ThinkstScapes

Hosted by Jacob Torrey, research@thinkst.com, haroon meer, marco slaviero

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May 2026

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The ThinkstScapes podcast aims to distill and disseminate the cybersecurity research published worldwide. Our researchers track and review hundreds and thousands of talks (so you don't have to) and then bring this to you in small, digestible chunks.

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May 29, 202627 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q1 - 2026

Pushing browsers to the limit Abusing Modern Browser Features for Phishing Alexander Hurbean [Blog post] [Video] Committing CSS Crimes for fun and profit Lyra Rebane [Slides] [Blog post] [Video] Improving the Trustworthiness of Javascript on the Web Ezzudin Alkotob, Giulio Berra, Benjamin Beurdouche, Richard Hansen, Daniel Huigens, Dennis Jackson, Cory Francis Myers, and Michael Rosenberg [Slides] [Blog post] LLMs standing tall Black-hat LLMs Nicholas Carlini [Video] [Slides] On the Coming Industrialisation of Exploit Generation with LLMs Sean Heelan [Blog post] [Code] AI Security with Guarantees Ilia Shumailov [Slides] [Paper] [Video] 200 Bugs/Week/Engineer: How We Rebuilt Trail of Bits Around AI Dan Guido [Slides] [Blog post] [Video] Systematic debugging for AI agents: Introducing the AgentRx framework Shraddha Barke, Arnav Goyal, Alind Khare, and Chetan Bansal [Blog post] [Paper] [Code] LLMs taking a fall Trust Me, I Know This Function: Hijacking LLM Static Analysis using Bias Shir Bernstein, David Beste, Daniel Ayzenshteyn, Lea Schönherr, and Yisroel Mirsky [Slides] [Paper] [Code] AI Agent Traps Matija Franklin, Nenad Tomašev, Julian Jacobs, Joel Z. Leibo, and Simon Osindero [Paper] Leaking secrets from the claud Niels Hofmans [Blog post] [Code] Scary Agent Skills: Hidden Unicode Instructions in Skills ...And How To Catch Them wunderwuzzi [Blog post] [Code] [Video] Nifty sundries Data Honeytokens for the Cloud Era Petrus Vasenius [Blog post] [Video] The Offense Death Cycle: Proactive Environmental Control as a Method of Persistent Cyber Defense Volodymyr Styran [Paper] The AWS Console and Terraform Security Gap Laurence Tennant [Blog post] The Limit Is the Sky… (Or Not)? Antonio Nappa [Slides] [Code] [Video] Coruna: The Mysterious Journey of a Powerful iOS Exploit Kit Google Threat Intelligence Group [Blog post]

February 12, 202633 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q4 - 2025

