Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Black Hat Day 1: Threats Big and Small

The Cipher Brief’s Luke Penn-Hall is currently attending Black Hat, a premiere information security conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Here’s his update from Day 1:

What is a USB Drop Attack?  That’s what I learned about today at a brief focused on assessing how often people actually plug strange USB drives into their computer. Just to be clear, you should never do that - but this study found that 45% of the 297 drives they left lying around a university were both plugged in and accessed by the people who found them.  Discussions raised many interesting questions – but fewer answers - about cyber-hygiene and social engineering.

Keep reading...Show less
Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Related Articles

Does the CIA Have a Trust Problem?

Does the CIA Have a Trust Problem?

In a recent opinion piece published in The Cipher Brief, former senior CIA Executive Mark Kelton suggests that the country’s leading intelligence [...] More

Expert Q&A: Putin Overplayed His Hand with Trump on Ukraine

EXPERT Q&A — President Donald Trump has offered a strong hand of support to Ukraine in recent days, pledging new weapons and threatening Russia with [...] More

Report for Thursday, July 17, 2025

9:03 America/New_York Thursday, July 17 [...] More

A Nuclear Day of the Jackal

BOOK REVIEW: The Moldavian GambitBy Brad Meslin / Manhattan Book GroupReviewed by: James LawlerThe Reviewer — James Lawler devoted more than half of [...] More

Ukraine’s Defense may Hinge on Offensive Operations

Ukraine’s Defense may Hinge on Offensive Operations

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING – Russia has been bombarding Ukrainian cities with massive aerial assaults, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged [...] More

Report for Wednesday, July 16, 2025

8:45 AM America/New_York Wednesday, July 16 [...] More

China Can Do More to Improve Relations with the U.S.

OPINION — Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, at the ASEAN Summit. Rubio described the [...] More

Report for Tuesday, July 15, 2025

8:57 AM America/New_York Tuesday, July 15 [...] More

How the Danes See NATO, Trump and Ukraine

OPINION — “The most important part right now is that Europe would be able to buy military equipment here in the U.S. so we can donate these military [...] More