• New program to educate next generation of U.S. cybersecurity specialists

    University of Maryland and Northrop Grumman create a cybersecurity honors program for undergraduates; the program, Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES), will immerse undergraduate students in all aspects of the field to meet growing manpower needs in the nation and the State of Maryland

  • Veterans of Israel’s secretive Unit 8200 head many successful high-tech start-ups

    Unit 8200 is Israel’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) or GCHQ in Britain; what sets the unit apart from its SIGINT counterparts in the United States and Europe is that it does almost all its research and development in-house; this means that, aside from interpreters and analysts, the unit is home to a huge cadre of engineers, technicians, and programmers; one result is that veterans of Unit 8200 have founded many of Israel’s successful high-tech start-ups

  • Experts: Flame represents a new level of state-sponsored cyber attacks

    The latest cyber espionage malware, Flame, represents a new level of sophistication in state-sponsored cyberattacks; experts note that Flame circumvented anti-virus programs, and remained undetected between two and five years; one expert says: “[Flame] uses multiple exploit combinations so it is pretty significant that it hid itself, but maybe the best ones have not been discovered yet”; another expert says: “The failure to detect Flame means simplistic signature-based detection is obsolete”

  • QinetiQ North America to provide cybersecurity services to DOT

    QinetiQ North America (QNA) was awarded a new task order by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to provide cybersecurity services to protect the U.S. transportation and control systems and critical infrastructure

  • NSA launches cyber operations academic program

    The NSA has launched National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Operations Program; the program is intended to be a deeply technical, inter-disciplinary, higher education program grounded in the computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or electrical engineering (EE) disciplines, with extensive opportunities for hands-on applications via labs and exercises

  • DHS forced to release list terms it monitors on social media

    Following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Privacy Information center (EPIC), DHS was forced to release its 2011 Analyst’s Desktop Binder; the binder, among other things, contains a list of words DHS uses as triggers of suspicious communication when the department’s analysts monitor social media

  • Malware intelligence system allow organizations to share threat information

    As malware threats expand into new domains and increasingly focus on industrial espionage, researchers are launching a new tool to help battle the threats: a malware intelligence system which will help corporate and government security officials share information about the attacks they are fighting

  • How govt. can achieve IT savings, innovation

    Innovative shifts in technology can springboard government into a new era of efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency;  lawmakers urged to focus not only on technology infrastructure to achieve savings and efficiencies, but also consider how the government procures and delivers

  • SAIC Launches Inaugural Utah Cyber Defense Challenge and Symposium 2012

    SAIC will lead a Utah statewide cyber competition and symposium designed to raise cyber awareness across government, academia, and industry; the Utah Cyber Defense Challenge and Symposium (UCDC) 2012, to be held 1 June

  • Execs offered cyber security degree track at NYU-Poly

    Polytechnic Institute of New York University says that because defending institutional data against attack depends equally on cyber security experts as well as executives who command management and technical skills, it is introducing a management track to its master’s degree in cyber security; first classes begin this summer

  • Using Twitter to share information after a disaster

    A new study shows how people used Twitter following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan, highlighting challenges for using the social media tool to share information; the study also indicates that social media have not changed what we communicate so much as how quickly we can disseminate it

  • Texas fights identity theft

    Everything is bigger in Texas, including the number of instances of identity manipulation; according to an April report from ID Analytics, the cities of Beaumont and El Paso lead the nation in per-capita identity manipulation attempts

  • McAfee, Intel collaborate on protecting energy infrastructure

    McAfee and Intel will collaborate on improving the protection of the world’s energy utilities, including generation, transmission, and distribution, from increased cyber attacks; the two companies have provided a blueprint for a comprehensive solution of multiple products which create layers of security and operate together without great complexity or without impacting availability

  • Self-adapting computer network that actively defends itself against hackers

    Researchers are looking into the feasibility of building a computer network that could protect itself against online attackers by automatically changing its setup and configuration; the researchers will examine whether this type of adaptive cybersecurity, called moving-target defense, can be effective – and cost-effective

  • Travelers’ laptops infected through fake software updates in foreign hotel rooms

    Recent analysis from the FBI and other government agencies demonstrates that malicious actors are targeting travelers abroad through pop-up windows while establishing an Internet connection in their hotel rooms