U.S. military admits cybersecurity vulnerability

Cyber Security Act fails in Senate: Yet even U.S. military admits vulnerability
Examiner.com
Under persistent attack are power grids, water and sewer sources, communications networks, and many other vital areas that keep society running efficiently and safely. When asked how well the United States rates in level of preparedness against cyber-attacks, top officials of the NationalSecurity Agency (NSA) and the United States Cyber Command gave the country an embarrassingly low rating of three (3) out of a possible ten (10). (See Note 1). These officials call for stronger legislation to protect the country's ...

President Weighs Options After Cyber-Security Bill Fails in Senate: Report
eWeek
After the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to win approval in the Senate, the White House is considering a number of options and has not ruled out the possibility of an executive order, according to a report. ... "As such, it's reasonable to expect that utilities are looking more closely at what kind of security is the right fit for smart-grid technologies, given the increasing concerns that they, too, may be a target for hacktivists or worse—cyber-warfare," he said. Among other things, theCybersecurity Act touches on the issue of ...

Cyber War and International Law
OUPblog (blog)
Consider, for example, a cyber attack that appropriates sensitive data or causes key websites to cease functioning. However, this does not mean that cyber attacks causing non-physical damage does not affect adversely the security of a state. Indeed, the ...

OUPblog (blog)

Help wanted: Geek squads for US cybersecurity
Christian Science Monitor
Finding enough qualified men and women to protect America's cyber networks stands as one of the central challenges to America's cybersecurity. Even in the computer age, people are essential. In the field of cybersecurity, they are also ... of qualifiedcyber experts is hamstringing US efforts to secure cyberspace. Last month, Jeff Moss, a prominent hacking expert who sits on the Department of Homeland SecurityAdvisory Council, told a Reuters conference, “None of the projections look positive… The numbers I've ...

Christian Science Monitor

GOP Senators block Obama's cybersecurity act
Canada Free Press
“Many corporate security directors believe their own businesses are better able to protect themselves from cyber attacks. If the government wishes to assist, the Obama administration can offer grant money to upgrade cybersecurity programs,” said Thomas ...

Amazon fixes security flaw hackers used against Wired's Mat Honan
Ars Technica
Days after a devastating cyber attack on Wired journalist Mat Honan that exposedsecurity flaws in Amazon's and Apple's online services, Amazon has fixed a problem that helped hackers gain control over Honan's online accounts and remotely wipe his ...

Ars Technica

Cyber criminals beware, Europe is on the case
PublicServiceEurope.com
... crime will develop and take advantage of all of the possibilities in the cyberworld. To this you can add black-hat hackers and hacktivists - and, of course, the future possibility of a full-scale cyber-attack on the critical infrastructure of a country or region. ... Absolute security in cyberspace is not possible. But if we work together, we can do much more and achieve a safer cyber world for ...Cyber-space now seen as 'fifth dimension of warfare' Rulings need to be accepted across all countries in order to find a compromise ...

PublicServiceEurope.com

Wyden explains No vote on Cybersecurity Act
Oregon Business News (press release)
“Today's vote was one in which Senators were asked to sacrifice Internet users' privacy and civil liberties for weak proposals to improve cyber security; I voted no. In its current form, the Cybersecurity Act does not sufficiently safeguard Internet users' privacy ...

Oregon Business News (press release)

Cyphort Attracts One of Industry's Most Renowned Security Experts
MarketWatch (press release)
"The headlines about advanced persistent threats (APTs), whether it's the RSA break-in related to SecurID or any other known APT attack, is sounding loud and strong alarms in the executive suite. Cyphort has created the right cyber-security solution in the ...

Is There A Role For Government In Cybersecurity?
NPR
The Cyber Security Act of 2012 failed in the Senate, despite growing alarm in the intelligence community about the vulnerabilities of the nation's infrastructure. The episode highlights a unique problem for politicians concerned about the balance between ...

Chamber to host cybersecurity presentation Aug. 28
Colorado Springs Gazette
A group of about 30 information technology professionals from Colorado Springs area businesses and government agencies who specialize in cyber security have formed an organization to share information about cyber attacks and how to prevent and ...