Networking beyond plug-and-playGET /large file HTTP/1.1: Connection-Based TCP Amplification AttacksYepeng Pan, Lars Richter, and Christian Rossow[Paper] [Code]WAFFLED: Exploiting Parsing Discrepancies to Bypass Web Application FirewallsSeyed Ali Akhavani, Bahruz Jabiyev, Ben Kallus, Cem Topcuoglu, Sergey Bratus, and Engin Kirda[Paper] [Code]Excuse me, what precise time is it?Oliver Ettlin[Video]Cut To The QUIC: Slashing QUIC's Performance With A Hash DoSPaul Bottinelli[Slides] [Code]High-impact security at the foundationsUnderstanding the Security Impact of CHERI on the Operating System KernelZhaofeng Li, Jerry Zhang, Joshua Tlatelpa-Agustin, Xiangdong Chen, and Anton Burtsev[Code] [Paper]CUDA de Grâce: Owning AI Cloud Infrastructure with GPU ExploitsValentina Palmiotti and Samuel Lovejoy[Video]Defeating KASLR by Doing Nothing at AllSeth Jenkins[Blog post] [Code]Build a Fake Phone, Find Real Bugs: Qualcomm GPU Emulation and Fuzzing with LibAFL QEMURomain Malmain and Scott Bauer[Code] [Video]Rust in Android: move fast and fix things Jeff Vander Stoep[Blog post] [Rust course]Skynet Starter Kit: From Embodied AI Jailbreak to Remote Takeover of Humanoid RobotsShipei Qu, Zikai Xu, and Xuangan Xiao[Video]Wins and losses with LLMs and securityScaling agentic architectures for autonomous security testing and offensive operationsJason Garman, Jake Coyne, and Aaron Brown[Slides] [Code]Forced Descent: Google Antigravity Persistent Code Execution VulnerabilityAaron Portnoy[Blog post]Flaw And Order: Finding The Needle In The Haystack Of CodeQL Using LLMsSimcha Kosman[Slides] [Blog post] [Code]Rescuing the Unpoisoned: Efficient Defense against Knowledge Corruption Attacks on RAG SystemsKim Minseok, Lee Hankook, and Koo Hyungjoon[Code] [Paper]Whisper Leak: A novel side-channel attack on remote language models Jonathan Bar Or and Geoff McDonald[Blog post] [Paper] [Code]Nifty sundriesFormat-Preserving Compression-Tolerating Authenticated Encryption for ImagesAlexandra Boldyreva, Kaishuo Cheng, and Jehad Hussein[Slides] [Paper]Why Quantum Cryptanalysis is BollocksPeter Gutmann[Video] [Slides]Unmasking Organizations' Security Postures: Insights From Phishing-Resistant AuthenticationFei Liu[Slides]Those Who Do Not Learn from Advisories Are Doomed to Repeat ThemLouis Nyffenegger[Video]

November 11, 202538 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q3 - 2025

Q3’25 ThinkstScapesMicrosoft-induced security woesOne Token to rule them all - obtaining Global Admin in every Entra ID tenant via Actor tokensDirk-jan Mollema[Blog post]Turning Microsoft's Login Page into our Phishing InfrastructureKeanu Nys[Slides] [Video]You snooze you lose: RPC-Racer winning RPC endpoints against servicesRon Ben Yizhak[Slides] [Code] [Video]Internal Domain Name Collision 2.0Philippe Caturegli[Slides] [Video]Logs are not always as they appearSource IP Spoofing in Cloud Logs: A Hands-On Look Across AWS, Azure, and GCPEliav Livneh[Video]I'm in Your Logs Now, Deceiving Your Analysts and Blinding Your EDROlaf Hartong[Slides] [Code]From Spoofing to Tunneling: New Red Team's Networking Techniques for Initial Access and EvasionShu-Hao Tung[Slides] [Paper] [Video]Autobots roll out!Automating software security with LLMsTyler Nighswander[Site] [Code] [Video]Agents Built From AlloysAlbert Ziegler[Blog post] [Dataset]AI Agents for Offsec with Zero False PositivesBrendan Dolan-Gavitt[Slides]Are CAPTCHAs Still Bot-hard? Generalized Visual CAPTCHA Solving with Agentic Vision Language ModelXiwen Teoh, Yun Lin, Siqi Li, Ruofan Liu, Avi Sollomoni, Yaniv Harel, and Jin Song Dong[Site] [Paper] [Code]Good vibrationsInvisible Ears at Your Fingertips: Acoustic Eavesdropping via Mouse SensorsMohamad Habib Fakih, Rahul Dharmaji, Youssef Mahmoud, Halima Bouzidi, and Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque[Site] [Paper]TimeTravel: Real-time Timing Drift Attack on System Time Using Acoustic WavesJianshuo Liu, Hong Li, Haining Wang, Mengjie Sun, Hui Wen, Jinfa Wang, and Limin Sun[Paper]Nifty sundriesCrescent library brings privacy to digital identity systemsChristian Paquin, Guru-Vamsi Policharla, and Greg Zaverucha[Blog post] [Paper] [Code]Journey to the center of the PSTN: How I became a phone company, and how you can tooEnzo Damato[Slides] [Video]Safe Harbor or Hostile Waters: Unveiling the Hidden Perils of the TorchScript Engine in PyTorchJi'an Zhou and Lishuo Song[Slides]Ghosts in the Machine Check – Conjuring Hardware Failures for Cross-ring Privilege EscalationChristopher Domas[Slides] [Code] [Video]Machine Against the RAG: Jamming Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Blocker DocumentsAvital Shafran, Roei Schuster, and Vitaly Shmatikov[Paper] [Code]Inverting the Xorshift128+ random number generatorScott Contini[Blog post] [Code]

