• Onyx targets business continuity acquisitions

    Energetic and acquisitive U.K. VAR Onyx refreshes DRS proposition after recent buy-out and aims for more consolidation; company claims that many disaster recovery packages do not cater effectively for smaller firms, particularly in London

  • Hearing to be held on lack of chemical plant inspections

    There are about 15,000 chemical plants in the United States; 6,000 of them were supposed to be inspected by DHS to make sure their security protocols comply with the current Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, or CFATS, but only 12 have been inspected

  • U.S. loosens security measures for travelers from 14 Muslim countries

    Following the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound plane, the United States imposed much stricter security measures on travelers to the United States from fourteen Muslim countries; DHS announced over the weekend that these measures will now be loosened, and that new measures, utilizing “real-time, threat-based intelligence” will be used instead

  • New York denies water permit for Indian Point nuclear plant

    The New York Department of Environmental Conservation denied water-quality certification to Indian Point nuclear power plant; the operator requires the certification to extend by twenty years the license to operate the 2,000-megawatt plant

  • Japan plans nuclear power expansion

    Japan imports 80 percent of its energy; the government has a plan aiming to reduce that figure to just 30 percent by 2030; the key to the plan: building eight new nuclear reactors by 2020 — adding to the country’s 54 operating reactors; Japan is also about to resume operations of the world’s only fast-breeder reactor; the plan faces public opposition, especially in light of Japan’s history of earthquakes

  • Hillard Heintze security firm branching out to consult police departments, cities

    A Chicago-based security consulting firm, founded by a former Chicago Police superintendent and a retired chief of the Secret Service in Chicago, was named by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s fastest-growing companies; last week the firm announced it would add law enforcement consulting to the services it offered clients

  • Swedish pension fund drops Elbit Systems over West Bank barrier

    A Swedish pension fund has decided to Elbit Sytems from its portfolio because Elbit provides surveillance equipment to the West Bank barrier Israel is building; the barrier does not follow the Green Line which marked the border between Israel and the West Bank until 1967, but rather extends eastward to include Jewish settlements built in the West Bank since then; Sweden, the EU, and others consider these settlements — and the barrier itself — to be in violation of international law

  • FAA bolsters cybersecurity with help from IBM

    Malware introduced into the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) computer network which monitors and controls U.S. aviation can bring down a plane and cause havoc as surely as liquid explosives or underwear bombs can; the IBM is teaming up with the FAA to build a cybersecurity system which will improve defense against cyberattacks on the U.S. civilian aviation network; the flexible model used in the prototype system will be designed to look retrospectively at event occurrences and system compromises, and it will also be able to correlate historical traffic patterns with dynamic data from monitors, sensors, and other devices capturing information about network traffic and user activity in real time

  • IATA launches safety information exchange

    Four aviation organizations — the International Air Transport Association, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the Commission of the European Union — sign an agreement to create an international aviation safety data exchange; the four organizations will now start work on a way to standardize safety audit information and ensure compliance with local privacy laws and policies

  • U.S. cybersecurity spending to rise

    The rate of cyberattacks on U.S. government’s networks and U.S. critical infrastructure, and the growing complexity of IT infrastructure, are driving the surge in federal cybersecurity spending; the U.S. federal government’s total cumulative cybersecurity spending would be $55 billion between 2010 and 2015

  • Home and business security systems grow in popularity

    There are two misconceptions regarding the installation of security systems to protect your business or home: that these systems are very expensive, and that they are a hassle to use; once people realize that this is not the case, they also find out that these systems have additional advantages: they can protect from other hazards, including fire and carbon monoxide poisoning; and protecting one’s assets by installing a security system might save money on insurance

  • As violence engulfs Juárez, American companies adopt defensive measure

    American companies relocated their manufacturing and assembly facilities to Juárez, just across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, to benefit from the cheap labor costs in one of Mexico’s most business-friendly cities; now, as drug-related crime has engulfed the city, these companies are erecting fences, increasing security in factories, and encouraging employees to commute in carpools; managers have gone through kidnapping simulations; some drive to work in convoys for added security

  • TSA general aviation manager says new LASP due this fall

    Two years ago the TSA proposed strict security measures for general aviation’s larger planes; this Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP) generated more than 9,000 negative comments and was ridiculed as being written by people with no knowledge of general and corporate aviation; TSA now says it seeks “a less adversarial relationship with the industry,” that a proposal for more limited security measures will be out in the fall for public comments

  • Experts say smart meters are vulnerable to hacking

    In the United States alone, more than eight million smart meters have been deployed by electric utilities and nearly sixty million should be in place by 2020; security experts are worried that this rush to deployment of smart meters ignores serious security vulnerabilities: the interactivity which makes smart meters so attractive also makes them vulnerable to hackers, because each meter essentially is a computer connected to a vast network

  • Moscow explosions: a small blip or long-term drag on the Russian economy?

    The terrorism behind the Moscow subway explosions could become an economic drag on the Russian economy if it changes perceptions of security risks in Russia; research shows that a sustained low-level terror campaign can raise long-term security concerns and hurt economic growth more than even a very dramatic single event: the 9/11 terror attacks punctured America’s sense of domestic security in a single day, but nevertheless, a year after the attacks, the U.S. economy was growing again; on the other hand, two decades of Basque terrorist activity in Spain — activity which caused far fewer fatalities than 9/11 — created a 10 percent drop in per capita gross domestic product in that area of Spain