Cybersecurity News

It’s been a fairly quiet week for Washington, as Monday kicked off the start to a five-week congressional recess.

But not wasting any time on the cybersecurity front, Hartford Business Journal reports that Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on Monday addressed an audience of New England business leaders to warn of potential cyberterrorism and cyber crime.

“This is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Lieberman said.

According to the Journal, the senator went on to add that, while about $1 trillion is lost each year to cyber crime, both Congress and Lieberman’s committee, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, are “working on requirements for software developers, giving the president emergency powers over the Internet in the case of an attack, and taking greater control over the federal government’s cybersecurity advisors.”

Meanwhile, Time Magazine this morning published an article on the cyber catchphrase that Sen. Lieberman and his cohorts have been working hard to silence.  That is, the Internet “kill switch.”

Noting the widely debated measure in the co-sponsored cyber legislation of Sens. Lieberman, Carper and Collins’ Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, the article suggests that the bill would provide too much power to the President in the event of a cyber attack.

“Given how important the Internet has become to freedom of speech, political organizing and daily life, that is not a power that should be handed over lightly, even in the name of national security. We are entitled to know exactly what the government proposes to do — in language clear enough for both lawyers and nonlawyers to understand,” advised former Time writer Adam Cohen.

And while issues of privacy and net neutrality continue to dominate news on the Federal Communications Commision, an article in The Hill reports that the agency this week called on the public “for input on what stakeholders and the public see as major cybersecurity vulnerabilities and what role the commission should play in addressing them.”

“Cybersecurity is a vital topic for the commission because end-user lack of trust in online experiences will quell demand for broadband services,” the FCC included in a public notice.

Additional cybersecurity news follows:

Video: Governments battle to stay ahead of threats on Internet (PBS NewsHour)

DARPA lays out bedrock R&D privacy principles (Federal Computer Week)

Zeus Trojan steals $1 million from U.K. bank accounts (CNET)

Most Web users OK with cyberspying (PC World)

Hacktivist takes on the world’s dictators (Newsweek)

Computer virus hits Kern Medical Center (NBC – California)

An electronic Pearl Harbor (Suffolk News-Herald)

Raising the level of debate on security – or talking shop? (Computer Business Review)

Korea looks to place cybersecurity on G20 agenda (The New New Internet)

Malaysia and Australia sign cyber agreement (The New New Internet)