Security News
The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology has chosen the first group of quantum-resistant encryption tools, designed to withstand the assault of a future quantum computer, which could potentially crack the security used to protect privacy in the digital systems we rely on every day - such as online banking and email software. This Help Net Security video covers the highlights of four encryption algorithms selected by NIST..
Threat actors exchange beacons for badgers to evade endpoint securityUnidentified cyber threat actors have started using Brute Ratel C4, an adversary simulation tool similar to Cobalt Strike, to try to avoid detection by endpoint security solutions and gain a foothold on target networks, Palo Alto Networks researchers have found. Attackers are using deepfakes to snag remote IT jobsMalicious individuals are using stolen personally identifiable information and voice and video deepfakes to try to land remote IT, programming, database and software-related jobs, the FBI has warned last week.
Professional Finance Company Inc., a full-service accounts receivables management company, says that a ransomware attack in late February led to a data breach affecting over 600 healthcare organizations. While PFC did not share the exact number of affected healthcare providers, it linked to a PDF file listing all the impacted orgs containing the names of 657 healthcare entities.
According to the US National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the U.S. is in a global quantum computing race, and China is winning. One emerging technology that could help combat the malicious use of quantum computing is confidential computing.
The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology has chosen the first set of quantum-resistant encryption algorithms that are designed to "Withstand the assault of a future quantum computer." Quantum computers, should they mature enough, pose a huge impact on the current public-key algorithms, since what could take, say, trillions of years on a conventional computer to find the right key to decode a message could merely take days or hours, rendering them susceptible to brute-force attacks.
The Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology has chosen four encryption algorithms that are designed to withstand the hacking of a future quantum computer and protect digital information. NIST said all four of the algorithms were created by experts collaborating from multiple countries and institutions.
NIST's post-quantum computing cryptography standard process is entering its final phases. For general encryption, used when we access secure websites, NIST has selected the CRYSTALS-Kyber algorithm.
The four selected encryption algorithms will become part of NIST's post-quantum cryptographic standard, expected to be finalized in about two years. To counter this threat, the four quantum-resistant algorithms rely on math problems that both conventional and quantum computers should have difficulty solving, thereby defending privacy both now and down the road. The quantum-resistant encryption algorithms are designed for two main tasks for which encryption is typically used: general encryption, used to protect information exchanged across a public network; and digital signatures, used for identity authentication.
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended four cryptographic algorithms for standardization to ensure data can be protected as quantum computers become more capable of decryption. Back in 2015, the NSA announced plans to transition to quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms in preparation for the time when quantum computers make it possible to access data encrypted by current algorithms, such as AES and RSA. No one is quite sure when that may occur but it depends on the number of qubits - quantum bits - that a quantum machine can muster, and other factors, such as error correction.
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended four cryptographic algorithms for standardization to ensure data can be protected as quantum computers become more capable of decryption. Back in 2015, the NSA announced plans to transition to quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms in preparation for the time when quantum computers make it possible to access data encrypted by current algorithms, such as AES and RSA. No one is quite sure when that may occur but it depends on the number of qubits - quantum bits - that a quantum machine can muster, and other factors, such as error correction.