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McCaul to draft cybersecurity bill
House Homeland Security chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said he was drafting his own cybersecurity bill, which will define the role of DHS in sharing information with private companies about cyber threats. McCaul hopes to agree on a compromise with the White House, which threatened to veto the bill.
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U.S., China in high-level military talks
Representatives of China and the United States met on Monday for the highest-level military talks between the two counties in almost two years. In the meeting, a senior Chinese general pledged to work with the United States on cybersecurity because the effects of a major cyber attack “may be as serious as a nuclear bomb.”
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White House threatens to veto House cybersecurity bill
The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto the cybersecurity bill drafted by the House of Representatives. The house is expected to vote on the bill later this week. The cybersecurity bill died in the Senate last August after the White House said it would veto the bill.
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U.S. Army weak on mobile devices security
The U.S. Army has developed a mobile strategy to guide its adoption of mobile devices. A Department of Defense audit found that the Army has been lax in developing security guidelines for the use of the thousands of mobile devices now in service, and that these already-weak and insufficient security guidelines are inconsistently implemented.
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China, U.S. to team up on cybersecurity
Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Saturday that China and the United States will join forces to start a working group on cybersecurity.Kerry’s announcement follows several attempts for a dialogue on the topic between the two sides.
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Proposed budget shows DHS will have to do with less
The administration’s proposed 2013 budget shows that DHS will have to do with less: the department $39 billion is $625 million less than the department’s2012 budget, and, in addition, the department has committed to save an additional $1.3 billion by reducing administrative costs. Among the big-ticket items in the new budget: $714 million for a state-of-the-art animal disease lab; $494 million to fund research and development in cybersecurity, explosives detection, and chemical/biological response systems; and $221 million for 1,600 additional Border Patrol agents.
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House panel approves CISPA, angering privacy advocates
The U.S. House Intelligence Committee passed a cybersecurity measure by an overwhelming vote, a measure which privacy advocates dislike because, they argue, it does not protect the personal information of citizens.
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DHS, international tech-crime investigative body, partners on cybersecurity
The High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA) said it would team up with DHS Stop. Think. Connect. Campaign’s National Network. The partnership will promote awareness of cyber security to industry, university, and government organizations nationwide.
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Sponsors of CISPA to address nagging privacy concerns about the bill
House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland), sponsors of the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), say they are currently working on the draft to alleviate privacy concerns civil liberty advocates may have about the bill.
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Future computers will identify users by thoughts, not passwords
Instead of typing your password, in the future you may only have to think your password, according to researchers. A new study explores the feasibility of brainwave-based computer authentication as a substitute for passwords.
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A better single-photon emitter for quantum cryptography
In a development that could make the advanced form of secure communications known as quantum cryptography more practical, researchers have demonstrated a simpler, more efficient single-photon emitter that can be made using traditional semiconductor processing techniques.
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House Intelligence Committee to work on cybersecurity bill in camera
The House Intelligence Committee will meet next week in order to draft a cybersecurity bill, known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), but will not allow media members or the public to sit in on meetings during the process.
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Fully secure communication
Can worldwide communication ever be fully secure? Quantum physicists believe they can provide secret keys using quantum cryptography via satellite. These physicists have, for the first time, successfully transmitted a secure quantum code through the atmosphere from an aircraft to a ground station.
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NYPD issues strict guidelines for use of social media by officers
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has issued strict guidelines for employees using social media, and ordered its employees to take a second look at their profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites to ensure they conform to the new rules. The NYPD follows other police departments around the country in insisting that police officers draw a clearer line between their private life, as reflected in their social media postings, and their official duties.
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DHS seeking student hackers
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday said that due to “new and rapidly growing threats” of a cyberattack, hundreds of college-age hackers are needed to help deal with the massive number of daily incursions into the nation’s electrical grid and other critical infrastructure.
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More headlines
The long view
States Rush to Combat AI Threat to Elections
This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes. Congress has done little to address the issue, but states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.
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.
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Vulnerable to Road Object Spoofing and Vanishing Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the potentially hazardous vulnerabilities associated with the technology called LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, many autonomous vehicles use to navigate streets, roads and highways. The researchers have shown how to use lasers to fool LiDAR into “seeing” objects that are not present and missing those that are – deficiencies that can cause unwarranted and unsafe braking or collisions.
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.