Unsupervised Learning

An argument that we should acknowledge grit as one of the most powerful causal factors in success, and figure out ways to bring its benefits to everyone.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A concise explanation of why software continues to have security and quality problems after decades of supposedly trying to address the problem.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Deepfakes thing is already starting to have an impact, and it didn't even involve actual Deepfake (GAN ML) technology. A video was spread of Nancy Pelosi speaking very slowly and seeming to stumble over her words, which made her look quite bad. The video was virally shared throughout social media on the right. Problem is, it was intentionally slowed down to make her look old/stupid/crazy. What this shows us is that it's not the machine learning that makes Deepfakes dangerous; it's the willingness of a massive percentage of the US population to believe total garbage without an ounce of scrutiny. It doesn't matter if Deepfakes can be shown to be fake because people are matching evidence to their emotions, not the other way around. The vulnerability is our ignorance and cynicism, not a spoofing technology. And as I wrote about a couple of years ago, this will be used as a weapon against us. More EssayA real estate insurance website for First American Financial Corp was vulnerable to a simple IDOR (where you change the account number in the URL to get another account), and it evidently resulted in the exposure of hundreds of millions of insurance records that included extremely sensitive information. IDOR is still one of the most common and dangerous vulns a web app can have, and for companies like this they can be devastating. MoreThe US Military is trying to learn how popular movements form and evolve, and to do so they're studying 350 billion social media messages. But it's a Bloomberg article, so maybe they're actually studying bullfrogs for clues about hypertension. MoreMoody's has downgraded Equifax's rating in some significant part due to its 2017 cyber breach. This is noteworthy because until now, breaches have largely been spackled over in terms of the major financial perspective and at the 6-24 month timescale. This is a positive indication that companies could actually start taking cybersecurity more seriously, and not just at the CISO and IT level, but from the boardroom down. MoreAdvisories: TP-Link RoutersBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trump has semi-banned the use of foreign telecom gear, which is really a direct shot at Huawei and China. moreBaltimore’s IT systems are still being held hostage after 2 weeks. Of all the cities in the world that I could imagine this happening to, Baltimore is towards the top of the list. If you don’t have good schools or a good police force, I don’t expect you’d have good IT security hygiene either. moreCrime is so bad in Mexico that people buy fake mobile phones so they can give them to muggers instead of their real one. I have to assume this is also happening in Brazil. moreThis is a stunning audio Deepfake of Joe Rogan doing a few different routines. It sounds exactly like him. Not a little bit. Exactly. Now imagine that for politicians and celebrities, where there is plenty of source material to train from. We’re about to move to a world where you can only trust authenticated voices and personalities, using sources and clients that are trusted to serve you their actual content. Expect a massive industry around serving authentic content and detecting fakes. moreSalesforce had to disable access to millions while the fixed an access control issue that allowed open reading of tons of customer data. moreBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Takeaways from the 2019 DBIR Report My Summary The ReportThe DOJ has unsealed the indictment against those who they believe hacked Anthem in 2015, and they are Chinese Nationals. They didn't reveal the suspected motive, however. But as I wrote about last year, I don't think we need an explanation. I think it's obvious. MoreAn Airbnb host in China has been arrested for watching guests using a hidden camera. MoreThe Mossad has released an interesting challenge in something of a spy CTF style. MoreChinese scientists have created a small, portable camera system that uses LIDAR to resolve human features from up to 28 miles away. Good news—it also penetrates smog. MoreBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A short essay that attempts to wrap a simple narrative around what's happening with the exodus of the New Left, and what it's doing to the moderate left, center, and right that they left behind.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Deepfakes are about to seriously erode our collective ability to tell truth from fiction, and this is already a big enough problem without them. Think of every problem you care about, and realize this represents an exponent on each one. This video captures it extremely well. LinkSlack has warned the world that it's being targeted by Nation State actors. I'm glad they said it, but we already knew that. Think of what an attacker could get if they could access any company's internal Slack communication without being detected. LinkScientists have captured the brain waves of someone hearing speech, run that through an algorithm that created it's own speech from the recordings, and got a 75% recognition rate from humans on that speech. So the algorithm knew what the person heard, and turned that into spoken language that people actually understood. The next step is for the algorithm to know what people thought, instead of heard. In other words, machine learning is taking very close to mind-reading—but we still have potholes and cancer. LinkBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's standalone episode of Unsupervised Learning is a political conversation with Jeremiah Grossman, who many of you will know as the founder of Whitehat Security, current CEO of BitDiscovery, Jujitsu Blackbelt, and all-around great individual. In this episode, however, we’re not going to be talking about Information Security, but Politics. We have remarkably different and similar views on politics, which we’ve been discussing in private for years, and we thought now was the perfect time to show that it’s possible to disagree with someone, respect them, and have a conversation about those disagreements in a positive and useful way. This is the first experiment of this kind on Unsupervised Learning, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. So with that, Here’s Jeremiah Grossman.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amazon has many thousands of people doing quality control on Alexa, meaning that they're listening to incoming audio captured on Echo devices. This shouldn't be surprising. The question is how they're doing it, and what policies they have around privacy when doing so. I don't personally see a major problem here. But at the same time I'd never put a Facebook device in my home. To me it's more about the company and its incentives than anything else. LinkA number of FBI-affiliated websites were hacked, and information on thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers are now being sold online. LinkChinese schools are using facial recognition on students, and using ML to determine whether or not they're currently paying attention, distracted, etc. LinkSift is a service that builds a risk profile on you so merchants can determine whether you're a benign actor or someone about to commit fraud. I think people need to accept that continuous risk scoring for people and situations is both inevitable and actually already happening. The moment you try to block bad actors by looking at their behavior, you quickly end up with a score that determines action based on various thresholds. And the moment you do it for bad actors, you're kind of implicitly doing it for good actors as well. There are better and worse ways to approach this, but profile scoring is not something we're going to be able to avoid going forward. Let's accept this reality and start having the conversations about how to make (and keep) this functionality as benign as possible. LinkA Dutch F-16 was damaged by rounds from its own 20MM cannon. So it fired bullets, and then flew into them. Life is awesome. LinkBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mastercard is looking to create a Digital ID service that can bind your digital presence to your mobile device, which will be able to verify you to various services. Palantir has won an $800 million contract to build the next combat intelligence system (to replace DCGS-A) for the Army. Putin appears to be causing brain drain in Russia. Dropbox has an interesting proposal for improving vendor security assessments. TL;DR: They turned their requirements into contractual points. LOVE IT. Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Multiple governments have now blacklisted Huawei, which Huawei seems very confused by. The best explanation I've heard so far about why this move makes sense for western countries came from Rob Joyce of NSA. He basically said that just like Kaspersky in Russia, the reason you can't trust Huawei is that it's a Chinese company, and even if they're not already infiltrated by the Chinese government, they can be at any moment without anyone knowing that it happened. And there's nothing Huawei or anyone else could do to stop it. Strong argument. Link2/3 of Android antivirus apps are hot garbage. Gasp. LinkDARPA is building an open-source, secure voting system. That's their goal, anyway. I'm skeptical of being able to build truly secure systems, but I have lots of confidence in DARPA, and I also know the bar for improvement over the current state is quite low. So, yeah, go forth and prosper. LinkThe RAND Think Tank conducts wargames between the U.S. and its potential enemies, such as Russia and China, and one analyst said that we keep losing. The issue seems to be that our key advantages can be neutralized rather easily, and it'd take a lot of money to fix the biggest issues. LinkBecome a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a description of cyberwar that sounds quite realistic to me, and it's based around the thousand-cuts idea. Ring Doorbells have a vulnerability that allows one to capture clear-text videos and other data from the cameras if you can get on the wireless network that the camera is using. An independent security researcher found the Dow Jones Watchlist database sitting open on the internet. Schneier talks here about how easy it is to influence people in sensitive positions, similar to my post on China building a database on us.…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

