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Program aiming to facilitate cyberthreat information sharing is slow to take off
President Barack Obama’s 2013 executive orderto improve critical infrastructure cybersecurity allows DHS to expand an information-sharing program, once restricted to Pentagoncontractors, to sixteencritical infrastructure industries. The Enhanced Cybersecurity Servicesprogram transmits cyber threat indicators to selected companies so they may prepare their network protection systems to scan for those indicators. A DHS inspector general (IG) reportreleased on Monday has found that just about forty companies from three of the sixteen industries — energy, communications services, and defense — are part of the program. Moreover, only two ISPs are authorized to receive the indicators.
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Two major security vulnerabilities found in majority of world’s smartphones
Researchers have uncovered two major vulnerabilities in smart phones from manufacturers including Apple, Google Android, and Blackberry, among others. These flaws could put up to 90 percent of the world’s two billion smartphones at risk for stolen data, password theft, and the potential for hackers even to take control of the device.
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Keith Alexander turns government experience into lucrative private sector career
Cybersecurity industry insiders are questioning the ethics behind recently retired NSA chief Keith Alexander’s decision to launch IronNet Cybersecurity, a private consultancy, equipped with patents for what he refers to as a game-changing cybersecurity model. Alexander says there is nothing out of the ordinary here. “If I retired from the Army as a brain surgeon, wouldn’t it be OK for me to go into private practice and make money doing brain surgery? I’m a cyber guy. Can’t I go to work and do cyber stuff?”
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New device sniffs out billions in U.S. currency smuggled across the border
Criminals are smuggling an estimated $30 billion in U.S. currency into Mexico each year from the United States, but help could be on the way for border guards, researchers reported. The answer to the problem: a portable device that identifies specific vapors given off by U.S. paper money.
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Utilities increasingly aware of grid vulnerability
An analysis by the federal government shows that if only nine of the country’s 55,000 electrical substations were shut down due to mechanical failure or malicious attack, the nation would experience coast-to-coast blackout. Another report finds cybersecurity as one of the top five concerns for U.S. electric utilities in 2014. The report also found that 32 percent of the surveyed electric utilities had deployed security systems with the “proper segmentation, monitoring and redundancies” needed for adequate cyber protection.
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Harris protests FBI’s Motorola radio upgrade contract
The Harris Corp. has become the second contractor, afterRELM Wireless Corp., formally to protest the FBI’s decision to award a $500 million non-bid contract to Motorola Solutions Inc., claiming the contract to upgrade the FBI’s 30-year-old two-way radio network was “factually unsound, legally unwarranted and wholly unnecessary.”
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Home Depot faces lawsuit over Joplin, Missouri tornado deaths
Home Depot is being sued in a wrongful death lawsuit by a woman who lost her husband and two children during a 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri. Edie Housel is contending that Home Depot is responsible for the death of her family due to the improper construction of the Home Depot store in which the three — along with five other people — were killed.
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FDA authorizes use of unapproved Ebola virus test
As Ebola continues to spread throughout West Africa, the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) has authorized the use of an unapproved Ebola virus test developed by the Department of Defensefor use in individuals, including U.S. military personnel and responders, who may be at risk of infection because of their work with individuals who might have the virus.The Test-tube diagnostic test is one of the Pentagon’s investment in developing a vaccine or cure for Ebola.
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Philadelphia refines area 911 call locator technology
In the Philadelphia area and around much of the country, emergency services and first responders are looking to retool the ways in which cell phone locator technology could allow them to aid individuals, and they are calling for the further cooperation of cell phone providers and the government alike. “If you don’t know where the guy is, you can’t help him,” said Edwin Truitt, the Delaware County [Pennsylvania] Emergency Services director.
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Ebola outbreak could inspire African terrorist groups to weaponize the virus: Experts
Recent discussions about Ebola have mainly focused on the disease as a public health hazard, but counterterrorism officials are concerned that the new outbreak could inspire terror groups, specifically those based in West Africa, to weaponize the virus. The fear of weaponized Ebola dates back decades to when the Soviet Union’s VECTOR program, aimed at researching biotechnology and virology, was thought to have researched the creation of Ebola for warfare. In 1992 a Japanese cult group called Aum Shinrikyo tried, but failed, to collect samples of the Ebola virus in Zaire.
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Luminex’s diagnostics tool used in Africa to help control Ebola outbreak
Luminex said the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) Diagnostics Division is working on rapid diagnostics for the Ebola virus using Luminex xMAP Technology. Luminex’s MAGPIX system was recently deployed to Africa to support research efforts to control the current outbreak.
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U.S. to impose stricter safety rules on crude oil rail shipment
The U.S. Department of Transportation(DOT) recently announced proposed rulesbetter to secure train cars and pipelines from oil spills that may lead to fire or accidents in communities across the country. The spills are byproducts of the increase in U.S. oil production and shipments coming from Canada or the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. The proposed DOT rules would force railroads to upgrade railroad cars used for transporting crude oil, employ better braking systems, and enforce tighter speed controls.
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Assessing flood risk in a changing climate
Growing consensus on climate and land use change means that it is reasonable to assume, at the very least, that flood levels in a region may change. In an argument grounded in an analysis of the inherent limitations of statistical analyses, the authors of a new study suggest that researchers’ typical starting assumption that flood behavior is not changing — even in the face of suspected trends in extreme events and knowledge of how difficult such trends are to detect — causes water managers to undervalue flood protection benefits, opening the door to unnecessary losses down the line.
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Tech firm creates software pairing response systems with open data
A new application, called Disaster Assessment and Assistance Dashboard (DAAD), harnesses emergency response data in real-time and across multiple departments and agencies. DAAD will function as a central hub for information in the event of a disaster — using more than 100 different interfaces that upload data. Additionally, the hub will work in accordance with all manner of local government organizations such as fire stations, police stations and hospitals to further create a larger picture during the actual moments of an emergency.
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New rules proposed for crude oil shipments
U.S Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary Anthony Foxx has announced that the department is proposing new rules for shipments of high-hazard crude oil by trains, as well as moving to phase out the use of older tank cars that many see as unsafe. The order follows a deadly year for oil train accidents, including a July 2013 derailment in Lac Megantic, Quebec resulting in the deaths of forty-seven people and a 30 April derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia.
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More headlines
The long view
Ransomware Attacks: Death Threats, Endangered Patients and Millions of Dollars in Damages
A ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a company that processes 15 billion health care transactions annually and deals with 1 in 3 patient records in the United States, is continuing to cause massive disruptions nearly three weeks later. The incident, which started on February 21, has been called the “most significant cyberattack on the U.S. health care system” by the American Hospital Association. It is just the latest example of an increasing trend.
Chinese Government Hackers Targeted Critics of China, U.S. Businesses and Politicians
An indictment was unsealed Monday charging seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for their involvement in a PRC-based hacking group that spent approximately 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses, and political officials in furtherance of the PRC’s economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.