Our view: Safeguards needed for cyber grid
Post-Tribune
Our view: Safeguards needed for cyber grid. August 7, 2012 8:20PM. Reprints. THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Congress ... Security experts agree America's infrastructure and military operations are vulnerable to cyberattacks, so it's worrisome that Congress has chosen to ignore the risk for now. Cyberattacks, which occur when malicious computer code ... But when Congress took upcybersecurity in the current session, its first reaction was to water it down. Then, Republicans filibustered it last week until the clock ran out.

Triple DDoS vs. KrebsOnSecurity
Krebs on Security
During the last week of July, a series of steadily escalating cyber attacks directed at my Web site and hosting provider prevented many readers from being able to reach the site or read the content via RSS. Sorry about that. What follows is a post-mortem on ...

Senate Closes up Cybersecurity Act of 2012
Melodika.net (press release)
On August 02, 2012 U.S. Congress took one more attempt to pass cyber Security legislation was defeated in the Senate. Senator Joe Lieberman's Cybersecurity Act fell short in the Senate on last Thursday with a vote of 52 to 46. The approval of 60 Senators ...

Catching some air: What UK businesses can learn from the Olympics
Computer Business Review
Security The physical security of the London 2012 Games has been well documented, but organisers are just as worried about the prospect of a cyber attack. Steve Evans looks at what is being done to safeguard the IT infrastructure and how businesses may ...

Canvassing the Targeting of Energy Infrastructure: The Energy Infrastructure ...
Journal of Energy Security
The debates have at times focused on issues such as price volatility, resource nationalism, supply chain vulnerability, resource abundance vs. resource constraints and more recently on the cybervulnerabilities of energy information infrastructure networks. However energy ... This research gap prompted the conceptualization of the Energy Infrastructure Attack Database (EIAD), a dataset currently being developed by the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). Non-state threats ...

Outside View: Deus ex machina 3.0
UPI.com
Deus ex machina 3.0. A cyber disaster may well strike the United States, causing an October 1929-like meltdown with far more devastating effects than World War II or Sept. 11, 2001. ... Further, it is possible that locating the source of such an attack might prove difficult or so time consuming to make a meaningful response impossible. Cyber isn't unique in complexity ... We have seen this before with civil rights and other third-rail political issues such as Social Security reforms 30 years ago. Otherwise, disaster will strike ...

Successful Police Pedophile Sting and more Cyber News
Arutz Sheva
... heavy metal AC/DC until the attack was stopped. An undercover police officer impersonating a 12-year-old in an online chatroom brought about the successful arrest of 30 pedophiles on July 31. IFN/Autorun malware continued to top the list of cyber threats ...

Cybersecurity too important to leave to the politicans? Starting to look that way
CNET
Starting to look that way. With an election looming, parochial partisan politics trumped nationalsecurity -- shocker, I know -- leaving cybersecurity policy firmly in mid-air. Charles Cooper. by Charles Cooper. August 7, 2012 10:28 AM PDT Follow @coopeydoop ...

Five Questions With: Victor Fay-Wolfe
Providence Business News
Director of URI's Digital Forensics and Cyber Security Center talks to Providence Business News about the URI program, its recent NSA validation and the evolution of the cybersecurity industry. Five Questions With: David P. DiSanto · Five Questions With: ...

'Hacker police' gather at day-long summit
Crain's Chicago Business (blog)
Some of the biggest hitters in cybersecurity will be huddling at the Chicago Innovation Summit downtown to talk about threats, solutions and opportunities in the cat-and-mouse game of keeping computer networks safe. ... Speakers include Vice Adm. Michael Rogers, commander of U.S. FleetCyber Command; Tara O' Toole, undersecretary, Department of Homeland Security; Bob Bigman, former chief information security officer of the CIA and CEO of 2BSecure LLC; Frank Benedetto, special agent in charge of the ...

Marriage Petition Hits 20000 Signatures In First Week
Scoop.co.nz (press release)
A website to protect the current definition of marriage as 'one man one woman', and cyber-attacked by opponents in an 'unprecedented attack', has experienced phenomenal interest, media coverage, and a strong response in its first week. “Despite …

Zeus banking malware found targeting BlackBerry devices
HEXUS
The Zitmo attack is “one of the most interesting threats in mobile space so far”. It circumvents mobile banking app security by simply forwarding the infected mobile's SMS messages to a command and control mobile, owned by cyber criminals. It is common for ...

