Root Causes: A PKI and Security Podcast
Episodes
Root Causes 41: What Is Blockchain's Killer App?
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our hosts frequently run into the assumption that blockchain and PKI are extremely similar technologies and are possibly even competitive to each othe...
Root Causes 40: The Reports of RSA's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recently at Black Hat and on public YouTube videos security newcomer Crown Sterling has claimed to factor the RSA algorithm. It turns out the breathle...
Root Causes 39: New University Research on Phishing and Certificates
26 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The majority of all phishing sites now use SSL certificates to more closely imitate the behavior of legitimate sites. New research from RWTH Aachen, a...
Root Causes 38: Interesting Breaches in August
24 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The month of August saw some unusual criminal activity when it comes to PKI and malware. Our hosts explain four August news stories including a SHA-1 ...
Root Causes 37: Quantum Apocalypse - Will Quantum Annealing Break Cryptography?
10 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Quantum annealing is a special case of quantum computing for which the engineering challenges are lessened - and therefore we expect computers of this...
Root Causes 36: Quantum Apocalypse - The Search for Quantum Resistant Crypto
03 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Finding the new quantum-resistant cryptography we will need to replace RSA and ECC is a difficult task requiring the coordinated effort of academics, ...
Root Causes 35: Quantum Apocalypse - Mosca's Inequality, Mad Max, and Mohawks
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Quantum computers have the potential to defeat the RSA and ECC encryption underlying our digital world. We must swap out these algorithms before quant...
Root Causes 34: Shadow IT and PKI
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Shadow IT has become a fact of the modern enterprise. SaaS, BYOD, outsourced development, embedded IT, DevOps, and public cloud have all chipped away ...
Root Causes 33: Prepare for One-year Limits on SSL Certificates
20 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The CA/Browser Forum faces a proposed ballot to limit the maximum duration of an SSL certificate to 13 months. Even if this ballot fails, browsers suc...
Root Causes 32: Why Do Browsers and Academic Research Say Different Things About EV SSL?
15 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Breaking research from two esteemed universities shows that sites with Extended Validation SSL certificates are much less likely to be engaged in crim...
Root Causes 31: Using PKI to Authenticate Phone Callers
13 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Few people know that caller ID numbers have no identity value as they are completely self-reported. This fact enables the plague of robocalling scams ...
Root Causes 30: When a Whole Country Has Its PII Stolen - Giant Breach Fines - Phishing with SSL
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recently we have seen major news items in some of the common Root Causes themes. Join our hosts as they discuss new whopping breach fines from GDPR an...
Root Causes Special Bulletin: Kazakhstan Weaponizes the Public CA
31 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Kazakhstan government is taking measures to force citizens to trust its own root, enabling the widespread persecution of dissidents, journalists, ...
Root Causes 29: Vulnerabilities in Cisco Routers and Other Device Integrity Controls
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Security flaws in the device integrity modules of Cisco routers and other devices have lately filled the headlines. Join our hosts and guest Alan Grau...
Root Causes 28: SSL Certificate Automation Through ACME
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
ACME is a new SSL certificate automation standard that is taking the world by storm. With support by 150 million web sites and more than 130 open sour...
Root Causes 27: Pending Safe Browser Guidelines from Germany
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The German government has published a draft of its latest guidelines for safe browsers, which include requirements for how SSL certificates are suppor...
Root Causes 26: The White House Wants to Prohibit End-to-end Encryption
14 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The White House is the latest government entity seeking to defeat widespread encryption technology through legislated "back door" access. Join our hos...
Root Causes 25: Entropy and Random Numbers
02 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One cornerstone of successful cryptography is entropy, or the ability to create genuinely unpredictable values. But it turns out that generating truly...
Root Causes 24: Certificate Revocation
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Occasional certificate revocation is an essential part of the digital certificate lifecycle and any secure PKI scheme. Not only do certificate owners ...
Root Causes 23: Global Energy Grids Under Cyber Attack
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The world's energy grids and other utilities have increasingly become targets for cyber attack, both state-sponsored and otherwise. Join our hosts as ...