August 4, 202534 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q2 - 2025

ThinkstScapes Q2’25Networking is always trickyBeyond the Horizon: Uncovering Hosts and Services Behind Misconfigured FirewallsQing Deng, Juefei Pu, Zhaowei Tan, Zhiyun Qian, and Srikanth V. Krishnamurthy[Paper]0.0.0.0 Day: Exploiting Localhost APIs From The BrowserAvi Lumelsky and Gal Elbaz[Blog post] [Video]Local Mess: Covert Web-to-App Tracking via Localhost on AndroidAniketh Girish, Gunes Acar, Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, Nipuna Weerasekara, and Tim Vlummens[Website]Transport Layer Obscurity: Circumventing SNI Censorship on the TLS-LayerNiklas Niere, Felix Lange, Juraj Somorovsky, and Robert Merget[Code] [Paper]Language models large and smallThe road to Top 1: How XBOW did itNico Waisman[Blog post]AI and Secure Code GenerationDave Aitel and Dan Geer[Blog post]A look at CloudFlare’s AI-coded OAuth libraryNeil Madden[Blog post]How I used o3 to find CVE-2025-37899, a remote zeroday vulnerability in the Linux kernel’s SMB implementationSean Heelan[Blog post] [Code]Enhancing Secret Detection in Cybersecurity with Small LMsDanny Lazarev and Erez Harush[Blog post] [Video]BAIT: Large Language Model Backdoor Scanning by Inverting Attack TargetGuangyu Shen, Siyuan Cheng, Zhuo Zhang, Guanhong Tao, Kaiyuan Zhang, Hanxi Guo, Lu Yan, Xiaolong Jin, Shengwei An, Shiqing Ma, and Xiangyu Zhang[Code] [Paper]When parsing goes right, and when it goes wrong3DGen: AI-Assisted Generation of Provably Correct Binary Format ParsersSarah Fakhoury, Markus Kuppe, Shuvendu K. Lahiri, Tahina Ramananandro, and Nikhil Swamy[Slides] [Paper]GDBMiner: Mining Precise Input Grammars on (Almost) Any SystemMax Eisele, Johannes Hägele, Christopher Huth, and Andreas Zeller[Paper] [Code]Parser Differentials: When Interpretation Becomes a VulnerabilityJoernchen / Joern Schneeweisz[Slides] [Video]Inbox Invasion: Exploiting MIME Ambiguities to Evade Email Attachment DetectorsJiahe Zhang, Jianjun Chen, Qi Wang, Hangyu Zhang, Shengqiang Li, Chuhan Wang, Jianwei Zhuge, and Haixin Duan[Slides] [Paper] [Code]Nifty sundriesImpostor Syndrome: Hacking Apple MDMs Using Rogue Device EnrolmentsMarcell Molnár and Magdalena Oczadły[Slides] Your Cable, My Antenna: Eavesdropping Serial Communication via Backscatter SignalsLina Pu, Yu Luo, Song Han, and Junming Diao[Paper]GoSonar: Detecting Logical Vulnerabilities in Memory Safe Language Using Inductive Constraint ReasoningMd Sakib Anwar, Carter Yagemann, and Zhiqiang Lin[Paper] [Code]Show Me Your ID(E)!: How APTs Abuse IDEsTom Fakterman and Daniel Frank[Slides] [Video]Inviter Threat: Managing Security in a new Cloud Deployment ModelMeg Ashby[Video]Carrier Tokens—A Game-Changer Towards SMS OTP Free World!Kazi Wali Ullah[Slides] [Code] [Video]

