Where these tools shine is literature searches. I’m increasingly of the opinion that we need to write papers for LLMs to read. It’s frustrating that many ePrint sites actually block these tools. This is the first tool that can find the “small result” you left as a footnote in Appendix B that I need.

Nominate yourself to help review papers for USENIX Security 2027! sec-rms.com/submit-appli... (or rms.swag.cispa.de/submit-appli... ). Deadline: May 28, 2026. We're looking for both senior and junior people. See Andrei Sabelfeld's LinkedIn post for more info: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

We found that Wi-Fi client isolation can often be bypassed. This allows an attacker who can connect to a network, either as a malicious insider or by connecting to a co-located open network, to attack others. NDSS'26 paper: www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/u... GitHub: github.com/vanhoefm/air...

In addition to being absolutely brilliant, amazing & charming in her own right, we all know she was raised by a single dad w/4 siblings and that he came to the US bc of persecution bc of his participation in the ‘89 Tiananmen democracy uprising, right?

this is one of the most amazing papers I have ever read eprint.iacr.org/2026/058.pdf

The NDSS Symposium 2026 program is live. With 265 accepted papers and 8 workshops, the quality of security research this year is staggering. It is a testament to the community's dedication to keeping the digital world safe. www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss2026/pro... 1/4

The US government is considering punishing American scientists who worked with Chinese researchers *years ago, retroactively*.

I've found AI tools to be quite useful too look for related work. And apparently so do others, searching Google Scholar for "utm_source=chatgpt.com" gives 13,900+ hits ;) scholar.google.com/scholar?star...

Russia is blocking mobile phones being brought back into the country from abroad for 24 hours, in an attempt to mitigate drone attacks. Seems like this can probably be bypassed using relay "worm hole" attacks, though it adds some complexity. novayagazeta.eu/articles/202...

woo! $10 MM USD in grants from ICANN... amazing. And great grantees here! "ICANN Announces First Cohort of Grant Program Recipients" www.icann.org/en/announcem...

Last chance to (self-) nominate for USENIX Security'26 Artifact Evaluation Committee! You should expect a low load of ~1 artifact for functionality/reproducibility assessments per cycle (max 3 for the whole year). Please support Open Science and fill the form by Oct 17: forms.gle/WoYRX4govNY1... 🚀

I have been learning more about PDFs than I really wanted to for maybe the absolutely most funny reason possible - letting agency forgery: mjg59.dreamwidth.org/73317.html

The West has a blindspot when it comes to alternative CPU designs.

 We’re so entrenched in the usual x86, ARM, RISC-V world, that most people have no idea what’s happening over in China.

 LoongArch is a fully independent ISA that’s sorta MIPS…sorta RISC-V…and sorta x87!

At USENIX Security? Then check out: Studying the Use of CVEs in Academia, won distinguished paper award www.usenix.org/conference/u... Discovering and Exploiting Vulnerable Tunnelling Hosts, won most innovative research Pwnie @ DEFCON www.usenix.org/conference/u... Big thanks to all co-authors!!

I'm thrilled to announce that after months of intensive work, the complete materials for my Applied Cryptography course at the American University of Beirut are now finished: both Part 1 (Provable Security) and Part 2 (Real-World Cryptography)!

Breaking: NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."

Our research on open tunneling servers got nominated for the Most Innovative Research award :) The work will be presented by Angelos Beitis at Black Hat and also at USENIX Security Brief summary and code: github.com/vanhoefm/tun... Paper: papers.mathyvanhoef.com/usenix2025-t...

Also in Poland. It was used by Russia in 2023 to stop about 20 trains.

Yikes. Turns out you can send a plaintext radio signal to cause any train in the USA to do an emergency break. The original 'security' was just a checksum, no encryption or authentication. Reporting this took them 12 years (!) because the vendor dismissed it initially www.cisa.gov/news-events/...

Reminder that the MSCA postdoctoral program exists. If you have a PhD and want to work in a European lab, you have until September to apply. Just contact them now. ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi arstechnica.com/tech-policy/... ==> Possibly no 6GHz for Wi-Fi 7

Reminder to apply to be part of the artifact evaluation committee of NDSS'26! And share with your colleagues :) We'll likely close this form around the end of next week.

All papers should publish their code. Help realize this by becoming an artifact reviewer at NDSS'26, apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... You'll review artifacts of accepted papers. We especially encourage junior/senior PhD students & PostDocs to help. Distinguished reviews will get awards!