OpenAI text spoofing, Twitter DMs, Chinese tracking database, Ponemon Cyber Risk Score, Technology News, Human News, Ideas Trends & Analysis, Discovery, Recommendations, and the Weekly Aphorism…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My takeaways from ENIGMA 2019—one of my two favorite conferences in the world. The US has charged Huawei with stealing trade secrets, money laundering, and fraud. This escalates the already tense situation with China on a number of fronts. An engineer does a Twitter thread on AI-created videos on YouTube. He describes how they are created, promoted, and selected for display in recommendations. Fascinating read. This is a video of thieves scanning a BMW key fob through the wall of the owner's house, and driving away in their car. It could be that proximity-based security devices might need a trigger event (from the owner) before becoming active, like for mobile payments.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We just released the 2018 version of the OWASP Internet of Things Top 10, and in this episode I talk you through the list and give the philosophy, methodology, and next steps for the project.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

German politicians hacked, NSA's new RE tool, Weather Channel tracking, sick TSA agents, Facebook dust tracking, Technology News, Human News, Ideas, Discovery, Recommendations, and the weekly Aphorism…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Google+ breach, Android flaws, China's long game against the US, Australia's encryption blunder, NYPD drones, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ukraine malware, China's Black Mirror, DARPA's Mosaic, FBI trolling, Silicon Valley jobs, Technology News, Human News, Ideas, Trends, & Analysis, Discovery, Notes, Recommendations, and the weekly Aphorism!Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

