Breakthrough AI hacking tool cracks millions of user passwords in minutes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial Intelligence is a cyber security game changer, for better and worse, and we need to be better prepared for what’s coming. Last year the credit reporting agency Equifax announced that malicious hackers had leaked the personal information of over 143 million people after their system...
UK and Singapore set 2021 deadline to launch world’s first quantum communications cubesat
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Unlike traditional communications technologies quantum communications are unhackable, so countries are racing to deploy them. Highly secure global communication based on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a secure communications cryptographic protocol that’s based on the eerie phenomenon of quantum mechanics, could eventually be made possible...
An immune system for the internet, new good samaritan malware surprises experts
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cyber attacks are getting out of control, but evolving, roving “good samaritan” forms of malware could become the new cops of the internet and the future of cybersecurity. Security researchers have discovered a very odd new botnet that, rather than posing a threat, seems...
Estonia becomes the world’s first virtual nation capable of rebooting itself
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Technology is showing us how ancient the concept of the traditional nation state is, and as virtual nations take shape being able to reboot them in times of war is crucial. How do you reboot an entire country? It’s an odd question, but in...
Futurist Keynote, Warrington: The Future of Industrial Controls Nuclear Security, Cyber Senate
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Industrial Control Systems (ICS) that enable the safe and efficient operation of our CNI assets are becoming increasingly smart and connected, making them more vulnerable to attack, and new technologies bring new challenges. Firstly, thanks to James for inviting me to be the keynote...
NIST scientists say they’ve created an “unhackable quantum machine”
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT In the future one thing is certain, there will be a plethora of new cyber threats so we need new ways to secure our systems and defend against them. New research published in the journal Nature by scientists at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in the...
DARPA drops $4m to build the world’s first unhackable ‘self-reconfiguring’ computer system
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cyber attacks are becoming the pandemic of the 21st Century, and as the number of AI fuelled cyber attacks increase matters will only get worse, but now DARPA hopes a new reconfiguring “Rubik’s Cube” computing system will stop hackers in their tracks. This week...
Self-destructing algorithms could usher in a new era of cyber security
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One time programs perform obfuscated calculations within a “true black box” that then self-destructs keeping all the details of that calculation a secret forever, it has applications for encryption and software protection. Imagine two millionaires, you and your better half, or alternatively two random...
World’s first intercontinental Quantum Internet link goes live, hosts video conference
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum communication networks are considered the platinum standard when it comes to helping create secure, unhackable networks, and now the first one is here and researchers used it to conduct the world’s first quantum internet video conference. I have a saying – the future...
Skynet booted as Pentagon straps “Mayhem” autonomous AI into critical systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It is inevitable that the AI will play an increasingly important, automatic and autonomous, role in defending a country’s critical infrastructure and systems and this is the Pentagon’s first step, but as some will say, “First step to what…!?” After seeing the raw power,...
World first as Chinese scientists communicate without sending any data, revolution in computing beckons
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to communicate without sending any data, and without using any particles as intermediaries, sounds impossible but scientists have just demonstrated it working and it could change everything about technology and communications as we know it. Firstly I’m going to get this one...
World’s best AI robo-hacker takes on Botnets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Human security experts are having trouble keeping up patching the security exploits in their company’s IoT connected products, now they’re turning to artificial intelligence to do it for them. Last summer the Pentagon, in conjunction with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),...
DARPA’s hack proof code protects military systems from hackers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cyber attacks are on the rise but there’s one code no hackers have been able to crack. An autonomous helicopter gunship is flying over a military base in Arizona. Suddenly, officers on the ground lose radio contact and learn that hackers have taken control of its on-board...
US Government drafts plans to confuse cyber-criminals
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Hackers, even AI ones, can’t break into your systems if they’re confused… or so goes the theory. Intelligence work is often as much about gathering information as it is about disseminating misinformation. To that end, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the branch...
Researchers secure the Internet of Everything with Dark Web tech
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The TOR network protects the anonymity of users in the Dark Web, now researchers think it’s the perfect tool to secure the Internet of Things. The privacy software Tor has helped everything from drug dealing marketplaces to whistleblowing websites evade surveillance on the Darknet, the shadowy under...
DARPA teams go head to head to find the worlds best robo-hacker
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Humans can no longer keep up with the tusnami of cyber threats but the robo-hackers can. Could you invent an autonomous hacking system that could find and fix vulnerabilities in computer systems before criminals could exploit them, and without any human being involved? ...
