Author Archives: Bruce Schneier

Personal AI Assistants and Privacy

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Microsoft is trying to create a personal digital assistant:

At a Build conference event on Monday, Microsoft revealed a new AI-powered feature called “Recall” for Copilot+ PCs that will allow Windows 11 users to search and retrieve their past activities on their PC. To make it work, Recall records everything users do on their PC, including activities in apps, communications in live meetings, and websites visited for research. Despite encryption and local storage, the new feature raises privacy concerns for certain Windows users.

I wrote about…

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Detecting Malicious Trackers

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From Slashdot:

Apple and Google have launched a new industry standard called “Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers” to combat the misuse of Bluetooth trackers for stalking. Starting Monday, iPhone and Android users will receive alerts when an unknown Bluetooth device is detected moving with them. The move comes after numerous cases of trackers like Apple’s AirTags being used for malicious purposes.

Several Bluetooth tag companies have committed to making their future products compatible with the new standard. Apple and Google said they will continue collaborating with the Internet Engineering Task Force to further develop this technology and address the issue of unwanted tracking…

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IBM Sells Cybersecurity Group

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IBM is selling its QRadar product suite to Palo Alto Networks, for an undisclosed—but probably surprisingly small—sum.

I have a personal connection to this. In 2016, IBM bought Resilient Systems, the startup I was a part of. It became part if IBM’s cybersecurity offerings, mostly and weirdly subservient to QRadar.

That was what seemed to be the problem at IBM. QRadar was IBM’s first acquisition in the cybersecurity space, and it saw everything through the lens of that SIEM system. I left the company two years after the acquisition, and near as I could tell, it never managed to figure the space out…

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Friday Squid Blogging: Emotional Support Squid

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When asked what makes this an “emotional support squid” and not just another stuffed animal, its creator says:

They’re emotional support squid because they’re large, and cuddly, but also cheerfully bright and derpy. They make great neck pillows (and you can fidget with the arms and tentacles) for travelling, and, on a more personal note, when my mum was sick in the hospital I gave her one and she said it brought her “great comfort” to have her squid tucked up beside her and not be a nuisance while she was sleeping.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered…

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FBI Seizes BreachForums Website

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The FBI has seized the BreachForums website, used by ransomware criminals to leak stolen corporate data.

If law enforcement has gained access to the hacking forum’s backend data, as they claim, they would have email addresses, IP addresses, and private messages that could expose members and be used in law enforcement investigations.

[…]

The FBI is requesting victims and individuals contact them with information about the hacking forum and its members to aid in their investigation.

The seizure messages include ways to contact the FBI about the seizure, including an email, a Telegram account, a TOX account, and a dedicated page hosted on the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)…

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Zero-Trust DNS

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Microsoft is working on a promising-looking protocol to lock down DNS.

ZTDNS aims to solve this decades-old problem by integrating the Windows DNS engine with the Windows Filtering Platform—the core component of the Windows Firewall—directly into client devices.

Jake Williams, VP of research and development at consultancy Hunter Strategy, said the union of these previously disparate engines would allow updates to be made to the Windows firewall on a per-domain name basis. The result, he said, is a mechanism that allows organizations to, in essence, tell clients “only use our DNS server, that uses TLS, and will only resolve certain domains.” Microsoft calls this DNS server or servers the “protective DNS server.”…

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Another Chrome Vulnerability

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Google has patched another Chrome zero-day:

On Thursday, Google said an anonymous source notified it of the vulnerability. The vulnerability carries a severity rating of 8.8 out of 10. In response, Google said, it would be releasing versions 124.0.6367.201/.202 for macOS and Windows and 124.0.6367.201 for Linux in subsequent days.

“Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2024-4671 exists in the wild,” the company said.

Google didn’t provide any other details about the exploit, such as what platforms were targeted, who was behind the exploit, or what they were using it for…

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