HEXUS

Cyberwarfare - new arms race
The Nation
It is a kind of information warfare that some pundits compare to conventional warfare, although this analogy is controversial and has dangerous implications meriting closer examination. Richard A. Clarke, US government security expert, in his book Cyber War ...

Web apps experience 2700+ attacks per year
Help Net Security
Join the Smart Grid Security Virtual Summit · SignatureLink introduces ... According to a new Imperva report, the average attack incident for the observed Web applications lasted seven minutes and 42 seconds, but the longest attack incident lasted an hour and 19 minutes. SQL Injection remains the most ... “The cyber battlefield looks a lot more like a border keeping mission than total war – most of the time very little happens, but every once in a while there's an outbreak of attacks,” said Shulman. “Regardless of the ...

Help Net Security

FinFisher Spyware Reach Found on Five Continents: Report
Bloomberg
The FinFisher spyware made by U.K.- based Gamma Group likely has previously undisclosed global reach, with computers on at least five continents showing signs of being command centers that run the intrusion tool, according to cybersecurity experts. FinFisher can secretly monitor computers -- intercepting ... The emerging picture of the commercially available spyware's reach shines a light on the growing, global marketplace for cyber weapons with potential consequences. “Once anymalware is used in the wild, ...

Honeywell Integrates Bit9 Advanced Threat Protection into its Experion Control ...
EON: Enhanced Online News (press release)
Under terms of an OEM agreement, Bit9 is providing Honeywell with a comprehensive solution—including application control and whitelisting—that is a key component of Honeywell's evolvingcyber-security arsenal that protects against intrusions by permitting only applications and executable files that are considered safe and on the “approved list” to run, while blocking all others.... Click to Tweet: #Cybersecurity leader @Bit9 announces Honeywell integrates advanced threat protection into its Experion Platform ...

OpFake, FakeInst Android Malware Variants Continue to Resist Detection
Threatpost (blog)
One of those variants, a new version of OpFake, a strain of Android malware that sends SMS texts to premium numbers, was found last month fully integrated with a copy of Opera's Mini browser. Another SMS Trojan, FakeInst, infects systems in a similar way and ... I am concerned about the serious security implications that come along with this sort of technology. Who cares? NFC mobile payments are no more or less secure than using a credit ... Listen to Latest Podcasts. Joe Stewart on APTs and Cyber Espionage ...

Financial Services Legislative And Regulatory Update -- August 6, 2012
JD Supra (press release)
As has been the case for much of the year, legislative paralysis reigned supreme, as neither side could find the votes to advance a farm bill, a cyber security bill or even legislation to help with drought relief. This continued state of stasis appears to be only ...

Mehdi Khalaji: Iran and the Human Rights Opening
Wall Street Journal
Action on Iran's domestic brutality can prevent the Islamic Republic from labeling sanctions as something they are not intended to be: an attack on the Iranian public. Article; Comments. more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ». smaller; Larger. By MEHDI KHALAJI. With tensions mounting over Iran's nuclear program, the West has dealt the Tehran regime crippling blows on several fronts, including through sanctions, the targeted killing of scientists, and cyber operations such as the Stuxnet virus. Tehran is no ...

Wall Street Journal

How To Back Up Your Photos Right Now: A Public Service Announcement
Huffington Post
Back Up Photos. Mat Honan had a worse Friday night than you did: The Gizmodo and Wired writer was hacked by two nineteen-year-old cyber pranksters, who remotely gained access to several of his personal online accounts and wiped clean his laptop, iPhone, iPad and Gmail account. ... Each of these programs will walk you through the process of backing up your entire system onto an external hard drive, just in case anything -- like, say, a devastating hack attack -- happens to you and your gadgets. *. Unless you ...

Web apps are attacked one out of three days, report says
Computerworld
IDG News Service - A typical Web application is the target of an attack at least one in three days on average, according to a report released by data security firm Imperva. The third edition of Imperva's semi-annual Web Application ... Establishing a Formal Cyber Intelligence Capability: Organizations are realizing that advanced intelligence capabilities consistently deliver substantial cost savings - with proactive insights on true threats, the intelligence to avoid... DNS: Risk, Reward and Managed Services: In this report, ...