April 30, 202529 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q1 - 2025

ThinkstScapes Q1’25Putting it into practiceHomomorphic Encryption across Apple featuresRehan Rishi, Haris Mughees, Fabian Boemer, Karl Tarbe, Nicholas Genise, Akshay Wadia, and Ruiyu Zhu[Code] [Paper] [Video]Beyond the Hook: A Technical Deep Dive into Modern Phishing MethodologiesAlexandre Nesic[Blog] How to Backdoor Large Language ModelsShrivu Shankar[Blog] [Code] Buccaneers of the Binary: Plundering Compiler Optimizations for Decompilation TreasureZion Leonahenahe Basque[Code] [Video]Software Screws Around, Reverse Engineering Finds Out: How Independent, Adversarial Research Informs Government RegulationAndy Sellars and Michael A. Specter[Video] [Website]Understanding things all the way downPhantomLiDAR: Cross-modality Signal Injection Attacks against LiDARZizhi Jin, Qinhong Jiang, Xuancun Lu, Chen Yan, Xiaoyu Ji, and Wenyuan Xu[Paper] [Demo Videos]Full-stack Reverse Engineering of the Original Microsoft XboxMarkus Gaasedelen[Video]Wallbleed: A Memory Disclosure Vulnerability in the Great Firewall of ChinaShencha Fan, Jackson Sippe, Sakamoto San, Jade Sheffey, David Fifield, Amir Houmansadr, Elson Wedwards, and Eric Wustrow[Paper]Scaling software (in)securityLow-Effort Denial of Service with RecursionAlexis Challande and Brad Swain[Paper] [Video]Is this memory safety here in the room with us?Thomas Dullien (Halvar Flake)[Slides] [Video]How to gain code execution on millions of people and hundreds of popular appsEva[Blog]Node is a loaderTom Steele[Blog]Mixing up Public and Private Keys in OpenID Connect deploymentsHanno Böck[Blog] [Code]Nifty sundriesWill It Run? Fooling EDRs With Command Lines Using Empirical DataWietze Beukema[Tool site] [Code] [Video]Homoglyph-Based Attacks: Circumventing LLM DetectorsAldan Creo[Paper] [Code] [Video]28 Months Later - The Ongoing Evolution of Russia's Cyber OperationsThe Grugq[Slides] [Podcast interview]‘It's Not Paranoia If They're Really After You’: When Announcing Deception Technology Can Change Attacker DecisionsAndrew Reeves and Debi Ashenden[Paper]Off-Path TCP Hijacking in Wi-Fi Networks: A Packet-Size Side Channel AttackZiqiang Wang, Xuewei Feng, Qi Li, Kun Sun, Yuxiang Yang, Mengyuan Li, Ganqiu Du, Ke Xu, and Jianping Wu[Paper] [Code]

February 20, 202537 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q4 - 2024

ThinkstScapes Q4’24Wins and losses in the Microsoft ecosystemPointer Problems - Why We’re Refactoring the Windows KernelJoe Bialek[Video]Defending off the landCasey Smith, Jacob Torrey, and Marco Slaviero[Slides] [Code]Unveiling the Power of Intune: Leveraging Intune for Breaking Into Your Cloud and On-PremiseYuya Chudo[Slides] [Code]From Simulation to Tenant TakeoverVaisha Bernard[Video]From Convenience to Contagion: The Libarchive Vulnerabilities Lurking in Windows 11NiNi Chen[Slides] [Video]LLM hype continues, as do the security issuesThings we learned about LLMs in 2024Simon Willison[Blog]AI Meets Git: Unmasking Security Flaws in Qodo MergeNils Amiet[Slides] [Video] [Blog]Suicide Bot: New AI Attack Causes LLM to Provide Potential “Self-Harm” InstructionsGadi Evron[Blog]Diving deep, then diving deeperBreaking NATO Radio EncryptionLukas Stennes[Paper] [Video]Exploiting File Writes in Hardened EnvironmentsStefan Schiller[Blog] [Video]Hacking yourself a satellite - recovering BEESAT-1PistonMiner[Video]IRIS: Non-Destructive Inspection of SiliconAndrew 'bunnie' Huang[Blog] [Paper] [Video]SQL Injection Isn't DeadPaul Gerste[Slides] [Video]Nifty sundriesWhat Developers Get for Free?Louis Nyffenegger[Video]Dialing into the Past: RCE via the Fax Machine – Because Why Not?Rick de Jager and Carlo Meijer[Video]Broken isolation - Draining your Credentials from Popular macOS Password ManagersWojciech Reguła[Slides] [Video]I'll Be There for You! Perpetual Availability in the A8 MVX SystemAndré Rösti, Stijn Volckaert, Michael Franz, and Alexios Voulimeneas[Code] [Paper]Exploring and Exploiting an Android “Smart POS” Payment TerminalJacopo Jannone[Video]

