In the battle against disinformation, fact checkers are the first line of defense. Yet, a recent study reveals these individual face some serious barriers in completing their tasks. The principal problem is the procedures that govern how their job have not kept pace with the volume of information. As a result, “the rate at which...
In a recent appearance on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” Tandon Ph.D. candidate Laura Edelson named a surprising new platform for disinformation campaigns: kitten videos. Edelson, who is co-director of the Cybersecurity for Democracy initiative of NYU’s Center for Cybersecurity, was invited to the TBS show to explain how cat videos are used to lure...
Deepfakes have emerged as a serious cybersecurity threat at a time when “people are more likely to be influenced by images and less likely to critically assess them,” according to NYU Tandon’s Dr. Nasir Memon. Writing in IEEE Transmitter, the co-founder of NYU’s Center for Cybersecurity, discussed the dangers of a world where deepfakes make...
The problem is not just that misinformation exists on social media, but that it is more popular than factual content. Laura Edelson, a Ph.D. candidate at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, confirmed this problem in an appearance on the CBS program Sunday Morning. “Facebook is a user-interaction maximizing machine… that’s what Facebook is built...
A recent study by cybersecurity researchers at NYU Tandon finds that a significant amount of the code generated by Github CoPilot programming assistant is, at best, buggy, and at worst, potentially vulnerable to attack. The researchers drew their conclusion after creating 89 potential scenarios and having CoPilot output 1,692 programs. When these programs were reviewed,...
Since September 15 of 2020, the Ad Observatory has been an effective resource for journalists and academicians seeking information about the placement and targeting of ads on social media. In doing so, the project increased transparency about what messages are being used, who is funding each ad, and how much is being spent to disseminate...
Ransomware attacks are on the rise and a primary reason why is that such attacks are profitable. Therefore, to stop the crime, make sure it doesn’t pay. In a July 9 article in Yahoo Finance, NYU associate professor Justin Cappos notes that, “if no one had ever paid ransom for ransomware…then it would have faded...
Justin Cappos, an NYU associate professor of computer science and engineering, was featured in a segment of NYUs Braniacs. Cappos highlighted two of his secure projects: Uptane, which protects the computing units in car, and in-toto that secures software supply chains for companies. You can watch the brief segments here. The Cappos interview begins at...
Though the bottom line of his company may have been the motivating force behind Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony in court on May 21, his voiced concerns about the risks of allowing third-party applications on the iPhone are not unfounded. Testifying in an antitrust suit brought against Apple by game developer Epic Games, Cook described...
The critical lesson of the recent Colonial Pipeline incident is less about what was exploited and more about the lack of options operators had once the attack was known. A May 13 article on Cybersecurity Dive noted that, despite the fact that the hack did not affect the operations side, the decision to shutdown all...