Cipher Issue 162, July 22, 2021, Editor's Letter

Dear Readers,

The IEEE Computer Society's Technical Committee on Security and Privacy (TCSP), the sponsor of this newsletter, has leapt ahead on its biennial leadership transition. Bryan Parno has moved from Vice Chair to Chair, and Gabriela Ciocarlie, last year's S&P Symposium's General Chair, moves to Vice Chair. In its 42 year history, the TCSP has managed an expanding portfolio of conferences with publication numbers that were undreamed of in the early, formative years of S&P and Computer Security Foundations.

Sadly, we have learned of the death of Clark Weissman, a real pioneer of computer security. He was an influential leader in the field even before more than a handful of people recognized the depth of the problems to be solved. He was also famous as "the grand old man of folk music," for which I refer you to this Folkworks obituary.

Ransomware has been the theme of the cybersecurity news in the last several weeks. The US government is taking steps to help businesses and users protect themselves, and there is some "cyber saber rattling" aimed at China and Russian "criminal gangs". The disruption caused by ransomware is immense. Even organizations that have extensive backups may find that the process of restoring everything at once is fraught with difficulties. Has anyone ever produced a fully verified backup and restore system, something that is guaranteed to go from bare machines to a fully functioning network without human intervention?

Shakespeare mentioned ransom in a sonnet that ends with this enigmatic couplet:

But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
That sounds like quantum entanglement of warring ransomware gangs!



      Hilarie Orman