• CIA awards Xe $100 million contract to guard facilities in several countries

    The CIA awards Xe Services, nee Blackwater Worldwide, a $100 million contract to provide security services in Afghanistan and in “multiple regions”; this follows a $120 million contract the State Department awarded Xe to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan

  • UGI proposes innovative clean-up plan for Gulf

    BP’s oils spill now covers an area the size of Luxembourg; a U.K. clean-tech company joins with an Ohio-based partner to offer boat towing technology platforms specifically designed to remove the oil threatening the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and the waters around the Deepwater Horizon well; a towed membrane acts like blotting paper in attracting oil that can then be released only by mechanical pressure

  • Emergent sells anthrax vaccine to U.S. allies

    European countries, worried about bioterror attacks, are working on a plan to stock vaccines regionally — a Baltic stockpile, a Nordic stockpile, and so on would help in covering countries that have not expressed a desire to form their own stockpiles; a Maryland-based companies is providing these European countries with anthrax vaccine

  • TSA looks for commercial software to manage Secure Flight

    Managing the long — very long — No Fly and Terror Watch lists is not a simple task; TSA is looking to purchase commercial software to help manage its Secure Flight program which checks the information airlines collect about passengers against DHS terrorist watch lists

  • FAA brings flying car's day closer

    There is an inherent problem in designing a flying car: how to build a safe enough car that can still be light enough to compete with the other aircraft in its class; the FAA has given permission to Terrafugia, a flying car pioneer, to add an extra 110 pounds to the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) limit of 1,320 pounds maximum takeoff weight; the added weight will allow the company to add some automotive safety features such as airbags, crumple zones, and a safety cage, and still qualify as an LSA; the airplane will cruise at a speed of 115 miles per hour and a range of more than 450 miles; on the road, the two place, front wheel drive vehicle achieves a respectable 30 miles per gallon

  • Cybersecurity insurance gains more adherents

    With so many large U.S. companies suffering security breaches — and with companies losing an average of $234,000 per breach in 2009 — more consideration is being given to cybersecurity insurance; a crashed server policy is not as easy to write as a crashed car policy

  • Smart Grid cybersecurity market to reach $3.7 billion by 2015

    Spending on security for the smart grid will represent approximately 15 percent of total smart grid capital investment between now and 2015; cumulative investment in the security sector will reach $21 billion between 2010 and 2015, with annual revenue reaching $3.7 billion by 2015; among other incentives, one key condition for smart grid funding awarded last year under the federal stimulus program was that the awardees incorporate strong security into their smart grid initiatives

  • Marines to use autonomous vehicles built by Virginia Tech students

    Virginia Tech engineering students designed an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) which the U.S. Marines Corps will test in a war game in Hawaii; the unmanned vehicles are designed to resupply troops, to reduce the actual loads manually carried by Marines, and to provide an immediate means for the evacuation of any casualties in combat

  • Insuring cities against terrorist attacks

    Do small towns really need to spend money for terrorism insurance? To collect on such policies, an act of terrorism has to be certified by the U.S. attorney general, the Department of the Treasury and the secretary of state; there also has to be at least $5 million in damage and an intent to coerce or influence U.S. policy; nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological attacks are excluded

  • Cap temporarily removed from gushing well

    The lower marine riser package (LMRP) containment cap was taken off the failed Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer (BOP) earlier today after a vent on the cap accidentally got closed; it appears that a remotely operated vehicle accidentally bumped into the LMRP cap and closed a vent; the cap was taken off the well because with the vent closed, dangerous pressure was beginning to build up inside the well, raising the specter of another explosion, similar to the one on 20 April which destroyed the well

  • Industry concerned about DHS standards on cybersecurity

    Private cybersecurity companies worry that too-stringent cybersecurity laws and regulations could have a detrimental impact on private sector innovation; “The government needs to be very careful about imposing too much of a top-down standards process,” said McAfee vice president of government relations Tom Gann; “We need to bring products to market very quickly. They need to make sure we can get latest technology”

  • $800 million for 53-mile of border fence (it was supposed to be 655 miles)

    The original plan of the Secure Border Initiative (SBINet) called for spending $833 million to build a virtual fence — a system of sophisticated sensors, cameras, and other barriers — along 655 miles of U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, New Mexico, and a slice of Texas, at a cost of about $1.2 million per mile; Boeing, the prime contractor, used $800 million to build the system along only 53 miles of border at a cost of $15.1 million per mile; the virtual fence’s technology is now judged a failure

  • Could-based voice biometrics e-commerce platform launched

    The industry’s first voice biometrics-driven e-commerce platform launched; the cloud-based service allows retailers instantly to set up and run their online business, processing transactions using voice biometrics to authenticate and authorize their online, and mobile-based electronic payments

  • Fingerprint Security Briefcase keeps papers safe

    Biometrically protected briefcase may be nice to have, but since most business people now carry sensitive information digitally, one observer thinks that a more practical solution a giant USB key

  • Microsoft offers developers cloud security tips

    New paper provides best practices for writing applications for Windows Azure; one Microsoft security official: “it is important that people building software or hosting services in ‘The Cloud’ understand that they must also build software with security in mind from the start”