November 11, 202436 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q3 - 2024

Themes covered in this episodeEdge cases at scale still matterWorks from this theme exploit rarely-occurring issues, but with an internet-wide aperture to end up with impressive results. Look for: mechanising bit-squatting; static code analysis for vulnerabilities across all browser extensions, or across web ecosystems; and how Let’s Encrypt worries about revoking and reissuing 400M certificates in a week.Going above and beyondTalks and papers often use state-of-the-art tooling to measure/detect an interesting phenomenon. This theme highlights four works that could have followed that path, but also built robust tooling/research data to help others push the state-of-the-art forward. Look for: large scale collection and remediation of dangling domains and static secret leaks, preventing memory-corruption vulnerabilities across the Android ecosystem, remote timing attack frameworks, and SSH testing at scale.What goes on behind the curtain can be dangerousModern IT systems are composed of many layers. Usually the details at lower levels can be abstracted and safely put out of mind. This theme highlights work that shows that what happens in these oft-ignored places can have significant impacts. See: AWS-internal resources built on your behalf, BGP security weaknesses, stealthy hardware backdoors in access control systems spanning over 15 years, Wi-Fi management plane vulnerabilities, VPN-OS interactions, and a legacy file-system hack in Windows.Nifty sundriesAs always, we wanted to showcase work that didn’t fit into the major themes of this issue. We cover: bypassing voice authentication with only a picture of the victim’s face, racking up bills on locked credit cards, email parsing confusion, scanning IPv6, and a timing attack on remote web clients.Edge cases at scale still matterFlipping Bits: Your Credentials Are Certainly MineJoohoi and STÖK[Code] [Video]Universal Code Execution by Chaining Messages in Browser ExtensionsEugene Lim[Blog] [Video]CVE Hunting Made EasyEddie Zhang[Blog] [Code] How To Revoke And Replace 400 Million Certificates Without Breaking The InternetAaron Gable[Slides] [Video]Going above and beyondSecrets and Shadows: Leveraging Big Data for Vulnerability Discovery at ScaleBill Demirkapi[Blog]Eliminating Memory Safety Vulnerabilities at the SourceJeff Vander Stoep and Alex Rebert[Blog]Listen to the Whispers: Web Timing Attacks that Actually WorkJames Kettle[Slides] [Paper] [Code]Secure Shells in ShamblesHD Moore and Rob King[Slides] [Code] [Video]What goes on behind the curtain can be dangerousBreaching AWS Accounts Through Shadow ResourcesYakir Kadkoda, Michael Katchinskiy, and Ofek Itach[Slides] [Code]Crashing the Party: Vulnerabilities in RPKI ValidationNiklas Vogel, Donika Mirdita, Haya Schulmann, and Michael Waidner[Slides] [Paper]MIFARE Classic: exposing the static encrypted nonce variant... and a few hardware backdoorsPhilippe Teuwen[Blog] [Paper] [Code]Fallen Tower of Babel: Rooting Wireless Mesh Networks by Abusing Heterogeneous Control ProtocolsXin'an Zhou, Zhiyun Qian, Juefei Pu, Qing Deng, Srikanth Krishnamurthy, and Keyu Man[Slides] [Paper] [Code]Attacking Connection Tracking Frameworks as used by Virtual Private NetworksBenjamin Mixon-Baca, Jeffrey Knockel, Diwen Xue, Deepak Kapur, Roya Ensafi, and Jed Crandall[Paper]MagicDot: A Hacker's Magic Show of Disappearing Dots and SpacesOr Yair[Slides] [Blog] [Video] [Code]Nifty sundriesCan I Hear Your Face? Pervasive Attack on Voice Authentication Systems with a Single Face ImageNan Jiang, Bangjie Sun, Terence Sim, and Jun Han[Paper] [Code]In Wallet We Trust: Bypassing the Digital Wallets Payment Security for Free ShoppingRaja Hasnain Anwar, Syed Rafiul Hussain, and Muhammad Taqi Raza[Slides] [Paper]Splitting the Email Atom: Exploiting Parsers to Bypass Access ControlsGareth Heyes[Slides] [Paper] [Code]6Sense: Internet-Wide IPv6 Scanning and its Security ApplicationsGrant Williams, Mert Erdemir, Amanda Hsu, Shraddha Bhat, Abhishek Bhaskar, Frank Li, and Paul Pearce[Slides] [Paper] [Code]SnailLoad: Anyone on the Internet Can Learn What You're DoingDaniel Gruss and Stefan Gast[Slides] [Paper]ConclusionsWhile we started off 2024 with a modest amount of high-quality works, this has scaled up significantly. As conference publications increase, we do see a slight decline in the number of blogs; there does appear to be some inverse correlation between the two tallies.We highlighted three themes for this quarter:Rare events that happen at internet-scale have big impacts.Going above and beyond in tooling development.Cross-layer gotchas.We’re looking forward to seeing how the year closes out with our year in review and the final quarter of 2024.

