Cybercrime

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Defunding Prisons, Preventing Cyberattacks, Promoting COVID-19 Vaccinations: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on defunding prisons, how to deter ransomware attacks, overcoming barriers to COVID-19 vaccination, and more.

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How the United States Can Deter Ransomware Attacks

To rein in ransomware attacks, the United States needs to upend the risk-reward ratio for hackers and for the countries that harbor or support them. Such a strategy would make networks harder to breach, hit back harder against hackers, and claw back gains from those who succeed.

Jonathan W. Welburn @jwwelburn, Quentin E. Hodgson @QHodgson

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Is DarkSide Really Sorry? Is It Even DarkSide?

The U.S. military relies heavily on commercial energy assets, making the implications of events like the Colonial Pipeline outage more serious than just higher prices at the gas pump. The origins and severity of an attack dictate what the United States might do in response.

Anu Narayanan, Jonathan W. Welburn @jwwelburn

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L.A.'s High Unemployment, RAND's New Research Center, Twitter: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on unemployment in the Los Angeles area, the new RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy, food consumption in the UK, and more.

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Insider Threat at Twitter Is a Risk to Everyone

Three young hackers were charged in the hijacking of dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts. Their tactics point out how vulnerabilities at tech platforms can pose a risk to national security.

Douglas Yeung @DouglasCYeung, Ryan Andrew Brown

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The Postal Service, Election Security, Reducing Child Deaths: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the role of the U.S. Postal Service, preparing for the presidential election, reducing child deaths in Nigeria, and more.

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Best RAND Videos of 2019

At RAND, we examine complex issues in dozens of policy areas. And when our researchers aren't busy coming up with solutions to some of the world's biggest problems, sometimes they step in front of the camera to highlight their findings. Here are our top videos of 2019.

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White Supremacist Terrorism, Wildfires, the Dark Web: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on violent white supremacy, power outages to prevent wildfires, how to catch criminals on the dark web, and more.

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Who's Responsible When Your Car Gets Hacked?

Cars are becoming “fast, heavy artificial intelligences on wheels,” a RAND report cautions, and that means they're becoming vulnerable. Potentially billions of dollars ride on the question of who has the legal responsibility to keep hackers from grabbing the wheel or cutting the brakes.

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Data Breaches, Correctional Security, Fentanyl: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on how consumers respond to data breaches, new security challenges facing correctional institutions, how fentanyl is changing the opioid crisis, and more.

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Fighting and Winning the Undeclared Cyber War

Russia has executed deliberate intrusions into U.S. critical infrastructure since at least 2011. These systems have included government entities, commercial facilities, water resource plants, and aviation institutions. What actions or policies can the U.S. execute to improve security?

Isaac R. Porche III

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Developing an Objective, Repeatable Scoring System for a Vulnerability Equities Process

If governments seek to create an objective framework for decision making about whether or when to disclose software vulnerabilities, what might that look like? What questions should be included, how should they influence the outcome and how can one interpret the results?

Sasha Romanosky

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Terrorists, Policing, Cyberattacks: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on terrorism recruitment trends, helping police find the right strategies, who should investigate cyberattacks, and more.

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When Cyber Attacks Occur, Who Should Investigate?

Data breaches and cyberattacks cross geopolitical boundaries, targeting individuals, corporations and governments. Creating a global body with a narrow focus on investigating and assigning responsibility for cyberattacks could be the first step to creating a digital world with accountability.

John S. Davis II, Jonathan W. Welburn @jwwelburn, et al.

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Examining the Weak Spots in Tech's Supply Chain Armor

When an attack on the supply chain occurs, manufacturers and purchasers should be better positioned to respond and recover. Even the simplest devices can rely on parts from multiple suppliers, which may have their own suppliers and so on. But every supplier, no matter how small, represents a potential weak link in the chain.

Lillian Ablon