Lee Jae-myung, the South Korean politician who climbed the fence of the parliament to get inside and vote against martial law, has been elected president. Pretty cooool

All papers should publish their code. Help realize this by becoming an artifact reviewer at NDSS'26, apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... You'll review artifacts of accepted papers. We especially encourage junior/senior PhD students & PostDocs to help. Distinguished reviews will get awards!

Calling researchers: EU #grantconsultancy 🚨 Have you worked with private grant consultants for EU research funding (Horizon, EIC, etc.)—Have you had positive or negative experiences? 📩 Share your story: [email protected] / [email protected] (@thordeyaert.bsky.social) 🔁 RT appreciated!

Haven't seen this on Bluesky yet: S&P 2027 will take place in Montreal, Canada!

New version of the IEEE 802.11 standard that underpins Wi-Fi was has been released. A total of 5969 pages! The number of pages clearly keeps increasing. That includes more features to defend networks, but also more features to potentially abuse 👀

In two weeks, @vanhoefm.bsky.social , professor at DistriNet at KU Leuven, takes the stage for our next #DistinguishedLecture. He will present current strategies to strengthen Wi-Fi #security based on recent attacks on networks and previously detected design flaws. All information: buff.ly/gslCMCB

February 2025 Android Security Bulletin includes a heap buffer overflow in a Linux kernel USB peripheral driver (CVE-2024-53104) marked exploited in the wild. It's likely one of the USB bugs exploited by forensic data extraction tools. We block them using these. source.android.com/docs/securit...

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

The PC is Dead: It’s Time to Make Computing Personal Again

After an embargo of 8 months, we are glad to finally share our USENIX Security '25 paper! We found more than 4 MILLION vulnerable tunneling servers by scanning the Internet. These vulnerable servers can be abused as proxies to launch DDoS attacks and possibly to access internal networks.

mitmproxy 11.1 is out! 🥳 We now support *Local Capture Mode* on Windows, macOS, and - new - Linux! This allows users to intercept local applications even if they don't have proxy settings. More details are at mitmproxy.org/posts/local-.... Super proud of this team effort. 😃

Using Play Integrity API is an incredibly anti-privacy and anti-security practice despite being wrongly portrayed as a security feature. The notification will include a link for leaving a rating and review for the app via sandboxed Play Store to make it very convenient for people to send complaints.

We updated our CFP for Phrack 72! The deadline is now April 1st 2025. Check the site for specifics on how to contribute, as well as some inspiration! We also posted a link to purchase physical copies of Phrack 71, and a donation link too. Enjoy! phrack.org

I don’t normally get worked up about the naming threat actors thing. But the Volt & Salt Typhoon is a disaster as it’s so hard for non-specialists to tell them apart: - Salt is Snowden style espionage by China against US - Volt is a direct 🇨🇳 military threat to degrade western infrastructure 1/2

Researchers unveiled an attack that completely undermines security assurances AMD makes to customers using one of its most expensive microprocessor product lines in the cloud. BadRAM takes minutes to bypass SEV-SNP protections that warn when the VM is compromised arstechnica.com/information-...

Yes WPA2 loops through all passwords until the MIC of Msg2 is valid. With WPA3 this is not possible and you either need to have unique passwords tied to MAC addresses (annoying due to MAC randomization) or use password identifiers (requires extra user input).

Wow, an adversary first compromised a neighbor of the target, and then attacked the target over Wi-Fi (with stolen password). This is the first observed case of the #AntennaForHire attack that AirEye hypothesized. Any Wi-Fi attack is now a remote attack! www.volexity.com/blog/2024/11...

Just a reminder that the CFP closes in a few days. If you've got something to submit... www.shmoocon.org/call-for-pap...

A different way to look at offense and defense with @hacks4pancakes.com at RSA. 🦄🥞 youtu.be/WKF2nnKo4yQ?...

Our thread at bsky.app/profile/grap... was posted to spread awareness about the auto-reboot feature we've been advocating for inclusion across platforms now that iOS 18.1 shipped it at the end of October. We also wanted to address confusion based on weird police theories about it.

Unath RCE in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (XEN) labs.watchtowr.com/visionaries-...

The US higher education system has been a massive source of soft power for the United States. If we have the best and brightest from around the world come here to study, one of two things happen. 1) They stay, and we win the brain drain. 2) They go home, and bring democratic values with them.

folder gotchas (in the terminal) wizardzines.com/comics/folde...