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CyberKey receives multimillion dollar order from DHS
A nifty solution to storing emergency response information
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BroadWare upgrades media server to enhance surveillance capabilities
Upgraded digital surveillance system will greatly benefit homeland security and law enforcement
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Northrop Grumman, Lockheed vie for postponed FBI computer update project
Two giants compete for an FBI computer upgrade — but project postponed yet again
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Congress fed up, sort of, with recalcitrant chemical industry
Win some, lose some: Congress to impose security reporting requirements on stubborn industry, but chemical plants will still devise their own security standards
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The long view
FCC Bans Use of Federal Funds in Purchases of Chinese Telecom
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on 22 November blocked U.S. telecommunications providers from using an $8.5 billion subsidy fund – the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) — to buy Chinese-made telecommunications gear deemed a national security threat to critical infrastructure. The U.S. said that given Huawei and ZTE’s close relationship and legal obligations to the Chinese government, their gear poses a threat to telecommunications critical infrastructure, as well as to national security.
The Sea Wanted to Take This California Lighthouse. Now, It’s Part of a Conflict Between a Town and Two Tribes
For decades, the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse stood like atop the coastal bluff overlooking the rocky outcrops of Trinidad Bay in northern California. But then, climate change began to take its toll: “the ground began to crumble. Rain moved the earth. The bluff cracked, a sidewalk warped, and thus ended the charmed life of the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, which suddenly threatened to slide into the Pacific,” Hailey Branson-Potts writes.
The Drums of Cyberwar
A recent study found that if hackers were to take down the electric grid in just fifteen states and Washington, D.C., 93 million people would be without power, quickly leading to a “rise in mortality rates as health and safety systems fail; a decline in trade as ports shut down; disruption to water supplies as electric pumps fail and chaos to transport networks as infrastructure collapses.” The cost to the economy, the study reported, would be astronomical: anywhere from $243 billion to $1 trillion. “Sabotaging critical infrastructure may not be as great an existential threat as climate change or nuclear war, but it has imperiled entire populations already and remains a persistent probability,” Sue Halperin writes.
The Earth Needs Multiple Methods for Removing CO2 from the Air to Avert Worst of Climate Change
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history, and nine of the warmest years have occurred since 2005. “Avoiding catastrophic impacts on our coastal infrastructure, biodiversity, food, energy and water resources will require more. In particular, many climate researchers like myself believe government needs to advance technology that will actually suck carbon dioxide out of the air and put it away for very long periods,” David Goldberg writes.
U.S. Military Precariously Unprepared for Climate Threats, War College & Retired Brass Warn
A series of climate-related disasters has paralyzed the strategic capabilities of several U.S military bases in recent years. David Hasemyer writes that it has exposed the military’s vulnerability to extreme weather, shining light on its failure to prepare adequately and on the consequences this lack of preparation could have for U.S. national security.
5. The Ransomware Menace
Experts say that 2019 should be declared the Year of Ransomware Escalation. The increasing number of attacks and the move by perpetrators to target large companies and public institutions in the United States and abroad is a turning point in the evolution of this digital form of blackmail.