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Cryptovirology
Cryptovirology refers to the use of cryptography to devise particularly powerful malware, such as ransomware and asymmetric backdoors. Traditionally, cryptography and its applications are defensive in nature, and provide privacy, authentication, and security to users. Cryptovirology employs a twist on cryptography, showing that it can also be used offensively. It can be used to mount extortion based attacks that cause loss of access to information, loss of confidentiality, and information leakage, tasks which cryptography typically prevents. The field was born with the observation that public-key cryptography can be used to break the symmetry between what an antivirus analyst sees regarding malware and what the attacker sees. The antivirus analyst sees a public key contained in the malware, whereas the attacker sees the public key contained in the malware as well as the corresponding private key (outside the malware) since the attacker created the key pair for the attack. The pub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid off. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion. It encrypts the victim's files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them. In a properly implemented cryptoviral extortion attack, recovering the files without the decryption Key (cryptography), key is an Computational complexity theory#Intractability, intractable problem – and difficult to trace Digital currency, digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies are used for the ransoms, making tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators difficult. Ransomware attacks are typically carried out using a Trojan horse (computing), Trojan disguised as a legitimate file that the user is tricked into downloadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moti Yung
Mordechai M. "Moti" Yung is a cryptographer and computer scientist known for his work on cryptovirology and kleptography. Career Yung earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1988 under the supervision of Zvi Galil. In the past, he worked at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, CertCo, RSA Laboratories, and Google. In 2016, Yung moved from Google to Snap Inc. Yung is currently a research scientist at Google. Yung is an adjunct senior research faculty member at Columbia University, and has co-advised PhD students including Gödel Prize winner Matthew K. Franklin, Jonathan Katz, and Aggelos Kiayias. Research Yung research covers primarily the area of cryptography and its applications to information security and data privacy. He has worked on defining and implementing malicious (offensive) cryptography: cryptovirology and kleptography, and on various other foundational and applied fields of cryptographic research, including: user and entity electronic authentication ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backdoor (computing)
A backdoor is a typically covert method of bypassing normal authentication or encryption in a computer, product, embedded device (e.g. a home router), or its embodiment (e.g. part of a cryptosystem, algorithm, chipset, or even a "homunculus computer" —a tiny computer-within-a-computer such as that found in Intel's AMT technology). Backdoors are most often used for securing remote access to a computer, or obtaining access to plaintext in cryptographic systems. From there it may be used to gain access to privileged information like passwords, corrupt or delete data on hard drives, or transfer information within autoschediastic networks. A backdoor may take the form of a hidden part of a program, a separate program (e.g. Back Orifice may subvert the system through a rootkit), code in the firmware of the hardware, or parts of an operating system such as Windows. Trojan horses can be used to create vulnerabilities in a device. A Trojan horse may appear to be an entirely leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kleptography
Kleptography is the study of stealing information securely and subliminally. The term was introduced by Adam Young and Moti Yung in the Proceedings of Advances in Cryptology—Crypto '96.A. Young, M. Yung, "The Dark Side of Black-Box Cryptography, or: Should we trust Capstone?" In Proceedings of Crypto '96, Neal Koblitz (Ed.), Springer-Verlag, pages 89–103, 1996. Kleptography is a subfield of cryptovirology and is a natural extension of the theory of subliminal channels that was pioneered by Gus Simmons while at Sandia National Laboratory. G. J. Simmons, "The Prisoners' Problem and the Subliminal Channel," In Proceedings of Crypto '83, D. Chaum (Ed.), pages 51–67, Plenum Press, 1984.G. J. Simmons, "The Subliminal Channel and Digital Signatures," In Proceedings of Eurocrypt '84, T. Beth, N. Cot, I. Ingemarsson (Eds.), pages 364-378, Springer-Verlag, 1985.G. J. Simmons, "Subliminal Communication is Easy Using the DSA," In proceedings of Eurocrypt '93, T. Helleseth (Ed.), pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dual EC DRBG
Dual_EC_DRBG (Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator) is an algorithm that was presented as a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG) using methods in elliptic curve cryptography. Despite wide public criticism, including the public identification of a backdoor, it was for seven years one of four CSPRNGs standardized in NIST SP 800-90A as originally published circa June 2006, until it was withdrawn in 2014. Weakness: a potential backdoor Weaknesses in the cryptographic security of the algorithm were known and publicly criticised well before the algorithm became part of a formal standard endorsed by the ANSI, ISO, and formerly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). One of the weaknesses publicly identified was the potential of the algorithm to harbour a kleptographic backdoor advantageous to those who know about it—the United States government's National Security Agency (NSA)—and no one else. In 2013, ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gpcode
