Cybersecurity News

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.”

And while the waiting will continue over into the new year, one aide for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee advised, “Speed is not the issue. The issue is getting it right.  We’re talking about one of the biggest economic and security threats of our time. Progress should not be measured by how fast we get it done but how well.”

But time is of the essence for another nation state facing cyber woes in advance of its upcoming elections.

According to the AFP, the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar has suffered a major Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber attack just ahead of its Sunday elections — a voting process that would come as the first in 20 years for Myanmar.

And as foreign journalists have been prohibited from entering the country to cover the election, many are speculating that the mass network connection issues and outages may be the product of military junta attempting to disrupt services to block news from flowing out of its rebel-ruled nation.

So while one nation’s elections wrap up and the other’s appears to be under wraps, it looks like we’re all waiting on some decent cybersecurity.  Until then, check out some cyber headlines you may have missed:

Google invites hackers to break in (PC World)

GSA releases government-wide guidelines for cloud computing (The Hill)

Antivirus for Apple hits the right price: Free (Forbes)

DHS: Cyber defenders will respect civil rights (Associated Press)

Analysis: Cyber defenders, attackers probe Stuxnet’s secrets (Reuters)

DHS secretary Napolitano hails DoD cybersecurity collaboration during military visit (HSToday)

US forces need to adopt more active cyber defenses (Signal Magazine)

Reshaping cybersecurity leadership under the GOP (GovInfoSecurity)

GAO: ‘Significant’ cybersecurity weaknesses at NARA (FierceGovIT)

Managing cybersecurity by breaking down silos (Federal News Radio)

Bill to define president’s cyber defense role stalls (Federal Times)