Security

A collection of 44 posts

Security

Combating Chinese Cyber Threats in South Korea

In light of the escalating cyber threats from China, it is imperative to focus on collaborative defense initiatives that can enhance South Korea's cybersecurity resilience and create a more secure digital landscape.

Russia-Ukraine

Security Primers for Journalists and Activists in Ukraine

Putin and his security apparatus are keeping many lists and the barrier to entry is likely very low. If you're a journalist, activist, political figure, or influencer in Ukraine you must up your security game immediately.

Hacking

Russians Targeted Tesla Gigafactory in Ransomware Plot

Scot Terban is back to discuss the plot, common points of vulnerability, and what you can do it, like a Tesla employee, you find yourself in the middle of a Russian criminal plot.

Covert Contact

Texas A&M, NASA, and Chinese Espionage

William Tucker joins me to discuss the Zhengdong Cheng case, how Chinese espionage might be forced to evolve, global awareness of the scope of China’s spying, and how organizations can protect themselves if they haven’t started evaluating their own risk.

Covert Contact

Preparing for A Career in Intelligence: Thoughts on Personal Security and Behavior

Former CIA officer Maggie Gwynne joins me to discuss how those interested in pursuing a career in intelligence should manage their profiles (online and off) and conduct themselves to prepare for a challenging recruitment and training period.

Australia

Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy

Australian journalist Stilgherrian, returns to Covert Contact to discuss Australia's recently released 2020 cyber security strategy.

Covert Contact

Online Security: Avoiding a Personal October Surprise

Infosec professional and security blogger Scot Terban joins me to discuss the recent LinkedIn spying case, the degrading environment in social media, and strategies for improving your personal security.

Personal

Coronavirus Outbreak: Preparing for COVID-19 in the United States

I'm getting a lot of questions about how I have prepared to ride out this outbreak since I sit in the middle of the clusters that are popping up around the Bay Area.

Hacking

Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy

Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy

Security

Election Security: We Aren't Ready

Iowa was, to be sure, a mess but it only hints at the chaos that is almost certain to come.

Covert Contact

Protecting the British Royal Family

Fred Burton, former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the Diplomatic Security Service and the author of GHOST: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent joins me to break down some of these security efforts and the challenges he faced on the job.

Covert Contact

Securing Data, Communications, and Identity with Keybase

Keybase is a small but ambitious company that aims to make cyrpto available and virtually seamless for everyone. Their approach to this problem, a massively challenging one that hasn’t really been cracked to date, has been creative.

Covert Contact

Russia, Trump, and Hillary: What a Debate

In episode 62 I look at what may have been the most bizarre presidential debate in U.S. history. Covert Contact regular William J. Tucker joins me later in the show to discuss the U.S. government’s formal acknowledgement that Russia is meddling in the U.S. election. You

Covert Contact

Russian Hackers Run Wild on the DNC

Regular Blogs of War and Covert Contact contributor William J. Tucker joins me to discuss the apparent Russian state-sponsored hack of the DNC. We also spend quite a bit of time discussing the sorry state of security. We’re talking about cyber issues constantly but the intrusions, threats, and vulnerabilities

Covert Contact

The Orlando Shooting and Our Struggle to Make Sense of the Senseless

In episode 51 I’m joined once again by Patrick Skinner, Director of Special Projects for The Soufan Group [http://soufangroup.com/]. Patrick is a former CIA Case Officer, with a background in federal law enforcement, who specializes in counterterrorism issues. You can follow Patrick on Twitter @SkinnerPM [https://twitter.

Covert Contact

Lockpicking 101: Why Your Locks Are Useless

I recently ran into Daniel Crowley [https://twitter.com/dan_crowley] at the BSides San Antonio [https://twitter.com/BSidesSATX] security conference. He, and other members of Longhorn Lockpicking Club [http://www.meetup.com/li-austin/], had several tables covered with what could have easily been two hundred or more locks

Covert Contact

How Will ISIS Evolve and How Will Our Response Evolve with Them?

In episode 45 I’m joined again by Patrick Skinner, Director of Special Projects for The Soufan Group [http://soufangroup.com/]. Patrick is a former CIA Case Officer, with a background in federal law enforcement, who specializes in counterterrorism issues. In this episode we discuss the danger of an Islamic

Interviews

Matthias Pfau: Tutanota and the Battle Against Mass Surviellance

Matthias Pfau [https://twitter.com/matthiaspfau] is co-founder and developer of the encrypted email service Tutanota [https://tutanota.com/]. Tutanota is part of what can be considered a post-Snowden development movement that aims to short-circuit government mass surveillance capabilities. I spoke to Matthias to discuss his project and where he

Covert Contact

Government Email Problems, Wikileaks, Russia, Drone Leaks, NASA Security and Other Counterintelligence Nightmares

The Covert Contact podcast kicks off again with an admittedly rambling, but hopefully entertaining, start as I review a number of high profile security issues with counterintelligence pro William J. Tucker. We look at the hack of DCIA John Brennan’s AOL account [http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/

Technology

Encrypted Communication Has Never Been Easier - Security Never More Challenging

Just over two years ago I decided to spend some time digging into an emerging class of encryption tools that were making a solid run at simplifying the notoriously cumbersome use of PGP.

Technology

The Linux Foundation's Linux Workstation Security Checklist

Konstantin Ryabitsev’s high-level security recommendations for Linux Foundations systems administrators [https://github.com/lfit/itpol/blob/master/linux-workstation-security.md]is probably not the kind of document that most of you would read. In fact, I’ve known a shocking number of SysAdmins who wouldn’t take the time to

Covert Contact

Encryption as the New Norm: Discussing A Changing Internet with ProtonMail Co-Founder Andy Yen

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been evaluating ProtonMail [http://protonmail.ch/]. This service is part of a new generation of tools (most inspired by Edward Snowden) developed with the aim of delivering robust encrypted communications and file sharing to the widest possible audience. Blogs of War readers

Covert Contact

Encryption vs. Mass Surveillance with Former FBI Agent David Gomez

Former FBI Agent David Gomez joins John W. Little on the Covert Contact national security podcast.

Covert Contact

Hillary Clinton's Email Server: Dissecting the Risks with William J. Tucker

William J. Tucker joins me again to discuss Hillary Clinton’s decision to manage her own email services while Secretary of State. While this decision has angered political opponents and government transparency advocates (not to mention a few historians) we are bypassing the political and legal issues to zero in

Covert Contact

Crypto Wars: Winners, Losers, and the Case for Compromise

In episode 3 of the Covert Contact podcast [https://blogsofwar.com/tag/podcast/] I’m focusing on a single critical topic – the struggle between privacy advocates and governments overcryptography [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography]. This is a sensitive topic and there are a lot of extreme positions on the