• Cyber Challenge encourages teen hackers to seek security jobs

    In the eyes of the organizers of the Maryland Cyber Challenge and Conference, today’s hacker could be tomorrow’s cybersecurity hero; a recent two-day conference at the Baltimore Convention Center, which ended 22 October 2011, was part career fair, part talent show to give college and high school students an idea of how to turn their interest in computers into high-paying jobs

  • Sandia Labs seeking responses to cyberattacks

    To address the growing cyber threat, Sandia National Lab is increasing cybersecurity research over the coming year through a new Cyber Engineering Research Institute (CERI) which will coordinate with industry and universities and have a presence on both Sandia campuses in New Mexico and California

  • Hackers infiltrate Japan’s parliament

    In the latest round of high-profile cyberattacks on government institutions around the world, three computers in Japan’s parliament were infected with a virus and officials worry that sensitive information may have been stolen

  • New cloud continuity solution for SMBs

    Research by Contingency Planning, Strategic Research Corp., and DTI/PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the effect of downtime and data and application loss on small to medium enterprises caused 70 percent of small firms to go out of business within a year of the event; a new cloud-based continuity service addresses this problem

  • Government offers free cybersecurity protection tool for small businesses

    To help small businesses guard themselves against hackers and computer criminals, the U.S. government is offering a free online tool that helps business owners bolster their cyber defenses; the Small Biz Cyber Planner will help business owners create their own customized cybersecurity plans by answering basic questions about their company and its online presence

  • Stuxnet-clones easily created

    Initial reports regarding Stuxnet suggested that the code was developed by elite computer experts with the help of state support and highly secretive military intelligence, but security experts working in a laboratory setting have been able to recreate key elements of the worm in a short time frame with limited resources

  • 80% of U.S. small businesses have no cyber security policies in place

    The majority of small business owners believe Internet security is critical to their success and that their companies are safe from ever increasing cyber security threats even as many fail to take fundamental precautions, according to a new survey of U.S. small businesses

  • Anonymous targets child porn sites, releases names of 1,500 members

    Last week hackers from the hacktivist movement Anonymous took down more than forty child pornography websites and leaked the names of more than 1,500 members that belonged to one of the sites Law enforcement officials may have a surprising new ally in the fight against child pornography and those who distribute it

  • New Stuxnet-like virus hits Europe

    The dreaded Stuxnet worm, which was the first instance of a computer virus creating physical damage, may have spawned a dangerous new piece of malware; researchers at Symantec believe they have discovered a new computer virus that uses many of the same techniques in European computers

  • Privacy flaws can reveal users’ identities, locations, and digital files

    Researchers will soon notify Internet scholars of flaws in Skype and other Internet-based phone systems that could potentially disclose the identities, locations, and even digital files of the hundreds of millions of users of these systems

  • Mark Weatherford named DHS cybersecurity chief

    On Thursday, DHS announced that it had selected Mark Weatherford, the chief security officer of the North American Electrical Reliability Corporation (NERC), as the next deputy undersecretary of cybersecurity

  • Google making search more secure

    Google is enhancing its default search service for signed-in users; over the next few weeks, many users will find themselves redirected to https://www.google.com (note the extra “s”) when they are signed in to their Google account; this change encrypts their search queries and Google’s results page

  • GAO report: DHS data mining puts personal information at risk

    A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that DHS and its sub-agencies do not properly protect personal information when conducting counterterrorism investigations

  • A precursor to the next Stuxnet discovered

    Symantec reports the discovery of a sample malware that appeared to be very similar to Stuxnet, the malware which wreaked havoc in Iran’s nuclear centrifuge farms last summer; the new malware — dubbed Duqu — is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack; the threat was written by the same authors (or those that have access to the Stuxnet source code); Duqu gathers intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order more easily to conduct a future attack against another third party

  • Smartphone can spy on computer keyboard strikes

    In hundreds of millions of offices around the world, this routine repeats itself every day: People sit down, turn on their computers, set their mobile phones on their desks, and begin to work; now, what if a hacker could use that phone to track what the person was typing on the keyboard just inches away?