Ransomeware, a Quick-and-Dirty Bribery Scam, Targets Europe
eWeek
IT Security & Network Security News & Reviews - eWeek ... Using such cyber-criminal toolkits, attackers can build Websites that exploit software vulnerabilities on visitors' systems to install malicious software. Once installed, the ransomware uses geolocation to determine ... The attack has become popular enough that Poland's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT Polska) published an advisory detailing two methods of unlocking an infected computer without paying the ransomers. Prior to the advisory, the ...

Commentary: How the US can avoid a blackout like India
CNNMoney
For those that believe hacking is impossible, Iran's nuclear facilities recently suffered a cyber attackthat took down computers while AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" played loudly on computers on site. Stuxnet ... The events in Iran should be a strong wake-up call to the North American Electric Reliability Corp. and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to strengthen and enforce securitystandards surrounding critical power generators and important cyber assets in order to avoid unwanted power disruptions. The U.S. ...

Users of some DC online services get malware warning
Washington Times
But the episode shined a light on the vulnerabilities attached to an increasingly cyber-based world. The District, like other governments, is leveraging user-friendly programs and apps that make it easier to tackle the concerns of city life, such as feeding the ...

Washington Times

CLOUD COVER: Tips on secure cloud computing
Hindustan Times
Last week Wired writer Mat Honan was subject to an epic hacking attack that took over his Google account, compromised his Twitter account and led to his AppleID account being accessed and used to remotely wipe both his iPhone and his iPad. ...While one school of thought on cyber security speaks of keeping confidential files backed up on your own personal storage such as an external hard drive, there is an equal case for cloud-based storage of files, because the service provider can sweep and scan the files, ...

Hindustan Times

President Weighs Options After Cyber-Security Bill Fails in Senate ...
By jim
After the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to win approval in the Senate, the White House is considering a number of options and has not ruled out the possibility of an executive order, according to a report. The White House is ... “As such, it's reasonable to expect that utilities are looking more closely at what kind of security is the right fit for smart-grid technologies, given the increasing concerns that they, too, may be a target for hacktivists or worse—cyber-warfare,” he said. Among other ...
FISMA Focus

Smart Grid Blog & News » Blog Archive » Cyber attacks against ...
By Derek
He warned that more attacks are targeting critical infrastructure and asked Congress to pass toughcybersecurity legislation. via Smart Grid: Cyber attacks against infrastructure jump 17-fold warns National Security Agency. No related posts.
NTS Smart Grid Blog

Senate Fails to Advance Key Cybersecurity Legislation | NSBA
By Michael Berson
Whether or not an agreement can be reached on amendments (among other issues) remains to be seen, but time is running out to enact legislation to address our nation's cyber vulnerabilities. Addressing our nation's cyber vulnerabilities is of ...
NSBA

Inside: The Evolving Threat: Hackers & Gaming Platforms | Ping! Zine
By Ping! Zine Editor
Sony has just pulled access to the network in response to a cyber-attack that possibly stole personal information pertaining to around 77 million user accounts. The actual attack is later revealed to have directly impacted Sony's San Diego, ...
Ping! Zine

How seriously do you take cyber security? Our pen tests will tell you ...
By James Warren
How seriously do you take cyber security? Our pen tests will tell you! August 8th, 2012 by James Warren. Does your IT system meet the minimum cybersecurity requirements, or is it vulnerable to criminal hacking activity?
IT Governance Blog on IT governance,...

Cyber-warfare: New Arms Race | Opinion Maker
By S M Hali
Richard A. Clarke, US government security expert, in his book Cyber War (May 2010), defines "Cyberwarfare" as "actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or ... There have been reports of one-time attacks against personal computers used by members of Al-Qaeda, and of contemplated attacks against the computers that run air defense systems, including during the NATO-led air attack on Libya last year.
Opinion Maker

deal architect : More fears than cheers
He is the Tom Clancy for the new age of drones and cyber bots. And he was mild compared to reading this BusinessWeek roundtable on cybersecurity It ends with the moderator reacting to one of the panelists. Well, if you don't know, that's the ...
deal architect

How Cyber Security Could Be a Winning Issue for Obama - Time
Those are all potential, and entirely plausible, consequences of a cyber attack, according to a range of current and former national security officials, including the ...
swampland.time.com/.../how-cyber-security-could-be-a-winni...

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