Category Archives: Encryption

Daniel Smith-Tone – An Asymptotically Optimal Structure Attack on the ABC Multivariate Encryption – Video

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Daniel Smith-Tone - An Asymptotically Optimal Structure Attack on the ABC Multivariate Encryption
Daniel Smith-Tone of the University of Louisville and the National Institute of Standards and Technology presented a talk titled: An Asymptotically Optimal S...

By: Institute for Quantum Computing

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Daniel Smith-Tone - An Asymptotically Optimal Structure Attack on the ABC Multivariate Encryption - Video

Why the FBI Hates Apple’s New Default Encryption (On Assignment 10.24.14) – Video

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Why the FBI Hates Apple #39;s New Default Encryption (On Assignment 10.24.14)
VOA #39;s Doug Bernard sits down with On Assignment #39;s Imran Siddiqui to talk about Apple #39;s new operating system for iPhones and iPads and why it has law enforcement officials concerned. Originall...

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Why the FBI Hates Apple's New Default Encryption (On Assignment 10.24.14) - Video

Once the FBI has a backdoor into your smartphone, everyone does

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Once the FBI has a backdoor into your smartphone, everyone does Share This Home News Newswire Once the FBI has a backdoor into your smartphone, everyone does FBI director James Comey believes tech companies should be forced to insert back doors to bypass encryption on smartphones. But experts say once that happen,s security is moot and anyone can breach your privacy.

FBI director James Comey said this week thattech companies should not be allowed to put cryptographic locks on mobile devices so they can't be accessed by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Comey, speaking at the Brookings Institute yesterday, criticized reactions by Apple and Google in the post-Edward Snowden era to offer encryption on iPhone and Android smartphones.

Comey said locking the government out of mobile devices with encryption will endanger criminal investigations and national security because bad guys will be able to operate in a "black hole."

He also suggested the Obama administration may seek regulations to force tech companies to offer a backdoor for the government to unlock data stored on the smartphones. "Perhaps it's time to suggest that the post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far in one direction -- in a direction of fear and mistrust," Comey said. "Are we so mistrustful of government -- and of law enforcement -- that we are willing to let bad guys walk away?"

The problem with giving the government a backdoor into smartphones and other electronics is that it also opens them up to the bad guys, according to experts.

"Backdoors are nice, but they're exploitable. If we were to allow the FBI to have a backdoor, it would only be matter of time that someone who was not sanctioned by government would find their way into that door," said Jon Tanguy, senior technical marketing engineer from Micron, a maker of solid-state drives (SSDs).

Tanguy pointed out that not only are hackers smart and able to find backdoors, but any employee of a tech company who'd been involved in encryption deployment would be able to share that information.

Micron has standardized around self-encrypting drives (SEDs) for laptops and desktops for the past three years. The company is preparing to release SEDs for data centers, and it has refused to put in backdoors because doing so would essentially disable the government-grade AES 256-bit encryption on the drives.

Micron is not alone. Several solid-state drive (SSD) makers, including Intel, Samsung and Seagate, have chosen the Trusted Computing Groups Opal 2.0 AES 256-bit encryption specification to lock down products. The spec allows users to lock away data so securely that even a supercomputer would need years, if not decades, to crack the passcode.

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Once the FBI has a backdoor into your smartphone, everyone does

Encryption: What Advisors Need to Know

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Encrypt sensitive information, planners are routinely warned by security experts. Many states even require it. But theres also confusion out there among advisors about the nuts and bolts of encryption.

Planners would love to get specific guidance, says advisor and technology consultant Bill Winterberg, but he suspects that many are frustrated. As a result, he says, I would boldly guess that the majority of advisors are not using encryption properly.

ENCRYPTION BASICS

Encryption, which is basically taking easily readable information and making it secure by making it unreadable, is a technically complex process, involving complicated algorithms. But the everyday use of encryption online is generally pretty simple, once you understand the options.

Winterberg points out that many computers, especially Apple, come equipped with encryption systems, and theres simple off-the-shelf encryption software that should be adequate for most planners, he says. When people use passwords to log on to a computer, access files or send emails, theyre generally already using encryption, though it can be difficult to know what information is encrypted and how. One way youll know that information is being sent in an encrypted form is when you see an s added to the familiar http in a web address to read https.

LEVELS OF ENCRYPTION

There are different types and levels of encryption. Encryption can be applied to an entire hard drive, and it can also be applied to specific files, providing multiple layers of defense. If a computer is lost or stolen, those additional layers can be helpful in protecting data.

Advisors should encrypt all backup files, regardless of the form they are in, says technology and compliance consultant E.J. Yerzak, who conducts security risk assessments for advisors and broker-dealers. Email can be encrypted manually or automatically many email programs have encryption options built in, and advisors can get plug-ins, but those options have to be enabled by both parties using the program to be secure, says Yerzak.

While advisors should encrypt their email, he says, email is still a notoriously insecure means of communication. For planners concerned about protecting information, encrypted portal websites for clients are an increasingly popular choice and Yerzak and Winterberg both approve of the trend.

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