Tag Archive for: WPXI

New TSA security tech raises concern about the potential of misidentifying minority travelers – WPXI

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The future of airport security is getting more high-tech as the TSA continues testing a system that scans your face during the screening process.

The pilot program with facial recognition technology is running at several airports nationwide.

An agency official said the technology is only used at podiums manned by a TSA worker to match a passengers’ identification information “with a photo of their physical presence at that station.” The agency believes this will enhance security and cut wait times.

If the technology thinks you’re someone else, a TSA official said a security worker would manually check your ID.

“To me just invites, further law enforcement scrutiny invites further contact with authorities in ways that are not going to be helpful,” said Vincent Southerland, NYU Assistant Professor of Clinical Law.

Southerland helps run the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU. He believes an incorrect match could be problematic for minority travelers.

“Force the person to kind of have to prove or demonstrate their identity in weird ways that they otherwise would not have and that is going to course lead to conflict,” said Southerland. “And conflict often does not end very well for folks who have been traditionally marginalized, oppressed and targeted by law enforcement.”

It’s also happened before with facial recognition technology.

Take the case of Robert Williams – he’s a black man who the ACLU says was wrongfully arrested by Detroit Police in 2020. The organization said facial recognition software incorrectly identified him as a shoplifting suspect. The ACLU says the charges were eventually dropped.

In some cases, this software compares your image to another one or an entire database of photos.

So what happens when travelers don’t look exactly like their ID?

A 2019 federal government study by The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) echoes some of those concerns. It found that Asian and African Americans were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than White people, depending on the algorithm and the search.

“The bigger finding from the 2019 study was that the false positive rates where somebody else could use your passport or…

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Former Amazon employee convicted of stealing data from more than 100M people – WPXI

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Former Amazon employee convicted of stealing data from more than 100M people (NCD)

SEATTLE — A former Amazon Web Services engineer was found guilty Friday of stealing data from more than 100 million people when she hacked Capital One three years ago.

Paige Thompson, who worked for the software giant until 2016, was convicted Friday of seven federal crimes, including wire fraud, illegally accessing a protected computer and damaging a protected computer, CNBC reported.

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While the wire fraud conviction carries up to 20 years in prison, the two lessor charges are each punishable by as many as five years in prison.

According to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s western district of Washington, the jury found Thompson not guilty of aggravated identity theft and access device fraud. The panel deliberated for 10 hours.

Prosecutors argued at trial that Thompson created a tool to search for misconfigured AWS accounts, allowing her to hack into accounts from more than 30 Amazon clients, including Capital One. In addition to mining the data she found in the compromised accounts, Thompson was also accused of using her access to some of the retail behemoth’s servers to mine cryptocurrency for her personal benefit, CNBC reported.

“She wanted data, she wanted money, and she wanted to brag,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Friedman said of Thompson during his closing arguments, the network reported.

According to The Verge, Thompson’s breach, one of the largest on record, exposed the names, birth dates, social security numbers, email addresses and phone numbers of more than 100 million U.S. and Canadian residents.

Capital One has since been fined $80 million in regulatory fines for allegedly failing to secure users’ data and settled with affected customers for $190 million, the technology news outlet reported.

“Far from being an ethical hacker trying to help companies with their computer security, (Thompson) exploited mistakes to steal valuable data and sought to enrich herself,” U.S. Attorney Nick Brown stated in the news release confirming her conviction.

Thompson is slated to be sentenced Sept. 15.

©2022 Cox Media Group

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Tackling next generation cyber hacking the focus of new training lab – WPXI

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — New cyber hacks are emerging every day and the targets aren’t just businesses, governments and universities.

The next generation of hacks can even affect systems we rely on every day to get to work, or get household products delivered to our door.

“There are nation states, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea…that are coming after us in the cyber domain,” said Jamil N. Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute.

These evolving cyber hacks are even discussed at the highest levels of government.

“We need to be able to both defend ourselves, but also take the fight to our adversaries and deter them from engaging in behavior that might affect our nation,” said Jaffer.

Inside a pilot lab located on George Mason University’s Arlington, Virginia campus, there’s testing ground for these new cyber security threats. Jaffer said this Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Living Innovation Lab is critical for training the next generation to defend against new hacks.

“Students have the ability to see how the systems work, how the hackers might come in, how they might get in how they might establish persistence, and then how they might take action on those targets, to make them do things you don’t expect,” said Jaffer.

In the lab, students are learning about security for self-driving cars and researching how to streamline self-driving car signals and keep them secure.

“We’re able to work on commercial grade equipment so the same kinds of equipment that you see out in the real world, not just, you know, theoretical ideas on simulated on a computer,” said Liza Wilson Durant, Associate provost for strategic initiatives and community engagement at George Mason University

Liza Wilson Durant runs the lab on campus and she showed us some of the equipment they work with.

“Each one of these steps could be hacked by an outsider whether they’re trying to disrupt the robots or the machine itself,” she said.

As supply chain issues and higher prices hit the country, Durant said a mini factory helps research potential cyber threats in those systems.

“We feel that, you know, if we can understand how to limit some of the ramifications of…

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Android security flaw leaves Gmail vulnerable to hackers – WPXI Pittsburgh

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CIO Today

Android security flaw leaves Gmail vulnerable to hackers
WPXI Pittsburgh
Security researchers have uncovered a major flaw in mobile operating systems which could give hackers easy access to personal information. Here's the scary bit: The exploit can hack into your Gmail account with a 92 percent success rate. Researchers …
Researchers find way to hack Gmail with 92 percent success rateCNET
Hacking Gmail with 92 percent successPhys.Org

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