Software vulnerabilities in web sites operated by John Deere could allow a remote attacker to harvest information on the company’s customers including their names, physical addresses and the equipment they own. The revelation suggests the U.S. agriculture sector is woefully unprepared for disruptive cyber attacks, experts warn.
The University of Michigan announced that it has received a $3.6 million grant to develop hardware based security features that will make Internet connected systems “unhackable.” The grant will fund a project called MORPHEUS, which is developing a means of fending off hackers by turning computer circuits into the equivalent of “unsolvable puzzles,” according to a statement issued by University of Michigan. The grant was issued as part of a $50-million DARPA program to improve cybersecurity by marrying cybersecurity features with hardware rather than software. “Instead of relying on software Band-Aids to hardware-based security issues, we are aiming to remove those hardware vulnerabilities in ways that will disarm a large proportion of today’s software attacks,” says Linton Salmon, manager of DARPA’s System Security Integrated Through Hardware and Firmware (SSITH) program. Nine grants have been awarded under the SSITH program, including the $3.6 million of funding for the University of Michigan […]
In-brief: The U.S. should invest in equipment and talent to preserve legacy, analog infrastructure such as copper wire telecommunications networks and pneumatic pumps as a hedge against massively disruptive cyber attacks and other interruptions, two researchers with The MITRE Corporation argue in a recent opinion piece.
In-brief: In this special Security Ledger podcast, I interview Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret), a top advisor to President Elect Donald Trump about his thoughts on cyber defense and improving the security of government and commercial systems.
In-brief: A hacker capture the flag tournament will take place without any human intervention. It’s the final competition in DARPA’s Cyber Grand Challenge, a contest to spur developments in automation and artificial intelligence to solve cyber security problems.
