• Android phones more vulnerable to cyber attacks than Apple iPhone

    Android smart phones are more susceptible to hacking and viruses than Apple’s iPhone; the Android operating system is open source, allowing hackers to understand the underlying code; Apple iPhone may have a safer operating system, but it is not impervious to attacks; McAfee warns that 2011 will see hackers increasingly target mobile devices like Android phones, iPads, and iPhones

  • NEC releases software that configures access policy automatically

    NEC Corporation announced the development of technology that collectively distributes and configures access policy to a variety of computing resources in a cloud computing environment; the newly-developed technology helps to reduce operation costs and to improve security

  • Government IT contractors remain optimistic about future

    Government services and information technology (IT) contractors remain optimistic about future growth; the defense industry still remains as “an $800 billion marketplace,” despite budget cuts and an increasing move by the federal government to insource contracts; IT firms are particularly positive about growth in key areas like cyber security, intelligence, and simulation; federal spending on cyber security is projected to reach $13.3 billion annually by 2015

  • Quick Heal introduces technology to track laptops

    New laptop tracking technology will help Indian police track and locate stolen laptops across the country; Quick Heal, the company offering the technology, also aims to create a centralized database of lost or stolen laptops; the database will be accessible to retailers and consumers

  • Obama pushing for Internet ID for Americans

    The Obama administration is currently drafting what it is calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which will give the Commerce Department the authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans

  • Sourcefire expands westward

    Maryland-based Sourcefire acquires Palo Alto-based Immunet for $21 million, expanding the company’s cybersecurity services; the acquisition will allow Sourcefire to accelerate its cloud-based initiative and provide a platform to expand its security services

  • Smart system to teach itself to jam new wireless threats

    As wireless communication devices become more adaptive and responsive to their environment by using technology such as Dynamic Spectrum Allocation, the effectiveness of fixed countermeasures may become severely degraded; DARPA wants smart system that can learn to jam new wireless threats automatically

  • China makes Skype illegal

    China announced that it had made illegal the use of Skype, the popular internet telephony service, as the country continues to shut itself off from the rest of the world

  • U.S. federal investment in cybersecurity to reach $13.3 billion by 2015

    U.S. federal investment in information security will rise from $8.6 billion in 2010 to $13.3 billion by 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 percent, nearly twice the rate of overall federal IT spending

  • Pentagon revamps security in wake of Wikileaks

    There are 2.2 million people in the United States with access to one or more levels (confidential, secret, and top secret) of classified information; there are 854,000 people with top secret clearances — of which 265,000 are contractors; the 9/11 Commission recommended more sharing of information among agencies — but critics say that too much sharing is as risky as too little sharing

  • Government secrecy harder to maintain in the Internet age

    Among the likely consequences of WikiLeaks: threats of prosecution under the Espionage Act; proposed legislation that would make it illegal to publish the names of military or intelligence community informants; increased use of subpoena power to compel journalists to disclose confidential sources; the mainstream media, already experiencing an ongoing financial crisis, may be dissuaded from starting and continuing the long and expensive battle to obtain information that officials want to keep secret

  • Half of India's critical infrastructure providers cyber attack victims

    Symantec’s 2010 Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Survey findings reveal that nearly 50 percent of India’s critical infrastructure providers are victims of cyber attacks; the attacks are said to have become more frequent and increasingly effective

  • Germany reports "sharp rise" in China-originated cyberattacks

    Germany detected a sharp rise in serious cyberattacks in 2010; in the first nine months of 2010 there were some 1,600 such attacks recorded, compared to around 900 for the whole of 2009, plus most likely a considerable number that went undetected; Interior Ministry spokesman: “Germany is a very high-tech country with considerable experience and know-how, so of course others will naturally try to get hold of this knowledge—- China is playing a large role in this”

  • Mobile phone forensic tools to reduce hi-tech crimes

    Government funded technology center in India is developing a set of mobile forensic tools that will assist the law enforcement agencies in cracking unlawful activities committed using mobile phones; the center is a government agency, and will be able to provide the tools at reasonable cost

  • Napolitano asserts DHS cybersecurity leadership

    Cybersecurity should be led by DHS and not left to the market or the military, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said; this year, DHS has expanded partnerships with private industry and worked to build up liaisons with private sector industries it deems to be “critical”; DHS has also improved its partnerships with military and military intelligence this year; in October, DHS and the Department of Defense signed a cybersecurity pact to improve collaboration between the agencies and boost DHS’s encryption and decryption capabilities by co-mingling National Security Agency (NSA) cryptologic analysts and DHS cybersecurity leadership in a move that signaled progress in a sometimes uneasy relationship with the military