. Recently, the neighbor’s car suffered gnawed cables as well. Once that was repaired, the marten struck again. The same car.

Children and teenagers do not like walking through our street. That is because almost every house has a device that emits a high-pitched beep as soon as it detects movement. It also fires off flashes of light. Apparently, stone martens do not like that. And young people, who have a wider acoustic frequency range, are not fond of it either (with some devices I can actually hear it myself).

There are more defensive strategies. Under our hood there’s a toilet freshener block. The neighbors use a bundle of dog hair. Someone else has placed a piece of wire mesh under the car. And finally, someone even had a kind of electric deterrent installed in the engine compartment. I asked Copilot what it thought of all this. According to it, the mesh and the (harmless) high voltage are reasonably effective, but with other solutions you also need a fair bit of luck. Forget about the scent products. Although: proven in practice, I am inclined to say. Whereupon I must immediately admit that I cannot prove a causal connection between the toilet block and the absence of bite damage.

The stone marten is a predator with a strong territorial drive. It marks its habitat with scent traces. When it encounters the scent of a competitor, it tries to remove it. For example by chewing it away. In addition, those wires have a pleasant smell and likewise a pleasant bite. It is also nice and warm there after a car has been driven, and well sheltered.

No measures had been taken for the car that was attacked twice. That implies that the measures taken by the others do work. Just as burglars are likely to choose the least secured house in a street, the stone marten also opts for a snack that does not require it to pinch its ears or nose. Or where it does not receive electric shocks. That neighbor at least has the luck of driving a leased car. Perhaps that made him more careless than the rest. But still, it causes him quite some hassle.

Yesterday I visited the datacenter of a company where a lot of money is involved. That was evident from the physical security measures. From the outside it looked a bit like a prison. Once inside, my identity was checked and my fingerprint was stored on a badge. The badge hung from a bright red lanyard stating that I was only allowed to walk around when accompanied, and the badge showed the name of my host. With the badge I could pass through a single-person airlock deeper into the building: the outer door opens, you step in, the door closes, you present your badge and your finger and if everything checks out, the inner door opens. But first you still had to pass through a detection gate (which of course triggered on my belt) and my belongings went through a scanner.

The nature of my visit meant that we also went up onto the roof. At the door to the roof, my host first had to inform security, because obviously that door was secured. Not only with a badge reader, but also with a door-open status detector – hence that phone call. Once on the roof, I saw how a swiveling camera was keeping a close eye on us. Once back inside, my host had to sign us out.

There was an impressive number of screens in the security control room, connected to an even more impressive number of cameras. Of course the guards cannot possibly watch them all constantly, but the systems alert them with a beep when they detect something out of the ordinary. From the sound of the beep, the guards know where to look.

Our neighbor has granted me access to the security camera footage at the front of his house. Two see more than one, he must have thought. Moreover, his camera captures our front garden rather generously. It also immediately provided an innocent opening to ask what the camera at the back of his house sees. Our backyard is neatly out of view. As it should be, because there we value privacy more than security provided by a third party.

And so everyone – at least everyone who gives it a thought – adjusts their security to their own needs. I just hope we do not end up in an arms race with that marten.

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

 

And in the big bad world…

• this data theft comes with a smell.
• other countries are struggling with the theft of high-value data, too.
• Microsoft says MS Teams is increasingly being used in ‘Hello, this is the helpdesk’ attacks.
• this international report explains how to defend yourself against covert Chinese networks that make use of your equipment.
• even that innocent snipping tool turns out to offer opportunities to attackers.
• ransomware criminals are arming themselves against the quantum computer, too.
• AES-128 turns out to be perfectly safe from the quantum computer.
• a ransomware negotiator passed information to the opposing side.
• quite a few governments worldwide have access to ‘exclusive’ spyware.
• Apple is fighting grabby law-enforcement agencies — and in the same time, all other curious parties.

 

 

Leonardo & Cookie Monster

Photo: author

A long time ago, somewhere in the 1980s, I was on holiday in Italy with my parents. We visited many places, including Padua. There, we wanted to see an ancient university building, but it was just closing. The friendly caretaker gestured that we were welcome to accompany him on his locking-up round. And so it happened that, moments later, we found ourselves standing at the lectern of Leonardo da Vinci.