July 29, 202431 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q2 - 2024

AI/ML in securityInjecting into LLM-adjacent componentsJohann Rehberger[Blog 1] [Blog 2]Teams of LLM Agents can Exploit Zero-Day VulnerabilitiesRichard Fang, Rohan Bindu, Akul Gupta, Qiusi Zhan, and Daniel Kang[Paper] Project Naptime: Evaluating Offensive Security Capabilities of Large Language Models Sergei Glazunov and Mark Brand[Blog] LLMs Cannot Reliably Identify and Reason About Security Vulnerabilities (Yet?): A Comprehensive Evaluation, Framework, and BenchmarksSaad Ullah, Mingji Han, Saurabh Pujar, Hammond Pearce, Ayse Kivilcim Coskun, and Gianluca Stringhini[Paper] [Code]The Impact of Backdoor Poisoning Vulnerabilities on AI-Based Threat DetectorsDmitrijs Trizna, Luca Demetrio, Battista Biggio, and Fabio Roli[Slides] [Paper] [Code]Looking at the whole systemSystems Alchemy: The Transmutation of HackingThaddeus grugq[Video]The Boom, the Bust, the Adjust and the UnknownMaor Shwartz[Slides]Poisoning Web-Scale Training Datasets is PracticalNicholas Carlini, Matthew Jagielski, Christopher A. Choquette-Choo, Daniel Paleka, Will Pearce, Hyrum Anderson, Andreas Terzis, Kurt Thomas, and Florian Tramèr[Paper]Intercloud Identities: The Risks and Mitigations of Access Between Cloud ProvidersNoam Dahan and Ari Eitan[Video]New modalities with which to inflict painGPU.zip: On the Side-Channel Implications of Hardware-Based Graphical Data CompressionYingchen Wang, Riccardo Paccagnella, Zhao Gang, Willy R. Vasquez, David Kohlbrenner, Hovav Shacham, and Christopher W. Fletcher[Paper]AquaSonic: Acoustic Manipulation of Underwater Data Center Operations and Resource ManagementJennifer Sheldon, Weidong Zhu, Adnan Abdullah, Sri Hrushikesh Varma Bhupathiraju, Takeshi Sugawara, Kevin Butler, Md Jahidul Islam, and Sara Rampazzi[Paper] [Video]Video-Based Cryptanalysis: Extracting Cryptographic Keys from Video Footage of a Device’s Power LED Captured By Standard Video CamerasBen Nassi, Etay Iluz, Or Cohen, Ofek Vayner, Dudi Nassi, Boris Zadov, and Yuval Elovici[Site] [Paper] [Video]Old components showing the strainExploiting Sequence Number Leakage: TCP Hijacking in NAT-Enabled Wi-Fi NetworksYuxiang Yang, Xuewei Feng, Qi Li, Kun Sun, Ziqiang Wang, and Ke Xu[Blog] [Paper] Reliable Payload Transmission Past the Spoofed TCP HandshakeYepeng Pan and Christian Rossow[Paper] [Code]Parse Me, Baby, One More Time: Bypassing HTML Sanitizer via Parsing DifferentialsDavid Klein and Martin Johns[Paper] [Code]Practical Exploitation of Registry Vulnerabilities in the Windows KernelMateusz Jurczyk[Blog] [Video]Nifty sundriesAn Analysis of Recent Advances in Deepfake Image Detection in an Evolving Threat LandscapeSifat Muhammad Abdullah, Aravind Cheruvu, Shravya Kanchi, Taejoong Chung, Peng Gao, Murtuza Jadliwala, and Bimal Viswanath[Code] [Paper]Tracking illicit phishermen in the deep blue AzureJacob Torrey[Slides] [Code]SEVeriFast: Minimizing the root of trust for fast startup of SEV microVMsBenjamin Holmes, Jason Waterman, and Dan Williams[Paper] [Code]Certiception: The ADCS Honeypot We Always WantedBalthasar Martin and Niklas van Dornick[Blog] [Code] [Slides]