Root Causes 22: Attacks on US Cities with EternalBlue Cyber Weapon
07 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A recent spate of ransomware attacks against US municipalities is noteworthy for being enabled by the stolen US cyber weapon EternalBlue. Join our hos...
Root Causes 21: New Texas Energy Grid Security Regulation
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The state of Texas is leading the way with new legislation requiring cyber protections for its energy grid. Join our hosts as we explain this legislat...
Root Causes 20: 885 Million First American Financial Customer Docs Exposed
31 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was recently revealed that First American Title Corporation had 885 million confidential customer financial documents discoverable in the clear on ...
Root Causes 19: Death of a Public CA
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mozilla has decided to remove a public CA from its trusted root store. By doing so Mozilla renders public certificates from this CA essentially valuel...
Root Causes 18: SHA-1 Collisions - TLS Fingerprinting - Cisco Trust Anchor Flaw
23 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recent news has revealed several important developments in PKI and cyber trust. Our hosts cover the latest SHA-1 collision attack and why it signals t...
Root Causes 17: Sectigo Acquires Icon Labs
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sectigo's recent acquisition of Icon Labs expands the company's capabilities in embedded OEM and device identity. Jason and Tim are joined by Icon La...
Root Causes 16: PKI for DevOps Environments
14 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
DevOps as a software development and deployment methodology has radically transformed enterprise computing. This approach brings with it new architect...
Root Causes 15: Architecture for Enterprise Certificate Automation
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Automation of certificate deployment and management is a must for today's enterprise. Complexity, changing environments, fast time to market, and simp...
Root Causes 14: P2P Vulnerability in IoT Devices
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Recent research reveals millions of consumer IoT devices that lack any level of authentication or encryption at all. Join our hosts as we discuss the ...
Root Causes 13: PKI for IoT
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in many cases has outpaced security for those devices, leaving enterprises, end users, and the g...
Root Causes 12: PKI in the News
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was a busy news week for PKI and authenticated identity, and our hosts run through four current stories to clarify them. Tune in to learn the lates...
Root Causes 11: Authentication Is Not for the Authenticated
11 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With so much debate about the role and importance of authentication in digital systems, it is important to remember the purpose of authenticated ident...
Root Causes 10: S/MIME Automated Deployment
03 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
S/MIME certificates indicate the authentic identity of the sender and enable encryption for message content and attachments - providing strong defense...
Root Causes 09: 63-bit Serial Numbers
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A recently discovered flaw in common practices reveals that potentially millions of active SSL certificates fall short of cryptographic requirements. ...
Root Causes 08: Free PKI Is Not Free
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The promise of a "free" Microsoft CA was alluring to enterprises in the 2000s, but today's increasingly open computing architectures and agile develop...
Root Causes 07: Russian Disconnection from the Internet
09 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Russia has stated that it will disconnect from the internet as a trial exercise for full-blown cyber warfare. This idea presents many problems for Rus...
Root Causes 06: Quantum-Resistant Cryptography
09 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The pending cryptographic Quantum Apocalypse requires that we replace the hashing and encryption algorithms used through the internet, enterprise netw...
Root Causes 05: Cryptographic Quantum Apocalypse
09 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The pending cryptographic Quantum Apocalypse requires that we replace the hashing and encryption algorithms used through the internet, enterprise netw...
Root Causes 04: Australia's New IT Security Back Door
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Australia now requires a back door to IT systems. Our hosts are skeptical that this idea will work. Join our PKI experts to learn about the dangers an...
Root Causes 03: US Government Shutdown and Security Vulnerabilities
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The US government shutdown has taken its toll on IT systems. Services are going offline, and we are ill equipped to deal with a major security or serv...
Root Causes 02: O2 Outage and Equifax Breach
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In December users of O2, Softbank, and other mobile services experienced a day-long data outage affecting as many as 40 million people. In the summer ...
Root Causes 01: Introduction
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Intro to the leading PKI and security podcast. Learn your hosts' qualifications and reasons for creating this podcast.