Have you ever been somewhere where it felt like you weren’t really supposed to be there, yet the moment felt magical? That’s how it felt back then, and I felt it again this week, when I went to get a cup of hot water for tea at the office. The machine showed a red bar. Not a good sign. The screen no longer displayed the usual options for every imaginable type of coffee, but choices such as ‘remote-controlled measures’ and ‘ingredient management’. And in the top left corner was the most important label of all: ‘machine administrator’. With, right next to it, a ‘log out’ icon. So yes, we were logged in as administrator.

Let me speculate for a moment about what might have happened here. The machine had a malfunction, as evidenced by the red light (on the adjacent machine, that bar glowed white). A maintenance engineer had been called in, but couldn’t immediately fix the problem. For a moment it looked as if various things simply needed refilling, but there was more going on; the bottom message on the display read ‘middle grinder empty’, yet that container was absolutely brimming with coffee beans. So the engineer must have left to fetch spare parts, and forgot to log out.

Colleagues from my meeting stood there, grinning. Stumbling into something like this while a security officer happened to be visiting – well, that was rather perfect. I see this more often: people smile sheepishly, feeling a kind of second-hand embarrassment. Someone hasn’t followed the rules and a security officer has caught them red-handed. Oops. Here comes trouble!

Coffee machines fall well outside my official jurisdiction, but I can of course use this example to highlight the broader issue. And that issue isn’t so much that people occasionally forget to lock their workstation – you get that, don’t you – but rather the more general picture that security isn’t always top of mind. When it really should be.

Recently, I was in a discussion about AI. It was about how you’re not allowed to include personal data in your prompts; for example, you can’t just paste in an entire letter and ask the system to analyse it. A manager said that one of his employees had approached him with a brilliant idea: ‘I’ll just ask AI to remove the personal data first!’ The employee was sent away with the instruction to think very carefully about what he had just said. Hopefully by now he has realised that you shouldn’t ask Cookie Monster to keep the cookies safe before washing the cookie jar.

Look, I understand that you don’t share my professional deformation of seeing risks everywhere. But surely a certain level of basic hygiene is not too much to expect, right? You don’t have to be a Leonardo, but don’t be a Cookie Monster either.

 

And in de big bad world…

• browser extensions are turning out to be a serious problem.
• the Dutch government is investing in security for small and medium-sized businesses. [DUTCH]
• the NCSC is issuing urgent warnings about the risks posed by the AI model Mythos. [DUTCH]
• thecompetitor, too, turns out to have an AI model considered too dangerous forbroad release.
• your travel data may have been leaked via booking.com.
• the Cybersecurity Act and the Act on the Resilience of Critical Entities have been passed by the Dutch House of Representatives. [DUTCH]
• vishing can now be handed over to AI as well.
• the chief privacy officer of Logius fears US interference with DigiD. [DUTCH]
• our national privacy watchdog will start preventive audits of ICT suppliers. [DUTCH]
• once again, a fake text message about a parcel is doing the rounds. [DUTCH]

 

Ethical hacking

Image from Unsplash

After years, it was time for me to go back to training. I looked for one where the chance would be small that I’d learn very little; something that tends to happen quickly when you’ve been around the block in this field. A course on ethical hacking more than met that requirement.

For more than three decades, I’ve viewed the world from the right side of the line. My work revolves around security policies, risk analyses, and compliance, to name just a few things. I read and hear about what goes on on the wrong side of the line and try to make life as difficult as possible for the folks who hang out there. With this hacking course, I wanted to see the world from their side for once. Because, as Sun Tzu already knew in the fifth century BC: ‘Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will not have to fear the outcome of a hundred battles.’

But what is ethical hacking, exactly? Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of hackers: the good and the bad. The latter usually make the news, for instance through data breaches at the police or at telco Odido, both here in the Netherlands. That’s how hacking is known to the general public: unlawfully breaking into computer systems. The people who do this come in many shapes and sizes. At the bottom of the ladder you find the script kiddies: people who use ready‑made recipes to do things without really understanding how they work. And right at the top you have organized crime and state actors.

But there are also benevolent hackers. Like their malicious counterparts, they look for weaknesses in defenses. The big difference is that they don’t exploit those weaknesses for personal gain; they responsibly report them to the organization where they found the vulnerability. You can hire ethical hackers to test your systems, but some also operate on their own initiative. Quite often, if they play by certain rules, they even receive a reward. That can range from a T‑shirt to (a lot of) money.

Of course, after a five‑day course I am far from a seasoned hacker. Quite the contrary: last week my head was spinning from hacking tools with countless options, the many ports that can be attacked, and lots of other things that any self‑respecting hacker is expected to know by heart. Back in the MS‑DOS era, you also had to do everything from the command line (the C:\ prompt), but by today’s standards that feels rather archaic. And yet that’s still how things work in that world, only now with Linux instead of MS‑DOS.

