DEF CON Safe Mode Highlights

DEF CON, a major annual event in the world of cybersecurity, was held just last week. This year, the organizers decided to go virtual, calling the event “DEF CON Safe Mode”. 

There were a number of great talks and panels at the conference, and while some of them were quite technical, many also focused on topics likely to be of interest to a wide audience. 

In what follows, we’ll offer some curated highlights from DEF CON Safe Mode that you may want to check out, along with links to the full video …

Checklist 194: YouTube Hijacking Bitcoin Blues with Stephen Warwick

This week, The Checklist takes you inside yet another high-profile Bitcoin scam, this time affecting YouTube. We’ll talk about what happened, and then discuss the technical details of the compromise.

Disinformation in the age of social media: Renée DiResta’s Black Hat 2020 keynote

Black Hat USA is a major event in the world of information security. This year, due to the ongoing pandemic, the conference went virtual — and the organizers offered open access to many of the most important talks and sessions. 

Among these were two timely keynote addresses that deal with issues around election security, one of which was delivered by Renée DiResta. DiResta is the Research Manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, an interdisciplinary program that studies the misuse of information technologies. Her work focuses on the way in which narratives spread …

Election security in a pandemic: Matt Blaze’s Black Hat 2020 keynote

Black Hat USA is one of the biggest events in the world of cybersecurity, bringing the infosec community together once a year for several days of trainings, briefings, and demos. Due to COVID-19, Black Hat 2020 went fully remote, and offered free access to some of the conference’s most important events. 

Matt Blaze gave an extremely relevant keynote entitled “Stress-Testing Democracy: Election Integrity During a Global Pandemic”. Blaze is cryptographer and professor of computer science who holds the McDevitt Chair in Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University. His work focuses …

ThiefQuest malware for macOS is a triple threat

In this piece, we’ll discuss ThiefQuest’s key capabilities, and we’ll also tell you how to protect yourself from an infection.

Checklist WWDC20 Outtake

We’re bringing you a WWDC outtake: an off-the-cuff, practically off-mic discussion of WWDCs past — as well as the roles Apple execs play.

Chris Hadnagy on social engineering

Chris Hadnagy is one of the world’s foremost authorities on social engineering. He has written four books on the topic, including Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking and Unmasking the Social Engineer: The Human Element of Security. Hadnagy has been a prominent figure in the security industry for many years, founding the popular Social Engineering Village (SEVillage) at DEF CON, and establishing the Innocent Lives Foundation, a non-profit organization that coordinates the resources of the infosec community to fight online child predators. Hadnagy’s company, Social-Engineer, LLC, helps …

What is key-based 2FA?

Standard 2FA has some important limitations, which is why many security experts believe that key-based 2FA is the wave of the future — especially now that Apple has made changes to make it much more accessible to iPhone and iPad users.

Checklist 193: A Look at Apple Silicon with Nick Leon

Starting this year, Apple will begin making its own, ARM-based processors for the Mac. In this episode of The Checklist, we take a look at the background to this change, as well as what it means for Mac users:

Intel vs ARMApple Silicon Macs and performanceApple Silicon Macs and security

Goodbye Intel, Hello ARM

When Apple announced their move from the Intel to the ARM processor architecture, it was clearly big news. But it also left many folks with a pretty basic question: What’s the actual difference between the two?

At a hardware level, …

Government issues alert about cyberattacks on critical infrastructure

The U.S. government has issued an alert warning that there is an increased danger of cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure. The alert comes from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

Checklist 192: Twitter Hack 2020

A week behind us, the great Twitter hack is still unfolding. We’ll look at what we think we know so far and why the hack itself matters on this edition of The Checklist, brought to you by SecureMac.

ARM Macs FAQ

Apple will soon begin transitioning away from Intel CPUs and switching to ARM processors instead. In this article, we’ll try to answer frequently asked questions about the change, offering some context to Apple’s decision and explaining what it all means for Mac users — especially in terms of performance and security.

ARM vs Intel: What’s the difference?

To start with the obvious, there are two different companies involved: Arm Holdings and Intel. The two companies have significantly different business models. Intel is both a designer and manufacturer of processors, whereas Arm does …