News
AirGuard declares war on stalkers
AirTags are small Bluetooth transmitters from Apple that people can use to quickly and easily find lost items, misplaced keys and bags. But what is intended as a help can also be used to track people unnoticed. Apple itself warns against AirTag stalking. A research-team at the Secure Mobile Networking Lab at TU Darmstadt is conducting research on this topic in ATHENE. Last year, the team published AirGuard, an app that also warns users of Android devices about unwanted AirTag tracking. Now, in a new paper, the researchers use user reports and data donations from 38,000 users to show that the app works well - and even warns faster than the Apple protection mechanism.
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Post by ATHENE researcher on APNIC Blog: Resurrection of injection attacks
In his blog post ATHENE researcher Philipp Jeitner, scientist at Fraunhofer SIT and TU Darmstadt, describes how the Domain Name System (DNS) can be exploited for injection attacks against a variety of different applications. He also shows why countermeasures aren't as easy as to apply patches to vulnerable implementations. A tool to test DNS resolver for vulnerabilities is also linked in the post.
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Optimizing cybersecurity through visual analytics
Six hours without Facebook, Instagram and Co.: For the US-based Meta Inc. this meant losses in the billions. But how do such problems occur and how can they be identified as quickly as possible? ATHENE researchers at Fraunofer IGD have been working on this complex of issues for several years with the goal of making network data more understandable. This will enable more people to assess what is happening in their own network. Current and future possibilities for visual analysis should simplify the work of security experts.
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Post by ATHENE researchers on the APNIC blog: DNS-over-TCP is considered vulnerable
In their latest post on the APNIC blog, ATHENE-researchers discuss recent recommendations to use TCP instead of UDP for sending DNS packets. In order to be able to traverse a network more easily, large packets are often divided into smaller packets by means of so-called IP fragmentation. TCP with Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) was recently proposed as an alternative to this IP fragmentation. In this context, the recommendation was made to use TCP instead of UDP for sending DNS packets. This is based on the assumption that TCP is resistant to IP fragmentation attacks.
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KIKu project launched - ATHENE researchers develop app to support cultural and investigative authorities
A central challenge in combating the illegal trade in stolen cultural property is that illegally traded objects are difficult to identify. The KIKu project - AI for the Protection of Cultural Property - funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, aims to facilitate the work of the responsible actors, especially customs and police: To this end, researchers at Fraunhofer SIT are working with cosee GmbH to develop an app that uses artificial intelligence to provide automated information on whether, for example, an antique vase or statue could come from a looted dig or was illegally acquired in some other way.
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