PGPCoder or GPCode is a trojan that encrypts files on the infected computer and then asks for a ransom in order to release these files, a type of behavior dubbed ransomware or cryptovirology. Trojan Once installed on a computer, the trojan creates two registry keys: one to ensure it is run on every system startup, and the second to monitor the progress of the trojan in the infected computer, counting the number of files that have been analyzed by the malicious code. Once it has been run, the trojan embarks on its mission, which is to encrypt, using a digital encryption key, all the files it finds on computer drives with extensions corresponding to those listed in its code. These extensions include .doc, .html, .jpg, .xls, .zip, and .rar. The blackmail is completed with the trojan dropping a text file in each directory, with instructions to the victim of what to do. An email address is supplied through which users are supposed to request for their files to be released after pay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malware
Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy. By contrast, software that causes harm due to some deficiency is typically described as a software bug. Malware poses serious problems to individuals and businesses on the Internet. According to Symantec's 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), malware variants number has increased to 669,947,865 in 2017, which is twice as many malware variants as in 2016. Cybercrime, which includes malware attacks as well as other crimes committed by computer, was predicted to cost the world economy $6 trillion USD in 2021, and is increasing at a rate of 15% per year. Many types of malware exist, including computer viruses, worms, Trojan ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Health And Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government created to protect the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America". Before the separate federal Department of Education was created in 1979, it was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). HHS is administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. The position is currently held by Xavier Becerra. The United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the uniformed service of the PHS, is led by the Surgeon General who is responsible for addressing matters concerning public health as authorized by the secretary or by the assistant secretary for Health in addition to his or her primary mission of administering the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptographic API
The Microsoft Windows platform specific Cryptographic Application Programming Interface (also known variously as CryptoAPI, Microsoft Cryptography API, MS-CAPI or simply CAPI) is an application programming interface included with Microsoft Windows operating systems that provides services to enable developers to secure Windows-based applications using cryptography. It is a set of dynamically linked libraries that provides an abstraction layer which isolates programmers from the code used to encrypt the data. The Crypto API was first introduced in Windows NT 4.0 and enhanced in subsequent versions. CryptoAPI supports both public-key and symmetric key cryptography, though persistent symmetric keys are not supported. It includes functionality for encrypting and decrypting data and for authentication using digital certificates. It also includes a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator function CryptGenRandom. CryptoAPI works with a number of CSPs (Cryptographi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Microsoft Windows, Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office Productivity software#Office suite, suite, and the Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's List of the largest software companies, largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Tech, Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSA (algorithm)
RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is a public-key cryptosystem that is widely used for secure data transmission. It is also one of the oldest. The acronym "RSA" comes from the surnames of Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, who publicly described the algorithm in 1977. An equivalent system was developed secretly in 1973 at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (the British signals intelligence agency) by the English mathematician Clifford Cocks. That system was declassified in 1997. In a public-key cryptosystem, the encryption key is public and distinct from the decryption key, which is kept secret (private). An RSA user creates and publishes a public key based on two large prime numbers, along with an auxiliary value. The prime numbers are kept secret. Messages can be encrypted by anyone, via the public key, but can only be decoded by someone who knows the prime numbers. The security of RSA relies on the practical difficulty of factoring the produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Union
The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company changed its name to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 after merging with several other telegraph companies. The company dominated the American telegraphy industry from the 1860s to the 1980s, pioneering technology such as telex and developing a range of telegraph-related services (including wire money transfer) in addition to its core business of transmitting and delivering telegram messages. After experiencing financial difficulties, Western Union began to move its business away from communications in the 1980s and increasingly focused on its money transfer services. The company ceased its communications operations completely in 2006, at which time The New York Times described it as "the world's largest money-transfer business" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
