Tag: Computer Security
Everyone using CERN’s IT infrastructure is responsible for the security and protection of the computers they use, the operating systems they run, the applications they install, the programs they write and the data they store, with the assistance of the IT Department and the Computer Security Team.
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Computer Security: Uninvited nastiness
Nobody likes an uninvited guest. The mouse crossing the kitchen floor. The spider scuttling across the blanket. The wild boar uprooting the garden. The snake swimming in the pool. The moth flying through the closet. The unpleasant uncle spoiling a really splendidly amusing party… Or those uninvited idiots crashing a Zoom meeting. An actual instance
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Computer Security: 2FA to the TechNet
The two-factor authentication (2FA) roll-out is now complete for the CERN Single Sign-On, the Linux interactive service (LXPLUS) and the Windows Terminal Server (WTS) gateways (also known as CERNTS). With the addition of the new eduVPN service, all major remote accesses to CERN’s IT services and the CERN Campus network are now properly protected by
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Computer Security: The road to SBOM
The SBOM (short for “Software Bill of Materials”) gets a bad rap in IT. As full (and often enormous) inventories of components, libraries and packages, SBOMs are complicated to set up and therefore no one is a big fan of them. Instead, many IT managers try to avoid them altogether. This is unfortunate as SBOMs
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Computer Security: Kids at the keyboard
Last weekend, while the sun was shining brightly, nature was flourishing in all its colours, flavours and scents and hundreds of birds were chirping their favourite tunes, I decided to go for a stroll with my dog. A nice two-hour walk in the vineyards around CERN, hiking up the Jura, enjoying the view and returning
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Computer Security: Hot Review Summer, Cool Deployment Autumn
This summer has seen a plethora of different assessments of the Organization’s security posture and stance. While an external vulnerability scan of CERN’s Internet presence and a red-teaming penetration test are still ongoing, the Computer Security Office, in collaboration with the IT Department, is continuing to mitigate the findings of the 2023 cybersecurity audit, the
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Computer Security: AI – Game over, mankind?
With the more and more prevalent use of agentic AI, i.e. programmed agents acting and working on our behalf, and in a fully interconnected world, i.e. us living in symbiosis with the Internet, smartphones and control systems, how far-fetched is it that humans can actually become a threat to an AI system such that it
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Computer Security: One click to many
More senior colleagues might still recall the regular “clicking” campaigns that were intended to raise security awareness within the Organization among staff and users. With the roll-out of two-factor authentication, such campaigns were dropped. However, the world continues to turn and novel functionality and novel attack vectors try to circumvent our protections. And they have
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Computer Security: Welcome, summer students!
A warm welcome to the summer-student class of 2026! We’re glad that you made it to CERN! We offer a packed agenda for the next two months: challenging lectures; interesting projects to tackle with your team; and lots of time to take a great big gulp of CERN’s academic freedom, spirit and creativity! In order
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Computer Security: Copied, committed, KO
The old world of reusable IT components has been under threat for a while. While it was appreciated, efficient and effective to reuse software components written by others, attacks abusing this kind of “supply chain” are on the rise. For instance, rest-client in 2019, plutov-slack-client in 2020, atomicwrites in 2022, xzutils in 2024, chalk, “Shai-Hulud”
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Computer Security: Wipe no tears
Remember that feeling where your heart skips a beat? Or two? Or many? Where your breath gets caught in your throat? “Époustouflant” as the French say, but not in a good way? The moment when you can’t find your smartphone, even after looking everywhere? The moment on the tram when you recall that you didn’t