The most important thing I learned is that hacking involves quite a lot, but that once you’ve mastered the tricks, it can be remarkably easy – at least if your opponent doesn’t defend themselves well. In the simple scenario we practiced, you find the IP address of your target, check which ports are open, investigate whether known vulnerabilities exist for the services running there, and boom, you’re in. Obviously, it’s (hopefully!) not always that easy, but the principle is likely the same: the hacker looks for weak spots in the defense. And you’d much rather have those vulnerabilities discovered by an ethical hacker than by a criminal. That only helps, of course, if you then actually act on the findings. Fortunately, everyone understands that. Right?

I’ve always had admiration for colleagues who do this for a living. Now that I better understand what they do, that respect has received a serious upgrade. It’s important, rewarding puzzle work that requires a great deal of knowledge and skill. They make discoveries that sometimes cause quite a stir. And then you see them walking around beaming. A fine sight.

Finally, I’d like to share something entirely different that I learned and that anyone who uses AI chatbots such as Copilot, ChatGPT, and Claude can enjoy. It’s about ELI5. That stands for ‘explain like I’m five’ and ensures that answers are phrased in simple terms and don’t assume prior knowledge. Not baby talk, but often using nice analogies. Just try something like: ‘ELI5: Explain what an IP address is.’

 

And in the big bad world…

• You can even hack a coffee machine.
• The Russians might be in your router (tip: reboot it from time to time).
• It’s not only the Dutch police who have been hacked.
• A romance scammer ends up in prison after accidentally trying to lure a colleague.
• Even astronauts suffer from IT problems.
• This trick exposes North Korean fake job applicants.
• Security legend Mikko Hyppönen has taken a different path these days: he fights drones.
• This new AI model is considered too dangerous to be released publicly for now.
• Some presidents still have room to grow when it comes to security awareness.
• Iranian state hackers have their sights set on critical infrastructure in the United States.

 

 

AI calling your parents

Image from Unsplash

Have you ever had no time (or no desire) to call your parents? Then there’s now a handy service that everyone will benefit from!

This is about a company offering a rather unusual AI service. They actually call your elderly parents. So you don’t have to. On their website you’ll find a photo of the Czech founder with his mother, accompanied by the story of how he lived abroad but wanted to stay in touch with her. Different time zones, a demanding job, and “the unpredictability of life” kept getting in the way. And so the idea for his company was born. It helps people feel “remembered, connected, and valued,” they say.

A bit more information from their website. “Mary” calls the elderly person and asks how they’re doing. She also remembers what you tell her. Incredibly handy, of course: if you tell her today that you need to see the doctor, she’ll ask you tomorrow how it went. She also makes use of 1,400 “life story questions” – something like a database full of opening lines. On top of that, she sprinkles interesting little facts throughout the conversation to help keep the mind sharp.

Before long, the older person will likely no longer realise they’re talking to AI. Simply because AI sounds so natural. I’d bet that you and I wouldn’t hear the difference either. And once you start considering Mary a friend, you’ll probably tell her the same things you’d tell a real friend. For example, about your health – something older people talk about quite often. The company proudly displays the logo “HIPAA compliant” on its website. HIPAA is U.S. legislation concerning the privacy and security of medical data. But it’s less strict than our GDPR. In the EU, medical data is considered special-category personal data, which is subject to extra stringent rules.

Older people are particularly vulnerable when it comes to cybercrime. Recently there are a lot of stories about fake police officers showing up to collect money and jewellery, supposedly because some great danger is looming. Criminals could easily piggyback on a service like this. For example, by pretending to be Mary and asking clever questions to manipulate their victim. Because they trust Mary, there’s a greater chance they’ll go along with the story. You can basically wait for this to happen, sad as that may be.

In your work, you may sooner or later get a phone call from a fake Mary as well. These scams already happen. Three years ago, an American named Brianna was supposedly kidnapped. Her mother received a call and heard her daughter speaking. Or so she thought. Because with AI, a few seconds of audio – stolen from social media – is enough to make someone sound lifelike while saying anything you want. The same could happen with your manager, for example, asking you to email certain data. So if you get a strange request over the phone, call the person back on the number you know to verify that it’s legitimate.

And as for Mary? I prefer to call my mother, who turned 93 today (happy birthday!), myself. Much nicer that way.

 

And in the big bad world…

… a training course got in the way of filling this section.