Human Side-Channels: Cyberweapons and Cyber Defenses w/ Matt Wixey | CSI Talks #4

This focus topic was presented by Matt Wixey during the CSI meeting held on the 01/04/2023. The CSI meetings are digital monthly meetings arranged by the Cognitive Security Institute. Matt Wixey is a senior threat researcher studying the physical and psychological effect of cyberweapons. He has over a decade of experience working in information security as a penetration tester, threat intelligence analyst and as a lead in R&D. His recent research focuses on human side-channels and whether or not computers contain an inherent capacity to cause harm. OUTLINE: 00:21 - Introduction 01:10 - Human-side channels: cyberweapons and cyber defences 01:16 - Who am i? 01:41 - Is a cyberweapon a weapon? 03:06 - What about Stuxnet? 03:55 - Lethal attacks through the IoT and embedded devices 04:34 - Physical harm as an indirect consequence of hacking devices 05:31 - Do computers contain an inherent capacity to cause harm? 06:08 - Exaggerated headlines 06:13 - Hackers try to cause epileptic seizures 06:54 - Dangerous decibels 08:21 - Ultrasound and infrasound 09:26 - The problem with imperceptibility 10:23 - Adverse physiological and psychological effects of HFN and LFN 11:50 - Caveats to acoustic weapons reserach 12:18 - Can attackers hack consumer equipment to cause harm? 12:52 - Misconceptions around acoustic weapons 14:34 - Acoustic weapons 15:48 - Experiment: turning speakers into weapons! 17:55 - Anechoic chamber: an infinite acoustic space 18:58 - Malware and attacks on speaker devices 19:24 - Results of HFN experiment 21:07 - Results of LFN experiment 21:34 - Destroying a perfectly good speaker... 23:26 - More caveats to acoustic cyberweapons 26:13 - Defences 27:07 - Attribution: it's hard! 28:30 - Side-channels 28:48 - Forensic linguistics 32:05 - Case linkage analysis: linking behaviors to common offender 34:08 - Results from case linkage analysis 35:20 - Caveats: offenders develop and evolve 36:07 - Detecting deception 37:36 - Caveats: no Pinocchio's nose 37:50 - Lying is a cognitively stressful activity CSI LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitivesecurity.institute/ LinkedIn:   / 9247485   MATT WIXEY LINKS: Sophos: https://news.sophos.com/en-us/author/... ArXiv paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.07157