OWASP IoT Top 10 Draft, Facebook compromise, Fornite cheating, Pentagon weapons, spam calls, technology news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendation, and the weekly aphorism…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AMA Summer 2018, Security News, Technology News, Human News, Ideas, Discovery, and the weekly Recommendation and Aphorism…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TLS 1.3, BurpSuite Improvements, Google Ad Database, Russian Attack Sattelites, Amazon Theaters, Google AI Cooling, Wheat Genome, Giant Magellan Telescope, Carb Ratios, Leg Exercise and Cognitive Health, Ideas, Discovery, Notes, Recommendations, and the weekly Aphorism…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GRU ATT&CK analysis, Assange to the UK, Cisco backdoors, DARPA electronics, faces from genomes, viz.ai, open plans are bad, Best Buy consulting, ultrasound vs. dementia, 4 day work weeks, ideas, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week!Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twitter deleting accounts, deepfakes, location leaks, Rekognition, bio databases, juggalo makeup, iOS 12 security, Siri upgrades, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Predicting your credit rating based on the tech you use, Russians attack Germans, WPA3, China bird drones, AT&T and Verison to stop selling our location data, Facebook red team, Twitter Smyte, plus tech, humans, discovery, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reboot your router, China hacked a U.S. Navy contractor and stole around 600GB of top secret data. Newark, NJ is monitoring much of the city with surveillance cameras, and they're making the camera footage available to the public. Facebook also shared data with a number of Chinese companies. Tech, Humans, Ideas, Discovery, Reconmendations, Aphorism… Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pentagon background checks, China using machine learning in schools, Rusian ethnicity detecting AI, US Military presence in Africa, Atlanta lost dashcam footage, Kidnapping insurance, Technology News, Ideas, Recommendation, Aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

VPNFilter botnet, Echo private convo, Ghostery GDPR fail, PornHub VPN, Technology News, Human News, Ideas, Trends, & Analysis, Discovery, Recommendations, the weekly Aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

VPNFilter botnet, LA + Palantir, Amazon Surveillance, Momentum report, Clapper says Russia turned the election, Chinese supply chain attacks, Tech News, Human News, Ideas, Discovery, Recommendation, the Aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Regulators aren't staffed to audit you on GDPR, inaudible Siri and Alexa commands, iOS 4 is bringing lots of privacy updates, California DNA storage, technology news, human news, Ideas, recommendation, the weekly aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How enterprises are completely ignoring the security activity that could help the most.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's 2 billion users now, Liinux beep, Digital Shadows finds fail files, cloud misconfiguration, AlterEgo, AI applications, Alexa sending payments, Tech, Ideas, Recommendation, Aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Atlanta disabled, MyFitnessPal hacked, Cambridge Analytica election tampering, Drupal, Saks, DARPA drones, Cloudflare 1.1.1.1, Slack bosses, Democratic Chinese AIs, Georgia facepalm, tech, humans, ideas, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chinese at CanSecWest, Applebees POS, Palantir, Poisoning, TensorFlow DoD, Amazon laughing, Google 72-qbits, Amazon FinTech, Android P, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GitHub DDoS, Celebrite Attacks, AI warnings, Palantir in New Orleans, Grub Backspace, 4G attacks, Space Corps, Amazon wins Defense Department deal, tech news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendation, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Parkland tampering, Avoid Huawei, Bongo S3, Facebook 2FA Spam, Android Cryptojacking, Spyware Hacking, Password Dating, Technology News, Human News, Trends, Ideas & Analysis, Data & Statistics, Discovery, Recommendations, Aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chinese AR glasses, Cisco ASA flaws, Russian Nuclear Cryptomining, Marine quadcopters, POS Skimmers, Chrome HTTP, technology news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Olympic security drones, Alexa trickery, Chinese quantum satellite, Audio Adversary Examples, BeeToken Ethereum theft, App Store Security, Cryptomining, technology news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Social engineering, breach impact, Chinese turncoat, Android spy kit, Hawaiian OPSEC, Russian cables, bypassing CloudFlare, technology news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meltdown & Spectre, India's Database, Criminals and Monero, Equifax Non-action, technology news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many people, in many fields, think Machine Learning won't replace their analysts because their humans are better than an algorithm. But it's not just about side-by-side comparisons. The bigger question is, "what percentage of the data can humans actually look at?", and the answer to that question (a tiny fraction) is the reason ML will be so helpful.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How it's shortsighted and irresponsible for InfoSec professionals to fear-monger on IoT Security, and what we should be saying instead.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Swatting death, Ethereum kidnap, Chinese dystopia, Alteryx S3 bucket, Starbucks Monero, Forever21, Microphone ads, technology news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TRITON, 1.4 billion credentials, HP keyloggers, iTunes Bitcoin laundering, removing credit card signatures, technologgy news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NiceHash hacked, Apple bugs, Stealing Cars via Relay, Crypto Collusion, technologgy news, human news, discovery, notes, recommendations, and the aphorism of the week…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Uber's mess, Google tracking users, AI finding missiles, drone disclosure, net neutrality, tech news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendations, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Github security, China IW, Brexit IW, S3 again, Quad9 DNS security, tech news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendations, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Verizon’s DBIR Report, sleeping fingerprints, IoT legislation, S3 security tools, AI tricks scammers, SEALs kill Green Beret, tech news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendations, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Russian IW memes, POTUS Twitter, Texas Attack, Silence Trojan, NotPetya Damages, tech news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendations, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Information Warfare, AI vs. CAPTCHA, Google Bug Bug, DARPA Drone Swarms, USB Fail, Medical Extortion, tech news, human news, ideas, discovery, recommendations, aphorism, and more…Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The InfoSec community needs to learn how to shepherd the public through new technology instead of joining them in fleeing from it.Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgradeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.