CyberSecurity Updates

In conjunction with the 2023 Confidential Computing Summit last week, VMware announced a partnership with tech giants to accelerate the development of confidential computing applications. Confidential computing relies on a trusted execution environment that ensures the integrity and confidentiality of applications and data, even in the cloud and on third-party infrastructure. With the emergence of multi-cloud deployments and machine learning, confidential computing is expected to help protect intellectual property and sensitive data, but its adoption…

The latest variant of the crypto wars is happening now, with the UK and EU governments attempting to force backdoors into end-to-end encryption (E2EE). The war is law enforcement and government desire to prevent criminals ‘going dark’ through E2EE. The battlefield for liberal democracies is the EU (the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation) and the UK (the Online Safety Bill – OSB). The collateral damage could be every law abiding citizen – and the audience is…

An Army combat veteran with extensive cybersecurity and counterterrorism experience is taking over as one of the nation’s top election security officials, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency announced Friday. In the position, Cait Conley will coordinate with federal, state and local officials responsible for ensuring elections are secure ahead of the 2024 presidential election. CISA Director Jen Easterly said Conley’s national security experience made her “ideally suited to help those state…

SecurityWeek is publishing a weekly cybersecurity roundup that provides a concise compilation of noteworthy stories that might have slipped under the radar. We provide a valuable summary of stories that may not warrant an entire article, but are nonetheless important for a comprehensive understanding of the cybersecurity landscape. Each week, we will curate and present a collection of noteworthy developments, ranging from the latest vulnerability discoveries and emerging attack techniques to significant policy changes and…

More than 200,000 WordPress websites are exposed to ongoing attacks targeting a critical vulnerability in the Ultimate Member plugin. Designed to make it easy for users to register and log in on sites, the plugin allows site owners to add user profiles, define roles, create custom form fields and member directories, and more. Tracked as CVE-2023-3460 (CVSS score of 9.8), the recently identified security defect in Ultimate Member allows attackers to add a new user…