Tag: critical infrastructure

Episode 79: Hackable Nukes and Dissecting Naughty Toys

In this week’s Security Ledger Podcast episode, the UK -based policy think tank Chatham House warned last week that aging nuclear weapons systems in the U.S., the U.K. and other nations are vulnerable to cyber attacks that could be used to start a global conflagration. We talk with Eddie Habbibi of PAS Global about what can be done to secure hackable nukes. Also: with CES raging in Las Vegas last week, we go deep with security researcher Jay Harris on flaws in connected toys being sold to children.

Google details CPU flaws, claims AMD, ARM and Intel all affected

Google has come forward to claim responsibility for discovering a pair of serious security holes in Intel processors that run almost 9 in 10 computers in the world. And worse: the company has echoed a statement by Intel yesterday that the flaws are not specific to that company’s chips. Contrary to published reports, a blog post on the Google Security Blog by Matt Linton, a Senior Security Engineer at Google and Pat Parseghian, a Technical Program Manager said that flaws dubbed “Specter” (PDF) and “Meltdown” (PDF) are not limited to chips by Intel, but exist in central processing unit (CPU) chips by a wide range of vendors including Intel, AMD and ARM. Google discovered the flaws The flaws were discovered by Jann Horn, a researcher for Google’s Project Zero security team, discovered the flaw and showed how malicious actors could game a common CPU feature known as “speculative execution” to […]

Episode 77: From Russian Hacking to Mr. Robot Our Most Popular Podcasts of 2017

In this, our final episode of 2017, we look back at our most popular segments from the past year – many of which touched on issues that (surprise, surprise) crossed the boundary between information security and politics. Among the most popular segments were discussions of hacking the U.S. election systems, a primer on the cyber capabilities of North Korea with Crowd Strike, a conversation of the case against the Russian firm Kaspersky Lab and an interview with the guy who helps make the hacking scenes in the USA Network’s Mr. Robot look so real.

NotPetya’s Cost to FedEx: $400 Million and counting

As Federal Express continues to recover from the devastating NotPetya malware outbreak, the cost of the attack on the company continues to grow, topping $400 million in just the last six months. 

Podcast: New Malware targets Industrial Safety Systems and Uncle Sam Bans Kaspersky – What Now?

In our latest podcast: industrial security expert Joe Weiss talks to us about Triton, a new malware family targeting industrial safety systems. Also: Dave Aitel of the firm Immunity Inc. joins us again to talk about new legislation banning government agencies from using anti malware software by Kaspersky Lab. And, Alan Naumann* of the firm Contrast Security talks to us about the major insurance firm that  joined the latest round of investment in his company, and why application security is everybody’s problem.