June 14, 202425 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q1 - 2024

Revealing more than anticipated, and preventing prying eyesPrintListener: Uncovering the Vulnerability of Fingerprint Authentication via the Finger Friction SoundMan Zhou, Shuao Su, Qian Wang, Qi Li, Yuting Zhou, Xiaojing Ma, and Zhengxiong Li[Paper]ModelGuard: Information-Theoretic Defense Against Model Extraction AttacksMinxue Tang, Anna Dai, Louis DiValentin, Aolin Ding, Amin Hass, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Yiran Chen, and Hai Li[Paper] [Code]RECORD: A RECeption-Only Region Determination Attack on LEO Satellite UsersEric Jedermann, Martin Strohmeier, Vincent Lenders, and Jens Schmitt[Code] [Paper]Private web search with TiptoeAlexandra Henzinger, Emma Dauterman, Henry Corrigan-Gibbs, and Nickolai Zeldovich[Slides] [Paper] [Video] [Code]Can Virtual Reality Protect Users from Keystroke Inference Attacks?Zhuolin Yang, Zain Sarwar, Iris Hwang, Ronik Bhaskar, Ben Y. Zhao, and Haitao Zheng[Website] [Paper]Backtrace in Time: Revealing Attackers’ Sleep Patterns and Days Off in RDP Brute-Force Attacks with Calendar HeatmapsAndréanne Bergeron[Code] [Blog] [Video]Taking another look with a fresh perspectiveBreaking HTTP Servers, Proxies, and Load Balancers Using the HTTP GardenBen Kallus and Prashant Anantharaman[Code] [Video]Compiler Backdooring For BeginnersMarion Marschalek[Video]Revisiting 2017: AI and Security, 7 years laterThomas Dullien[Video]Automated Large-Scale Analysis of Cookie Notice ComplianceAhmed Bouhoula, Karel Kubicek, Amit Zac, Carlos Cotrini, and David Basin[Paper] [Code Access]Turning Windows into doorsLSA WhispererEvan McBroom[Slides] [Blog] [Code]Wishing: Webhook Phishing in TeamsMatthew Eidelberg[Blog] [Code]Misconfiguration Manager: Overlooked and OverprivilegedDuane Michael and Chris Thompson[Slides] [Blog] [Code]Smoke and Mirrors: How to hide in Microsoft AzureAled Mehta and Christian Philipov[Video]Nifty sundriesBackdoor in XZ Utils allows RCE: everything you need to knowAndres Freund, Merav Bar, Amitai Cohen, Danielle Aminov, and Russ Cox[Initial Disclosure] [Wiz Blog] [Timeline]More Money, Fewer FOSS Security Problems? The Data, Such As It IsJohn Speed Meyers, Sara Ann Brackett, and Stewart Scott[Video]MUDding Around: Hacking for gold in text-based gamesUnix-ninja[Blog]DeGPT: Optimizing Decompiler Output with LLMPeiwei Hu, Ruigang Liang, and Kai Chen[Paper]

