• Top U.S. cyber official: cyber threat poses existential threat to U.S.

    Senior Obama administration official: “I am convinced that given enough time, motivation and funding, a determined adversary will always — always — be able to penetrate a targeted system”; as a result: “The cyber threat can be an existential threat — meaning it can challenge our country’s very existence, or significantly alter our nation’s potential”

  • iPhone, IE8, Firefox, and Safari easily hacked at Pwn2Own contest

    Hackers gathered for an annual contest in Vancouver demonstrate easy hacking of iPhone and all major browsers; a non-jailbroken iPhone was also hacked and its SMS database stolen; security measures taken by Firefox, Safari, and IE8 no match for hackers

  • Israeli scientist invents a laser-based security tool for the CIA -- and for online shoppers

    When the RSA system for digital information security was introduced in the 1970s, the researchers who invented it predicted that their 200-bit key would take a billion years to crack; well, it was cracked five years ago; it is still the most secure system for consumers to use today when shopping online or using a bank card, but as computers become increasingly powerful, the idea of using the RSA system becomes more fragile; the solution lies in a new kind of system to keep prying eyes off secure information

  • DHS to work with ISP to test Einstein 3 cyber security system

    DHS will work with a commercial ISP to test the partially classified Einstein 3 system; Einstein 3 is designed to do real-time, deep packet inspection and threat-based decision making on data traffic entering or leaving federal agency networks

  • The Norton Top 10: Seattle is the riskiest U.S. city for cybercrime; Detroit is the safest

    A study of the cybercrime-proneness of fifty American cities finds that from the perspective of cybersecurity, Seattle is the riskiest city in America: If you live and work there and use the Internet, your are more vulnerable to cybercrime than in any other place; the cyber-safest cities: Detroit, Michigan, El Paso, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee

  • A small industry emerges to support would-be credit card thieves, malware writers

    There is money to be made in credit card theft, so a small industry has emerged to help commercialize the business; a software kit, known as Zeus, epitomizes the commercialization of the malware services industry: as is the case with other malicious software, Zeus can easily be bought online, in this case for between $400 and $700; detailed instructions on how to use it are readily available, too; to check whether a piece of malware is on the security companies’ blacklists, hackers can send their creations to Web sites such as virtest.com, which for just $1 will try the code out on more than twenty antivirus products; if the malware fails the test, would-be criminals can simply upload their malware to another site that will tweak it to render it unrecognizable

  • U.S. government pours money into cyber security technologies and R&D

    With a cumulative market valued at $55 billion (2010-15), the U.S. federal cybersecurity market will grow steadily at about 6.2 percent CAGR; new study says that Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology is in a very favorable position to emerge as a major line of cyber defense for years to come as the only technology that can deliver the good

  • U.S. cybercrime losses double

    The value of Internet crime loss complaints in the United States rose from $265 million in 2008 to reach $560 million last year; U.S. businesses lost $120 million in the third quarter of 2009 to phishing and Trojan-based online banking scams, according to figures from the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

  • U.K. spy agencies replace failed secret messaging system, try to recover money from IBM

    IBM was contracted by the British secret service to develop a secret, secure communication system for its operatives; after delays and technical failures, the contract was pulled and the intelligence services have launched a new project to extend a new secret messaging system to thousands of terminals across the intelligence agencies, as well as the Home Office, SOCA, Ministry of Defense, and other departments; at the same time, the government is still trying to recover the £24.4 million paid to IBM

  • Delay in start date for U.K. cyberdefense center

    The U.K. government’s Cyber Security Operations Center, charged with protecting Britain’s critical IT infrastructure, was supposed to become operational yesterday; the government said it would become operational by the end of the month

  • Toronto police to buy encrypted radios

    The Toronto police will spend CAN$35 million on encrypted radios; new system may shut out public eavesdroppers — by tow-truck drivers, the media, scanning enthusiasts — starting with the June 2010 G20 summit

  • GAO: U.S. government not properly coordinating cybersecurity efforts

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in addressing the Obama administration’s Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative (CNCI), a secretive initiative inherited from the Bush administration, warned that “Federal agencies have overlapping and uncoordinated responsibilities for cybersecurity, and it is unclear where the full responsibility for coordination lies”

  • Top concern at RSA 2010: security of cloud computing

    Cloud computing offers efficiency and cost reduction, but it also offer new opportunities to hackers and cybercriminals; Melissa Hathaway, former senior director for cyberspace for the National Security Council, said the migration toward the cloud is gaining momentum without having satisfactorily addressed several pressing concerns; former National Security Agency technical director Brian Snow said he does not trust the cloud

  • FBI: Cyber-terrorism a real and growing threat to U.S.

    FBI director Robert Mueller: “The risks are right at our doorsteps and in some cases they are in the house”; Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar: “Every major company in the U.S. and Europe has been penetrated — it’s industrial warfare”

  • Private industry sees opportunities in cybersecurity

    Nadia Short, director of Strategic Planning and Business Development Information Assurance Division at General Dynamics: “The release of the [DHS] budgets earlier this month indicate a growth in cyberspending across all the services…. With that, as well as continuing the natural evolution of what cyber will mean for dot-gov and dot-mil, it will mean nothing but opportunity for private industry”