Wayne Rash

Everybody does it. You do it. It’s the easy way out, but it’s also an easy way to a security blunder. The “it” in this case is using your email address as your user name for websites and other places where a login is necessary. Chances are you use one of a couple email addresses […]

When I wrote about avoiding the Ryuk ransomware a few days ago, one of the characteristics new to most IT professionals was the idea that the attack would be managed in person by a cyber-attacker. Normally when we think of malware, including ransomware, we think of it spreading using the old computer virus model. But […]

The idea behind the use of quantum computers to break encryption lies in the fact that the encryption keys used by current encryption methods depend on a secret key that is used to encrypt and decrypt the information that’s being protected. Those keys are long, random—or, more likely, almost random—numbers that are shared between the […]

For federal cyber-security workers, the options at this time are bleak. A few are being told that they’re required to continue to work during the current government shutdown that began on Dec. 21, 2018, but they won’t be paid for that work until the government resumes operation and maybe not even then. Meanwhile, the majority […]

After years of contention about real and imagined security attacks on U.S. elections, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to consider and then pass H.R. 1, also known as the “For the People Act of 2019,” which includes provisions that would improve election security and help states improve their voting systems, as well as […]

At the end of December 2018, security researchers in Leipzig, Germany, demonstrated at a security conference their method of hacking a biometric security system that depends on reading the pattern of blood vessels in the palm of the hand. This method of vein authentication involves reading the details of the veins just below the skin […]

During the holiday period between Christmas and New Year’s in 2018, workers at a Tribune Co. newspaper location in South Florida found out that they couldn’t upload late-breaking sports scores to the portion of their CMS that handles printing and distribution. Later, other newspapers in the Tribune chain discovered other problems related to the printing […]

2018 was a banner year in cybersecurity. The breaches were many, the remedies were few, and the cost of doing nothing went up. But there is hope on the horizon as new methods of authentication are beginning to show up, old practices are discarded, and as the threat landscape becomes clearer. But the risks are […]

The California Highway Patrol was on the case immediately after seeing a Tesla Model S blowing through the speed limit at 70 miles per hour near Redwood City, but despite their best efforts, they couldn’t get the driver to pull over. The driver of this car seemed to be asleep, and no amount of noise […]

Social media giant Facebook has upheld one of its promises to its users––that it would never sell their personal data––but only because the company was giving it away for free instead. Even then, it considered selling it until deciding that the backlash would be a problem. Instead, according to a report in The New York […]

The series of reports to the Senate Intelligence Committee detailing efforts by the Russian government to use social media to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential elections is breathtaking, but not in a good way. The Russian Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg demonstrated a sophisticated knowledge of how to use social media to sow dissention […]

The first time I heard about a series of emailed bomb threats was early in the day on Dec. 13, when I got a note from a security researcher letting me know about it. After that, I found stories about more such threats here in the Washington area and elsewhere. A quick look at the […]