Bruce Schneier

This is news : A malicious supply chain compromise has been identified in the Python Package Index package litellm version 1.82.8. The published wheel contains a malicious .pth file (litellm_init.pth, 34,628 bytes) which is automatically executed by the Python interpreter on every startup, without requiring any explicit import of the litellm module. There are a lot of really boring things we need to do to help secure all of these critical libraries: SBOMs, SLSA, SigStore. But we have to do them.

AI is rapidly changing how software is written, deployed, and used. Trends point to a future where AIs can write custom software quickly and easily: “instant software.” Taken to an extreme, it might become easier for a user to have an AI write an application on demand—a spreadsheet, for example—and delete it when you’re done using it than to buy one commercially. Future systems could include a mix: both traditional long-term software and ephemeral instant software that is constantly being writt…

According to a new law, the Hong Kong police can demand that you reveal the encryption keys protecting your computer, phone, hard drives, etc.—even if you are just transiting the airport. In a security alert dated March 26, the U.S. Consulate General said that, on March 23, 2026, Hong Kong authorities changed the rules governing enforcement of the National Security Law. Under the revised framework, police can require individuals to provide passwords or other assistance to access personal electr…

Mike Masnick points out that the recent New Mexico court ruling against Meta has some bad implications for end-to-end encryption, and security in general: If the “design choices create liability” framework seems worrying in the abstract, the New Mexico case provides a concrete example of where it leads in practice. One of the key pieces of evidence the New Mexico attorney general used against Meta was the company’s 2023 decision to add end-to-end encryption to Facebook Messenger. The argument w…

Google says that it will fully transition to post-quantum cryptography by 2029. I think this is a good move, not because I think we will have a useful quantum computer anywhere near that year, but because crypto-agility is always a good thing. Slashdot thread .

Here’s a fossil of a 150-million year old fish that choked to death on a belemnite rostrum : the hard, internal shell of an extinct, squid-like animal. Original paper . As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Blog moderation policy.

WebinarTV searches the internet for public Zoom invites, joins the meetings, secretly records them, and publishes (alternate link ) the recordings. It doesn’t use the Zoom record feature, so Zoom can’t do anything about it.

This is for new routers ; you don’t have to throw away your existing ones: The Executive Branch determination noted that foreign-produced routers (1) introduce “a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense” and (2) pose “a severe cybersecurity risk that could be leveraged to immediately and severely disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure and directly harm U.S. persons.” More information : Any new router made outside the US will no…

Wired writes (alternate source ): Security researchers at Google on Tuesday released a report describing what they’re calling “Coruna,” a highly sophisticated iPhone hacking toolkit that includes five complete hacking techniques capable of bypassing all the defenses of an iPhone to silently install malware on a device when it visits a website containing the exploitation code. In total, Coruna takes advantage of 23 distinct vulnerabilities in iOS, a rare collection of hacking components that sug…

The 2026 US “ Cyber Strategy for America ” document is mostly the same thing we’ve seen out of the White House for over a decade, but with a more aggressive tone. But one sentence stood out: “We will unleash the private sector by creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and scale our national capabilities.” This sounds like a call for hackback: giving private companies permission to conduct offensive cyber operations. The Economist noticed (alternate link ) this, too. I th…