Tag: crack | Page 3

Cyber programs at The Citadel help crack the code for success

February 10, 2022/in Computer Security

By Alaina Rink, CGC ’22

When Cadet Noah Wells, ’22, and Staff Sergeant Ryan Skibicki, ’21, met in Computer Science 305, they had no idea that they would land dream jobs within two months of each other. They say The Citadel’s commitment to rigorous academics and principled leadership in cybersecurity made them preferred candidates.

Wells, a triple major in Cyber Operations, Computer Science and Mathematics, will begin his career in McLean, VA as a Cyber New Professional with The MITRE Corporation, a company he discovered at a cybersecurity conference. He says he opened the conversation with, “Hey, want to give me a job?” and was soon fast-tracked on the applicant list because of his involvement with The Citadel’s cyber department, research projects and his personal convictions for a more inclusive world. He is also one of the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service recipients.

Skibicki was already an active duty Marine when he decided to major in Computer Science with a minor in Cybersecurity. He said, “I had no idea about computer science before I came to The Citadel. The small class sizes allow students to pursue in-depth answers to their questions.” In December, Skibicki received a Cybersecurity contract through Military Occupational Specialties. He is one of four MECEPS to receive this competitive contract the first year it became eligible to their program. Skibicki will commission in April and complete more classified training before receiving further orders.

Wells and Skibicki are both in The Citadel’s first Department of Defense Cyber Institute and specifically credit Shankar Banik, Ph.D., for diligently working on the relevance and application of the curriculum. This institute is funded through a Department of Defense appropriation to the National Security Agency included in the 2020 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

While The Citadel is committed to educating its future leaders in cybersecurity, it also seeks to inform present industry leaders. On February 24^th and 25^th, The Citadel will host the Jack Voltaic Conference Series which works to align current cybersecurity stakeholders in order to strengthen critical systems. The theme…

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Quantum Computers Could Crack Bitcoin Security by the 2030s

February 3, 2022/in Computer Security

Today, the Bitcoin network’s security, using a cryptographic algorithm called SHA-256, would be insurmountable for a computer as we know it to crack. But quantum computing may change that within the next decade. Scientists at the University of Sussex now estimate that quantum computers are likely to become powerful enough to crack the security that protects Bitcoins sometime in the next decade. New Scientist first reported on the study.

Bitcoin is based on a blockchain, essentially a ledger of who owns what, protected by the SHA-256 algorithm. If you could crack the key revealed during Bitcoin transactions, you could change ownership of a Bitcoin. The Sussex scientists, led by Mark Webber, explain that every Bitcoin transaction is assigned a cryptographic key, which is vulnerable for a finite time, which might vary from 10 minutes to an hour, to a day.

The researchers estimate that a quantum computer with 1.9 billion qubits would be necessary to crack a Bitcoin’s encryption within 10 minutes. To manage the feat within an hour, a machine with 317 million qubits would be required. However, if you had a full day to try and crack the security, a system packing just 13 million qubits would be capable of the task.

Right now, the most potent quantum computer, developed by IBM, boasts 127 qubits. We are obviously a long way from machines with 13 million qubits becoming available, and a 317 million+ qubit machine is a much better bet in practical cracking of Bitcoins, as things stand. The Sussex scientists reckon that with the pace of advances we see now, sufficiently powerful quantum computers will not be realized for “potentially over a decade,” putting us firmly into the 2030s.

Any projected calamitous D-Day for Bitcoin is very much a moving target. The scientists note that the Bitcoin network “could nullify this threat by performing a soft fork onto an encryption method that is quantum secure, but there may be serious scaling concerns associated with the switch.” On the other side of the tug-o-war, developments in quantum computing could easily accelerate progress towards being able to hack Bitcoin security. The researchers mention the potential of trapped ion-based quantum computers,…

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Kaspersky Internet Security 2017 for 1 year free 100% working Activation code

November 25, 2021/in Video

The U.S. Wants to Crack Down on Sales of Commercial Hacking Tools for Obvious Reasons

October 21, 2021/in Computer Security

After a slew of hacking scandals involving private surveillance companies, the U.S. is looking to impose new restrictions on the sale of commercial hacking tools—in the hopes of clamping down on abuse perpetuated by the industry.

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department announced a rule change that will put new limitations on the resale or export of “certain items that can be used for malicious cyber activities.” This applies to tools used to infiltrate digital systems and conduct surveillance—such as the notorious commercial spyware, Pegasus—as well as other hacking and “intrusion” software, the Washington Post first reported. The rule, which has reportedly been in development for years, will be put into effect in 90 days.

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While the intricacies of the new 65-page rule are somewhat thorny, the biggest result is a new license requirement for American companies that want to sell hacking tools to countries “of national security or weapons of mass destruction concern,” as well as to “countries subject to a U.S. arms embargo,” the Commerce Department’s announcement says. Roughly translated, this means that America’s biggest geopolitical rivals—namely, Russia and China—are on that list, along with a few others. Firms that wish to sell hacking tools to those countries will now have to acquire a special license from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. Requests for such licenses will be reviewed on an individual basis to determine whether they are appropriate.

“The United States Government opposes the misuse of technology to abuse human rights or conduct other malicious cyber activities, and these new rules will help ensure that U.S. companies are not fueling authoritarian practices,” the announcement states.

The new changes, while apparently long percolating, come on the heels of multiple, high-profile hacking scandals that have threatened human rights and involve malicious cyber activities. Most prominently, the spyware firm NSO Group has been at the center of ongoing controversy, spurred by the publication of a large journalistic investigation detailing

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By Alaina Rink, CGC ’22