• Studying terrorists' social-media recruiting power in order to negate it

    Last month a United Nations panel asked social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to respond to how terrorist groups use their networks to spread propaganda or recruit members with increasing success. As these terrorist groups, such as ISIS or al-Qaeda, evolve their social-media skills, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Project is funding a research project by a team of researchers who will be monitoring these groups’ advancements and trying to determine how their online actions can be negated.

  • Duqu 2.0: New, menacing programming concept

    In 2011, the security world was rocked by the announcement of a newly discovered virus named Stuxnet. This malware, unlike previous viruses, was targeted at one particular victim. That target was Iran’s nuclear program.Following on the heels of Stuxnet was a variant named Duqu.Duqu is different from Stuxnet, however, in that it was designed to gather information for future attacks, rather than perform the attack itself.There is evidence that the malware was used to gather information on the U.S. talks with Iran over the Iranian nuclear program.Since this worm is able to move laterally, and runs only in system memory, a given computer can be easily re-infected from elsewhere in the home network, without using any mechanisms that would provide persistence. Duqu 2.0 represents programming concepts never used before that make it extremely dangerous.

  • Internet facilitates radicalization of Westerners, even as reasons vary

    Since the early 2000s the Internet has become an important tool for the global jihadist movement. Nowhere has the Internet been more important in the movement’s development than in the West. A new study says that while dynamics differ from case to case, it is fair to state that almost all recent cases of radicalization in the West involve at least some digital footprint. Jihadism is a complex ideology that mixes religion and politics. The study confirms, however, the importance of its religious aspect for many of those who embrace violence — a fact some studies have dismissed.

  • Abu Dhabi’s power system to be used for critical infrastructure cybersecurity study

    Abu Dhabi, UAE-based Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and MIT will use Abu Dhabi’s power system as a case study for developing a knowledge map of the power system and its cybersecurity shortcomings. The project is due to run for two years. At the end of this two year period, the collaborating institutions hope that data from the analysis of Abu Dhabi’s power system could be compared against data from the projects running concurrently in New York and Singapore to develop a comprehensive knowledge map, capable of being applied to critical infrastructure worldwide.

  • U.S. Cyber Challenge Eastern Regional Competition announces winner

    On Friday, participants of the annual U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC) Eastern Regional Cyber Camp competed in a “Capture-the-Flag” competition to demonstrate their knowledge and skill of cybersecurity and compete to win one of a limited number of (ISC)2 scholarships. Participants of Eastern Regional Cyber Camp were selected based in part on their scores from Cyber Quests, an online competition offered through USCC in April, which drew more than 1,300 registrants from over 600 schools nationwide.

  • Government credentials found on the open Web

    Somerville, Massachusetts-based Recorded Future has identified the possible exposures of login credentials for forty-seven U.S. government agencies across eighty-nine unique domains. Recorded Future says that as of early 2015, twelve of these agencies, including the Departments of State and Energy, allowed some of their users access to computer networks with no form of two-factor authentication.

  • State Department stays away from Chinese-owned Waldorf Astoria

    The U.S. State Department said American diplomats and State Department officials, for the first time in decades, would not be staying at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel during this year’s UN general assembly. Worldwide last year sold the high-end Midtown hotel for $1.95 billion to the Chinese group Anbang Insurance Group. The sales contract allowed for “a major renovation” by the Chinese, and American security experts had no doubt as to the purpose of these “renovations”: As is the practice in China, the Chinese owners, working on behalf of China’s intelligence services, were going to plant listening devices in every room and ball room, and wire every phone, Wi-Fi hot spot, and restaurant table in order to eavesdrop on hotel guests.

  • Underwriters of cyberinsurance policies need better understanding of cyber risks

    Demand for insurance that covers an ever-increasing range of cyberattacks is growing and evolving rapidly, and a number of insurance companies are seeking advice through sponsored events that can gradually educate their work forces. At Standard & Poor’s Rating Services 2015 Insurance Conference last week, a panel of insurance experts stressed the importance of insurance underwriters gaining a better understanding of cyber risks in order to make better property and risk assessments.

  • Latest massive data breach highlights federal government cyber vulnerability

    The latest hacking of federal government records has resulted in the theft of personal files for as many as fourteen million people, and is yet another sign of systemic security breaches within government. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is an agency notorious for its lax cybersecurity, but experts say that the OPM incident is indicative of a greater need across the country to better defend governmental infrastructure with updated methodologies.

  • Snowden fallout: Revelations forced U.K. to pull out agents from “hostile countries”

    The British security services had to pull out agents from “hostile countries” as a result of information the Chinese and Russian intelligence services obtained when they gained access to the millions of top-secret NSA files Edward Snowed was carrying with him when he fled to Honk Kong and then to Russia. Snowden assured journalists who interviewed him that the Chinese and Russian intelligence services would not be able to access these files because he encrypted them with the highest encryption methods available. Security experts commented that he was either naïve or disingenuous – because he must have known, or should have known, that the cyber capabilities these two countries would make it relatively easy for them to crack the encrypted files he was carrying with him. We now know that these security experts were right.

  • Companies making cybersecurity a greater priority, but hackers may still be gaining

    Companies are spending increasing amounts on cybersecurity tools, but are not convinced their data is truly secure and many chief information security officers believe that attackers are gaining on their defenses, according to a new RAND Corporation study. While worldwide spending on cybersecurity is close to $70 billion a year and growing at 10 percent to 15 percent annually, many chief information security officers believe that hackers may gain the upper hand two to five years from now, requiring a continual cycle of development and implementation of stronger and more innovative defensive measures.

  • NIST releases update of Industrial Control Systems Security Guide

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued the second revision to its Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security. It includes new guidance on how to tailor traditional IT security controls to accommodate unique ICS performance, reliability, and safety requirements, as well as updates to sections on threats and vulnerabilities, risk management, recommended practices, security architectures and security capabilities and tools.

  • Administration rejects criticism of NSA’s surveillance of foreign hackers

    Just two years after the Edward Snowden leaks exposed the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, another report released last Friday from the Snowden files shares information about the NSA’s efforts to track foreign hackers. As with the NSA’s controversial foreign surveillance program which kept metadata records of suspected foreign terrorists’ conversations with Americans, the NSA’s hacker program may incidentally gather Americans’ private information from the files of foreign hackers.

  • D.C.-area becoming the Silicon Valley of cybersecurity

    A recent string of multi-billion dollar cybersecurity acquisitions in the greater Washington, D.C. metro area has led to the region being seen as a major hotbed for the industry. Spending by the Department of Defense (DOD) and a number of federal agencies has led to big contracts for many in the region, fuelling much of the growth. As the DOD focuses more of its budget on cyber issues and defense, the market has grown. “The D.C./NoVA/MD area, also known as the Cyber Corridor, is becoming the Silicon Valley of security,” say the CEO of one cybersecurity firm.

  • Criminals receive 1,425 percent return on investment from malware attacks: Report

    Trustwave yesterday released its 2015 Trustwave Global Security Report which analyzes the top cybercrime, data breach, and security threat trends from 2014. Among the report’s findings: Attackers receive an estimated 1,425 percent return on investment for exploit kit and ransomware schemes ($84,100 net revenue for each $5,900 investment); spam volume continues to decrease making up 60 percent of total inbound mail (compared to 69 percent in 2013 and more than 90 percent at its peak in 2008), but six percent of it included a malicious attachment or link, a slight increase from 2013.