Source: New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/technology/peter-g-neumann-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.l1A.E0X5.8ECiWDTBJ9YF&smid=url-share
[H/T Sabrina] For decades, he criticized the industry’s lax attitudes toward computer security and individual digital privacy. He also developed solutions.
In 2010, he began a research project that investigated how to guard against the most common types of security vulnerabilities. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the program, known as Cheri, developed a new approach to computer hardware that restricts software programs so that malicious instructions cannot be executed.
“Peter Neumann is both one of the last of the old guard and a pointer to the future,” Whitfield Diffie, a mathematician and cryptographer who is an inventor of public key cryptography, said. “He describes himself as having had a 70-year career in computer science, starting with his graduation from Harvard, and he has always advocated starting with hardware designed to support security.”
“I’m fundamentally an optimist with regard to what we can do with research,” he said. “I’m fundamentally a pessimist with respect to what corporations who are fundamentally beholden to their stockholders do, because they’re always working on short-term appearance.”
Dr. Neumann occupied the same office at SRI International since he began working there as a computer researcher in 1971. Until the building was modified to make it earthquake-resistant, his office was notorious for the towering stacks of computer science literature stacked on every surface.
Subject: California Sues Owner of Former 23andMe
Source: AP via Newser
https://www.newser.com/story/390037/california-sues-owner-of-former-23andme.html
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/crypto-security-pioneer-i-now-consider-all-of-defi-unsafe-2000764097
Crypto projects in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector have faced a wave of security incidents lately, and now, one of the earliest figures in smart contract auditing has declared the entire DeFi space unsafe. This point of view was shared on X by Manuel Aráoz, co-founder of OpenZeppelin. He has gone so far as to privately advise friends and family to exit all DeFi positions, including what many view as low-risk “blue chips” such as Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound.
Aráoz pointed to advances in artificial intelligence as the core reason for this shift in the reliability and trustworthiness of DeFi apps. “Coding agents are superhuman at finding vulnerabilities, and smart contract security is too asymmetric: defenders need to fix every bug while attackers need just one exploit to steal funds,” he explained.
…
More recently, April stood out as the worst month on record for the sheer volume of crypto hacks, with incidents occurring at a pace of nearly one per day. North Korea has been linked to the vast majority of funds stolen through these attacks this year, though the regime issued a rare denial of involvement last month.
…
It should be noted that OpenZeppelin took to X to clarify that Aráoz’s comments do not match the company’s official position on this matter, as Aráoz left the company in 2019. The pair of Uniswap founder Hayden Adams and Aave founder Stani Kulechov also pointed out that the same AI tools being used by attackers can also be used for defense, which should, ironically, make these systems even more resilient and secure over time. “DeFi is constantly evolving, but pretending the industry hasn’t matured significantly or that AI is only a net negative for DeFi security is simply not true,” Kulechov posted on X. “The same AI capabilities attackers use are also increasingly used by security researchers, auditors, and whitehats to strengthen protocols. DeFi Will Win”
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Filed: Privacy & Security
Source: TechRepublic
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-silent-ransom-group-physical-impersonation-fbi-warning/
The FBI warns Silent Ransom Group is targeting US law firms with phishing, fake IT calls, and in-person visits to steal data for extortion.
The FBI has warned that Silent Ransom Group, a cybercrime group known for phishing and phone-based IT support scams, has expanded its tactics to include physical impersonation. According to the bureau, the group may send an actor to a victim’s workplace to gain access and insert a storage device when remote access attempts fail.
Although it primarily targets US-based law firms, the FBI says it has also been targeting the financial, healthcare, and insurance sectors, most likely because these sectors possess highly sensitive information.
Organizations are also urged to train staff to verify the identities of anyone entering the company’s premises and to preserve a copy of each ID.
The FBI asked organizations with information about SRG activity to contact their local FBI field office or submit a report through the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Filed:
Subject: Troops’ phones leaked location data to foreign adversaries
Source: The Register
https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/28/troops-phones-leaked-location-data-to-foreign-adversaries/5248108
According to the DoD responses included in Wyden’s letter, not only are US military personnel allowed to use personal devices within operational areas, there’s no actual policy that requires service members to turn off geolocation capabilities on their devices when located in active war zones.
Subject – BusPatrol’ Put AI Cameras in Tens of Thousands of School Buses
Source – 404 Media
https://www.bespacific.com/buspatrol-put-ai-cameras-in-tens-of-thousands-of-school-buses/
Subject – Thousands of journalists’ data exposed to dark web
Source – Proton Blog
https://proton.me/blog/journalist-data-leaks