Wayne Rash

As malware attacks go, the WannaCry ransomware worm was only partly successful. By the time it was only a few days old, the attack was effectively blocked when an alert security researcher noticed that the worm was searching for a specific site on the internet. The researcher registered the site to take control of it […]

Chances are that you’re familiar with the National Security Agency as the U.S. government organization that listens in on foreign communications and cracks their encrypted messages for useful intelligence. While foreign communications surveillance is agency’s main purpose, no everyone knows that it’s also heavily involved with protecting sensitive government communications from interception and decryption by […]

There are three things to know about the current claims regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s decision on May 18 to begin the process of moving internet regulation back to Title I, reversing the reclassification under Title II enacted 2015. The three things are these: Title II does not ensure net neutrality, despite the claims from […]

A current proposal from the Department of Homeland Security to mandate that large electronic devices be relegated to checked luggage is facing stiff resistance from airlines and business travelers. Under the proposal, travelers with electronic devices larger than a cell phone would be required to carry them as checked luggage. Depending on the airline, those […]

If there was ever a malware attack that we should have been ready for, it’s the WannaCry ransomware attack that started attacking European organizations May 12. This malware uses an exploit revealed by the hacking group ShadowBrokers more than a year ago that employs a remote code execution vulnerability in the Windows Server Message Block […]

The Trump administration’s long awaited cyber-security executive order is finally here, and while it adds a number of new reporting requirements and includes the Office of American Innovation, run by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner as a major player in the cyber-security build-up, it doesn’t have the ability to actually implement changes. New steps taken by […]

Microsoft has Google to thank for revealing a new vulnerability in current versions of Windows, SharePoint and the company’s stand-alone security software—a vulnerability so serious that Microsoft rushed through a fix that’s already being sent out as an update to Windows. The vulnerability, which was found by staffers Natalie Silvanovich and Tavis Ormandy of Google […]

Voters in the UK woke up May 8 to a new series of ads and television announcements warning about fake news in preparation for the June 8 elections in that country. The ads, which were announced on the BBC, ran in national newspapers and included a list of 10 tips for spotting fake news. Facebook […]

Somehow the news reports on Friday were not a surprise even as they made things look worse for Uber than they already did. According to new reports from the Reuters news service, a federal grand jury in California has subpoenaed records and other information from Uber in connection with the Greyball software controversy that has […]

Most of the nation’s major wireless service providers are rushing to make announcements about deploying 5G mobile service on some minor scale. For example AT&T announced  that it has begun operating its first 5G network in Austin, Texas as of late April. Verizon, meanwhile, claims in a press release of its own that it’s about […]

The decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit not to grant a full court rehearing of the Title II reclassification decision isn’t a victory for net neutrality, despite the ballyhoo that’s making its way around the internet. It’s also not a defeat for net neutrality. In reality, it’s simply […]

There’s general agreement in the IT industry that Internet of Things security is terrible, where it exists at all. There are many reasons for this, but as Andrew Tannenbaum discussed in the Harvard Business Review, the biggest reason is likely what some are calling the IoT gold rush. Smart devices that are connected to the […]