Runa Sandvik is a computer security expert, known as a proponent of strong encryption. She worked as '' The New York Times'' senior director of information security between March 2016 and October 2019. As of 2021, she is a senior advisor for the

Norwegian Cyber Defence Force The Norwegian Cyber Defence Force ( no, Cyberforsvaret) is a branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for military communications and defensive cyberwarfare in Norway. The force employs 1,500 people located at more than 60 locations. The m ...

Career

Sandvik was an early developer of the

Tor anonymity network Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to con ...

, a cooperative facility that helps individuals obfuscate the internet protocol they are using to access the internet. Sandvik is a technical advisor to the Freedom of the Press Foundation and serves on the review board of Black Hat Europe. Sandvik interviewed

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

in May 2014. In February 2015 Sandvik documented her efforts to retrieve information about herself through Freedom of Information Act requests. Sandvik led efforts to make ''The New York Times'' a

Tor Onion Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...

service, allowing ''Times'' employees and readers to access the newspaper's site in ways that impede intrusive government monitoring.

Hacking of smart rifles

Sandvik, and her husband, Michael Auger, demonstrated how smart rifles with remote access can be remotely hacked. The $13,000 TrackingPoint

sniper rifle A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment and optics for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses of the military sniper. The modern sniper rifle is a por ...

is equipped with an embedded linux computer. According to '' Wired magazine'', when used according to its specifications, the aiming computer can enable a novice to hit remote targets that would otherwise require a skilled marksman. However the manufacturers designed the aiming computer with WiFi capabilities, so the shooter could upload video of their shots. Sandvik and Auger found they could initiate a Unix shell command line interpreter, and use it to alter parameters the aiming computer relies on, so that it will always miss its targets. They found that a knowledgeable hacker could use the shell to acquire root access. Acquiring root access allowed an interloper to erase all the aiming computer's software—" bricking" the aiming computer.

Personal life

She acquired her first computer when she was fifteen years old. She studied computer science at the

Norwegian University of Science and Technology Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

. In 2014 Sandvik married Michael Auger, and the pair made their home in Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Snowden interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sandvik, Runa 1988 births Living people InfoSec Twitter Norwegian women People associated with computer security