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Computer insecurity

Many current computer systems have only limited security precautions in place. Serious financial damage has been caused by computer security breaches, but reliably estimating costs is quite difficult. Figures in the billions of dollars have been quoted in relation to the damage caused by malware such as computer worms like the Code Red worm, but such estimates may be exaggerated. However, other losses, such as those caused by the compromise of credit card information, can be more easily determined, and they have been substantial, as measured by millions of individual victims of identity theft each year in each of several nations, and the severe hardship imposed on each victim.

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Computers & Math News

April 8, 2026

Quantum computers struggle with a major flaw: their information vanishes unpredictably. Scientists have now created a new method that can measure this loss over 100 times faster than before. By tracking changes in near real time, researchers can ...
A team of engineers has created a breakthrough memory device that keeps working at temperatures hotter than molten lava, shattering one of electronics’ biggest limits. Built from an unusual stack of ultra-durable materials, the tiny component can ...
Quantum circuits are supposed to gain power as they grow longer, but noise changes the picture. A new study finds that earlier steps in these circuits gradually lose their impact, with only the final layers really mattering. As a result, deep ...
AI is consuming staggering amounts of energy—already over 10% of U.S. electricity—and the demand is only accelerating. Now, researchers have unveiled a radically more efficient approach that could slash AI energy use by up to 100× while ...
Researchers have created a nanoscale structure that traps infrared light in a layer just 40 nanometers thick—over 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. By using a unique material with exceptional light-bending properties, they can confine and ...
Modern food systems may look stable on the surface, but they are increasingly dependent on digital systems that can quietly become a major point of failure. Today, food must be “recognized” by databases and automated platforms to be transported, ...
A new breakthrough in wireless technology could dramatically boost internet speeds while cutting energy use—by switching from radio waves to light. Researchers have developed a tiny chip packed with dozens of miniature lasers that can transmit ...
Scientists have unveiled a new approach to ultra-secure communication that could make quantum encryption simpler and more efficient than ever before. By harnessing a 19th-century optics phenomenon called the Talbot effect, researchers developed a ...
DNA robots are emerging as tiny programmable machines that could one day deliver drugs, hunt viruses, and build molecular-scale devices. By borrowing ideas from traditional robotics and combining them with DNA folding techniques, scientists are ...
Perovskite crystals can dramatically and reversibly change shape when hit with light, a behavior not seen in conventional semiconductors. This effect, called photostriction, can be finely tuned depending on the light’s intensity and color. ...
Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. But this isn’t just about size; ...
A new holographic storage technique uses light in three dimensions to dramatically increase how much data can be stored. It encodes information throughout a material using amplitude, phase, and ...

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