Archive
Thanksgiving Catch-Up
Happy Thanksgiving, Cybersecurity News Readers!
Whether you’re waiting for your turkey to come out of the oven, or for the next football game to start, or maybe you just stumbled onto the site by accident, whatever it may be, I wanted to take a second to thank you all for your support here at CybersecurityNews.org.
And with that said, here’s a look at some of the latest cybersecurity headlines…
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DHS Official: Stuxnet is a ‘Game Changer’ Threat to US Cybersecurity
The threat of a cyber attack on the nation’s critical infrastructure is real. And Stuxnet, the highly sophisticated and malicious piece of software attacking industrial systems worldwide, is taking that threat to a new level, government officials and IT industry execs warned on Wednesday.
Testifying at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, witnesses alerted Congress of the need for an increased effort in securing the nation’s critical infrastructure before it faces potentially catastrophic damage posed by Stuxnet or any other emerging malware unleashed on corresponding control systems.
Recognizing that 85 percent of US necessity-based technology, including water purification and electricity generation systems, belongs to the private sector, Sean McGurk, Acting Director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center at the Department of Homeland Security, told the committee, “DHS takes threats to our private sector critical cyber infrastructure as seriously as we take threats to our conventional, physical infrastructure because our society and our economy depend on these networks and systems to operate effectively.”
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New Facebook Message System Will ‘Friend’ Cybersecurity
The tech world was buzzing yesterday as Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team launched its new messaging system, a tool that will seek to unify and simplify communication, incorporating emails, instant messages, texts, chats and other online conversations into one platform.
And while the means of communicating as we know it will become almost effortless for many of Facebook’s half a billion active users worldwide, those of us in the cybersecurity world couldn’t help but wonder if the site’s new “seamless messaging” would, in fact, prove to be seamless on all fronts, including that of security.
To track down those answers, Cybersecurity News caught up with Facebook to ask what precautions the social media giant would take to secure the new influx of user data and to seek out potential vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
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New Reports Find More US Cyber Vulnerabilities
A congressional commission is scheduled to release a report this week stating that Internet traffic, including that on US federal and military websites, was redirected through Chinese computer servers back in April.
Receiving an advance look at the report, the Washington Times this morning said that the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission found that almost 15 percent of the world’s Internet traffic, including .gov and .mil websites, “were affected by the 18-minute-long April 8 redirection, including those for the Senate, all four military services, the office of the secretary of defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ‘and many others,’ as well as commercial websites including those of Dell, Yahoo, Microsoft and IBM.”
According to the report, while it is not yet clear if the redirect was an intentional breach of security, “at the very least, these incidents demonstrate the inherent vulnerabilities in the Internet’s architecture.”
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Congress & Cybersecurity: On-Again, Off-Again… Again
Turns out cybersecurity may not be dead in 2010. Remember Stuxnet, the ol’ computer worm wreaking havoc on major industrial systems around the globe, including that of Iran’s nuclear power plant?
Well, it’s back. Or maybe it never left. But this time, it’s back on the Congressional platter, as an item of interest to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
According to the Committee’s calendar, a hearing will take place on the morning of Wednesday, November 17, to discuss “Securing Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Stuxnet.”
Panel witnesses for the hearing include: Sean McGurk, Acting Director, National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center for the US Department of Homeland Security; Michael J. Assante, President and CEO of the National Board of Information Security Examiners; Dean Turner, Director of Global Intelligence Network for Symantec Corporation; and Mark W. Gandy, Global Manager of IT Security and Information Asset Management for Dow Corning Corporation.
Stay tuned for the outcome…
Cyberheisting a Hacker’s Story
Greetings fellow cybersecurity news junkies. I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, after encountering unpredicted sleet in New York on Monday. So in lieu of my own write up, let me direct your attention to a fascinating piece to be featured in the upcoming New York Times Magazine on “The Great Cyberheist,” which profiles the life and times [and arrest] of hacking mastermind Albert Gonzalez, a man known to many international black hats and US Secret Service agents as the “soupnazi.”
Gonzalez, a self-taught computer engineer, was able to hack into the NASA server by age 14, later becoming an informant for the FBI by-day, meanwhile, hacking into the business accounts of several large, well-known retail stores by-night, amassing sensitive data and stealing over 40 million credit card numbers…
Elections Cause Cyber Delays Here, Attacks There
Good afternoon, Cybersecurity News readers. As the election hangover begins to subside in Washington, and as the once-minority GOP members prepare to make the shift into House leadership, it’s safe to say that cybersecurity has been put to bed on the Hill for what’s left of 2010.
And while some will place the blame on Congress, Politico this morning said that Hill aides are finger-pointing elsewhere. That is, over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where the White House is said to be lagging on its input for the cyber legislation currently collecting dust on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s desk.
According to the report, Hill aides say they are “still awaiting the administration’s line on some of the bill’s key issues, including whether cybersecurity professionals should be certified, the kinds of powers the president should have in an emergency and how cybersecurity standards should be set.”
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