While we embrace the way the Internet of Things already is making our lives more streamlined and convenient, the cybersecurity risk posed by millions of wirelessly connected gadgets, devices and appliances remains a huge concern. Even single, targeted attacks can result in major damage; when cybercriminals control and manipulate several nodes in a network, the…

University of Toronto PhD student David Madras says many of today’s algorithms are good at making accurate predictions, but don’t know how to handle uncertainty well. If a badly calibrated algorithm makes the wrong decision, it’s usually very wrong. “A human user might understand a situation better than a computer, whether it’s information not available because it’s…

A new electronic security badge, offered through a new collaboration between Intel Corp. and Purdue University, will emphasize using secure design principles throughout the product development life cycle. The “Design for Security” badge will be based on a series of courses offered on Purdue’s campus and also online beginning in the fall of 2018. The…

The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once postulated that the devil no longer uses fire and brimstone but instead simply tells you what you want to hear. Sandia National Laboratories cyber researchers go with that second option when it comes to foiling a hacker. Rather than simply blocking a discovered intruder, Vince Urias, Will Stout and…

As the U.S. electricity grid continues to modernize, it will mean things like better reliability and resilience, lower environmental impacts, greater integration of renewable energy, as well as new computing and communications technologies to monitor and manage the increasing number of devices that connect to the grid. However, that enhanced connectivity for grid operators and…

Forget fingerprint computer identification or retinal scanning. A University at Buffalo-led team has developed a computer security system using the dimensions of your heart as your identifier. The system uses low-level Doppler radar to measure your heart, and then continually monitors your heart to make sure no one else has stepped in to run your…

Researchers have developed a new type of light-enhancing optical cavity that is only 200 nanometers tall and 100 nanometers across. Their new nanoscale system represents a step toward brighter single-photon sources, which could help propel quantum-based encryption and a truly secure and future-proofed network. Quantum encryption techniques, which are seen as likely to be central…

In today’s digital world it can be challenging to prevent photos, videos and books from being illegally copied and distributed. A new light-based technique is making it more practical to create secure, invisible watermarks that can be used to detect and prosecute counterfeiting. “In our research, we use a complex pattern of light, or diffraction…

With over two-thirds of U.S. adults owning asmartphone, and the rise in miniaturized sensors and low-power body area networks that are used for remote health monitoring, mobile health (mHealth) is beginning to experience a boom. While the technology has the potential to increase healthcare quality, expand access to services, reduce costs, and improve personal wellness…

Anonymity networks protect people living under repressive regimes from surveillance of their Internet use. But the recent discovery of vulnerabilities in the most popular of these networks — Tor — has prompted computer scientists to try to come up with more secure anonymity schemes. At the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science…

Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney believes the first atomic bomb of the cyberwarfare age has already been dropped. That bomb was Stuxnet, a computer virus that’s the subject of Gibney’s latest movie, “Zero Days.” Stuxnet disrupted an Iranian uranium-enrichment facility beginning in 2010 and set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran considers Stuxnet part of a…