Integrated Cyber Operations – Defense Tech
The modern military has a broad spectrum of operations. We have the ability to wage war on land, sea, air, in space and now via the Internet. The weaponry and strategies accompanying this spectrum was expanded with the introduction of cyber weapons into the modern day arsenal. That being said, they do have a significant drawback: reliability.
The late, legendary comedian Rodney Dangerfield long complained about getting “no respect.” After attending Wednesday morning’s Government Executive Leadership Series breakfast, “Cyber Security: Who Leads,” DHS may feel like using Rodney’s most memorable line to describe its placement in the federal cyber world. In what was a first-class discussion of the challenges and issues compounding the federal and international cyber-security environment, nary a word was mentioned about DHS and the role they play in leading the country’s cyber security efforts.
NIST releases update to smart grid standards – NextGov
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Wednesday released additional details on requirements for developing the smart electric grid.
Today, we tend to conflate cyber crime with cyber espionage and cyber warfare. We call all of them attacks, and this confuses an issue that is already complicated and hard to understand. Cyber crime is basically a commercial endeavor, designed to make money. The others are intended to gain advantage or cause mischief. So, what are some cyber crime examples?
L.A. Law Firm Reports Cyber Attacks – Wall Street Journal
A Los Angeles-based law firm representing a U.S. company in a $2.2 billion suit against the Chinese government and several global computer makers said Wednesday it has suffered cyber attacks originating in China.
It’s been no secret that our various cyber networks have been susceptible to attack, and public reports on this have basically been greeted by the conventional up and down head-bob followed by the expedited and innocuous statement, “Yes, this is serious.” While there is nothing wrong with those reactions and the attention is surely warranted, something has dramatically changed, and it’s screaming on headlines across the country – Google is threatening to leave China.
Recently, an official of the National Security Agency stated that the shortage of highly talented information security professionals had not yet hurt our security, but that it sure made the job more of a challenge. The operative word here is “yet.” Thank God for those professionals manning the terminals across all of our diverse infrastructure sectors. They are holding off the growing tide of cyber threats, and they need help.
Many commentators (including me) have called Cloud Computing the way of the future. Indeed, I still believe that is true; however, a new wrinkle has come up with regard to the cloud’s security. It seems hackers are using the computing power of the cloud to do bad things. Instead of laboriously working through passwords trying to crack them, hackers have used cloud providers’ linked virtual networks to apply enormous computing power to break codes and perform attacks.
In this second installment of Congressional Quarterly’s survey of homeland security experts, a number of contributors to Security Debrief consider the Obama administration’s largest error in 2009. Some of the responses are provided below.
Once again, I join with my blogging colleagues in offering some predictions for the coming year. I have kept it to six, so as not to get carried away, and I kept them general, so I have a better chance of being right. Some are nearly no-brainers, but several are definitely going out on a limb. I will let the readers judge if I am “sawing” on the correct side or not.
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