February 28, 202429 min

ThinkstScapes Research Roundup - Q4 - 2023

LLMs ain't making life any easierAbusing Images and Sounds for Indirect Instruction Injection in Multi-Modal LLMsTsung-Yin Hsieh, Ben Nassi, Vitaly Shmatikov, and Eugene Bagdasaryan[Slides] [Paper] [Code]Tree of Attacks: Jailbreaking Black-Box LLMs AutomaticallyAnay Mehrotra, Manolis Zampetakis, Paul Kassianik, Blaine Nelson, Hyrum Anderson, Yaron Singer, and Amin Karbasi[Paper] [Code]Avoiding the basilisk's fangs: State-of-the-art in AI LLM detectionJacob Torrey[Slides] [Code] [Video]Dystopian much: The Rise of the Influence MachinesNea Paw[Blog] [Video]Problems in well-trodden areasSMTP Smuggling – Spoofing E-mails WorldwideTimo Longin[Blog] [Video]Blind CSS Exfiltration: Exfiltrate unknown web pagesGareth Heyes[Slides] [Blog] [Code]OLE object are still dangerous today – Exploiting Microsoft Officewh1tc and Zhiniang Peng[Slides] [Demo Videos]The Nightmare of Apple’s OTA UpdateMickey Jin[Slides] [Blog] [Video]Reflecting on our effortsEvaluating the Security Posture of Real-World FIDO2 DeploymentsDhruv Kuchhal, Muhammad Saad, Adam Oest, and Frank Li[Paper]Talking about Pros and ConsJacob Torrey[Slides] [Video]NCC Group’s 2022 & 2023 Research ReportNCC Group[Paper] [Blog]A 3-Year Tale of Hacking a Pwn2Own Target: The Attacks, Vendor Evolution, and Lessons LearnedOrange Tsai[Slides] [Video]Nifty sundriesBreaking "DRM" in Polish trainsMrTick, Redford, and q3k[Video]Detection and Blocking with BPF via YAMLKevin Sheldrake[Slides] [Code]AntiFake: Using Adversarial Audio to Prevent Unauthorized Speech SynthesisZhiyuan Yu, Shixuan Zhai, and Ning Zhang[Paper] [Code]A Good Fishman Knows All the Angles: A Critical Evaluation of Google's Phishing Page ClassifierChangqing Miao, Jianan Feng, Wei You, Wenchang Shi, Jianjun Huang, and Bin Liang[Paper] [Code]Spoofing DNS Records by Abusing DHCP DNS Dynamic UpdatesOri David[Blog] [Code] Operation Triangulation: What You Get When Attack iPhones of ResearchersBoris Larin, Leonid Bezvershenko, and Georgy Kucherin[Blog] [Video]Password-Stealing without Hacking: Wi-Fi Enabled Practical Keystroke EavesdroppingJingyang Hu, Hongbo Wang, Tianyue Zheng, Jingzhi Hu, Zhe Chen, Hongbo Jiang, and Jun Luo[Paper] [Code]