All eyes on AI | Unlocked 403: A cybersecurity podcast

Artificial intelligence is on everybody’s lips these days, but there are also many misconceptions about what AI actually is and isn’t. We unpack the basics and examine AI’s broader implications.

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The art of digital sleuthing: How digital forensics unlocks the truth

Learn how the cyber variety of CSI works, from sizing up the crime scene and hunting for clues to piecing together the story that the data has to tell

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Deepfakes in the global election year of 2024: A weapon of mass deception?

As fabricated images, videos and audio clips of real people go mainstream, the prospect of a firehose of AI-powered disinformation is a cause for mounting concern

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Ransomware payments hit a record high in 2023 – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

Called a “watershed year for ransomware”, 2023 marked a reversal from the decline in ransomware payments observed in the previous year

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The buck stops here: Why the stakes are high for CISOs

Heavy workloads and the specter of personal liability for incidents take a toll on security leaders, so much so that many of them look for the exits. What does this mean for corporate cyber-defenses?

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Left to their own devices: Security for employees using personal devices for work

As personal devices within corporate networks make for a potentially combustible mix, a cavalier approach to BYOD security won’t cut it

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Improving Interoperability Between Rust and C++

Posted by Lars Bergstrom – Director, Android Platform Tools & Libraries and Chair of the Rust Foundation Board

Back in 2021, we announced that Google was joining the Rust Foundation. At the time, Rust was already in wide use across Android and other Google products. Our announcement emphasized our commitment to improving the security reviews of Rust code and its interoperability with C++ code. Rust is one of the strongest tools we have to address memory safety security issues. Since that announcement, industry leaders and government agencies have echoed our sentiment.

We are delighted to announce that Google has provided a grant of $1 million to the Rust Foundation to support efforts that will improve the ability of Rust code to interoperate with existing legacy C++ codebases. We’re also furthering our existing commitment to the open-source Rust community by aggregating and publishing audits for Rust crates that we use in open-source Google projects. These contributions, along with our previous interoperability contributions, have us excited about the future of Rust.

“Based on historical vulnerability density statistics, Rust has proactively prevented hundreds of vulnerabilities from impacting the Android ecosystem. This investment aims to expand the adoption of Rust across various components of the platform.” – Dave Kleidermacher, Google Vice President of Engineering, Android Security & Privacy

While Google has seen the most significant growth in the use of Rust in Android, we’re continuing to grow its use across more applications, including clients and server hardware.

“While Rust may not be suitable for all product applications, prioritizing seamless interoperability with C++ will accelerate wider community adoption, thereby aligning with the industry goals of improving memory safety.” – Royal Hansen, Google Vice President of Safety & Security

The Rust tooling and ecosystem already support interoperability with Android and with continued investment in tools like cxx, autocxx, bindgen, cbindgen, diplomat, and crubit, we are seeing regular improvements in the state of Rust interoperability with C++. As these improvements have continued, we’ve seen a reduction in the barriers to adoption and accelerated adoption of Rust. While that progress across the many tools continues, it is often only expanded incrementally to support the particular needs of a given project or company.

In order to accelerate both Rust adoption at Google as well as more broadly across the industry, we are eager to invest in and collaborate on any needed ABI changes, tooling and build system support, wrapper libraries, or other areas identified.

We are excited to support this work through the Rust Foundation’s Interop Initiative and in collaboration with the Rust project to ensure that any additions made are suitable and address the challenges of Rust adoption that projects using C++ face. Improving memory safety across the software industry is one of the key technology challenges of our time, and we invite others across the community and industry to join us in working together to secure the open source ecosystem for everyone.

Learn more about the Rust Foundation’s Interop Initiative by reading their recent announcement.

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Could your Valentine be a scammer? How to avoid getting caught in a bad romance

With Valentine’s Day almost upon us, here’s some timely advice on how to prevent scammers from stealing more than your heart

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Grandoreiro banking malware disrupted – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

The banking trojan, which targeted mostly Brazil, Mexico and Spain, blocked the victim’s screen, logged keystrokes, simulated mouse and keyboard activity and displayed fake pop-up windows

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UN Cybercrime Treaty Could Endanger Web Security

Royal Hansen, Vice President of Privacy, Safety and Security Engineering


This week, the United Nations convened member states to continue its years-long negotiations on the UN Cybercrime Treaty, titled “Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes.” 



As more aspects of our lives intersect with the digital sphere, law enforcement around the world has increasingly turned to electronic evidence to investigate and disrupt criminal activity. Google takes the threat of cybercrime very seriously, and dedicates significant resources to combating it. When governments send Google legal orders to disclose user data in connection with their investigations, we carefully review those orders to make sure they satisfy applicable laws, international norms, and Google’s policies. We also regularly report the number of these orders in our Transparency Report. 



To ensure that transnational legal demands are issued consistent with rule of law, we have long called for an international framework for digital evidence that includes robust due process protections, respects human rights (including the right to free expression), and aligns with existing international norms. This is particularly important in the case of transnational criminal investigations, where the legal protections  in one jurisdiction may not align with those in others. 



Such safeguards aren’t just important to ensuring free expression and human rights, they are also critical to protecting web security. Too often, as we know well from helping stand up the Security Researcher Legal Defense Fund, individuals working to advance cybersecurity for the public good end up facing criminal charges. The Cybercrime Treaty should not criminalize the work of legitimate cybersecurity researchers and penetration testers, which is designed to protect individual systems and  the web as a whole.  



UN Member States have an opportunity to strengthen global cybersecurity by adopting a treaty that encourages the criminalization of the most egregious and systemic activities — on which all parties can agree — while adopting a framework for sharing digital evidence that is transparent, grounded in the rule of law, based on pre-existing international frameworks like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and aligned with principles of necessity and proportionality. At the same time, Member States should avoid attempts to criminalize activities that raise significant freedom of expression issues, or that actually undercut the treaty’s goal of reducing cybercrime. That will require strengthening critical guardrails and protections.  



We urge Member States to heed calls from civil society groups to address critical gaps in the Treaty and revise the text to protect users and security professionals — not endanger the security of the web.  

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