For the first time ever a team of Dutch hacking experts, led by cyber security professor Herbert Bos at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, managed to alter the memory of virtual machines in the cloud without a software bug, using a new attack technique. With this technique an attacker can crack the keys of secured virtual machines or install malware without it being noticed. It's a new deduplication-based attack in which data can not only be viewed and leaked, but also modified using a hardware glitc…

Researchers at the University of Oxford have achieved a quantum logic gate with record-breaking 99.9% precision, reaching the benchmark required theoretically to build a quantum computer. Quantum computers, which function according to the laws of quantum physics, have the potential to dwarf the processing power of today's computers, able to process huge amounts of information all at once. The team achieved the logic gate, which places two atoms in a state of quantum entanglement and is the funda…

A scheme to write data into next generation memory chips has been developed by Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Data Storage Institute researchers. The proposal by Jun Yang and colleagues requires considerably fewer resources to write data safely into memory -- even during a system failure. Non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies are the likely successor to current computer memory devices. A key advantage is their ability to keep data in the memory even when the co…

Imagine that every time a person goes out in public, they leave behind a track for all to see, so that their behavior can be easily analyzed, revealing their identity. This is the case with people's online browser "fingerprints," which are left behind at each location they visit on their internet browser. Almost like a regular fingerprint, a person's browser fingerprint -- or "browserprint" -- is often unique to the individual. Such a fingerprint can be monitored, tracked and identified by compa…

With over two-thirds of U.S. adults owning a smartphone, and the rise in miniaturized sensors and low-power body area networks that are used for remote health monitoring, mobile health (mHealth) is beginning to experience a boom. While the technology has the potential to increase healthcare quality, expand access to services, reduce costs, and improve personal wellness and public health, such benefits may not be fully realized unless greater privacy and security measures are implemented, accordi…

Experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the "cloud." George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Readable DNA …

Anonymity networks protect people living under repressive regimes from surveillance of their Internet use. But the recent discovery of vulnerabilities in the most popular of these networks -- Tor -- has prompted computer scientists to try to come up with more secure anonymity schemes. At the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne will present a new anonymity sc…

Wearable devices -- Fitbits, Jawbones, Nike+, Apple Watches and the like -- are white-hot. The tech segment is already producing an estimated $14 billion in sales worldwide, and expected to more than double within four years, climbing to north of $30 billion. But a new Stevens Institute of Technology research report reveals those cool wearables just may leak information as you use them. Stevens researchers discovered that the motions of your hands as you use PIN pads, which is continually and au…

Quantum mechanics is not only of high interest in fundamental research. The current progress in quantum technologies promises numerous innovations of industrial relevance, which will be transferred into the economy within the next five to ten years. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF, the University of Stuttgart, and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research are developing highly sensitive diamond probes as a basis for novel quantum sensors. The…

Camera-equipped smartphones, laptops and other devices make it possible to share ideas and images with anyone, anywhere, often in real-time. But in our cameras-everywhere culture, the risk of accidentally leaking sensitive information is growing. Computer scientists at Duke University have developed software that helps prevent inadvertent disclosure of trade secrets and other restricted information within a camera's field of view by letting users specify what others can see. A video chat with co…