Security in distributed computing systems is a very important area of research, especially as malicious behavior is a growing cause of concern for businesses and organizations. This paper addresses an emerging method of maintaining security in untrustworthy environments. Until recently, the operating system was the only means of protecting data; the authors discuss a more elaborate technique of...

An October 29, 2002 news article in USA Today describes a recent surge in activity of politically motivated hackers and cyber terrorists. The attacks, which range from Web site defacements to viruses and worms, are probably being perpetrated by individuals opposed to the US war on terrorism and action in Iraq.

Periodically a series of "important messages" about new email viruses make their way through various mailing lists. While savvy Internet users can usually immediately spot these hoaxes, they can be both intimidating and frightening to neophytes (not to mention the bandwidth wasted when the messages are passed on to other users.) One of the better sites that track both email and other computer...

The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA) is one of the most high-profile operations for the development and adoption of an industry standard for personal computer security. The main participants in the TCPA are Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. This Web site has many documents written for or about the alliance. The most significant resource is the latest version of the main...

Billed as "All Tech, All the Time", the TechNewsWorld is a good way to stay on top of the latest developments in the worlds of technology, computing, information technology management, and other related areas. On the homepage, visitors can take a look at some of their top stories and then move on over to the "Shortcuts" area. Here they will find a selection of podcasts, webcasts, and even a...

An extremely controversial find by two University of Cambridge researchers has exposed a security weakness in the cryptographic systems used by banks to store personal identification numbers for automatic teller machine cards. The discovery is described in a February 2003 technical report, which states that the vulnerability can be exploited by malicious users to crack the PIN in fifteen guesses,...

Based in the UK, IWS is "an online resource that aims to stimulate debate about a range of subjects from information security to information operations and e-commerce," with an emphasis on offensive and defensive information operations. To these ends, it offers a number of resources, including selected documents, articles, and online journals that relate to twelve topics, such as computer...

During the final weeks of July, a computer worm known as Code Red spread to over 350,000 computers on six continents. The two sites listed above provide details and analysis of the worm incident. This site, from University of California's Cooperative Association for Internet Data analysis (CIDA), provides a wealth of data on the origin and spread of Code Red. A neat feature is the animation of the...

Published on the Hewlett Packard (HP) Web site, this report finds that a large percentage of Kazaa users have either accidentally or unknowingly shared their private files with everyone who has access to the Kazaa network. Conducted by Nathaniel S. Good of HP Labs and Aaron Krekelberg of the University of Minnesota, this study discloses shortcomings in the Kazaa software, which in turn, poses a...

From the Biohacking Village comes White Hats and Lab Coats, a podcast with a little bit of everything, from citizen science to biomedical technology. The podcast is co-hosted by Beau Woods and Nina Alli. Woods is the leader of Biohacking Village: Device Lab and a Cyber Safety Innovation Fellow with the Atlantic Council, and Alli is the Executive Director of the Biohacking Village at DEF CON. Each...