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U.S. intensifies campaign to train, hire, retain cybersecurity professionals
The cyber threats to both government and public network intensify, and the U.S. federal agencies must find ways to attract qualified workers and develop new skills internally; NIST’s Dr. Ernest McDuffie: “We’ve got a problem of where the next generation of engineers are going to come from— Awareness, education, workforce, and training all have to come together”
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U.S. military wants to cyber-protect critical infrastructure
The U.S. military wants to exert more influence over the protection of power grids, transportation networks, and financial network systems because the military relies on these networks to deal with suppliers and these networks could become military targets
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RIM proposes industry encryption forum to demands for access to e-mail, messages
RIM has proposed that an industry forum be established to help governments manage lawful intercept, in the hope of forestalling India’s threatened ban, due this coming Wednesday; the proposed body would be led by RIM, but the company is hoping that others companies threatened by bans — Google, Skype, and others — will join in
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Pentagon describes 2008 attack as a "network administrator's worst fear"
The Pentagon admits that a 2008 cyber attack on the Pentagon’s computers was a “network administrator’s worst fear”; a USB device was
plugged into a military laptop located on an undisclosed base in the Middle East, causing a malicious code to link highly sensitive machines to networks controlled by an unnamed foreign intelligence agency -
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Intel wants security built directly into silicon
A consensus is emerging that the main reason for Intel’s acquisition of McAfee is that Intel wants to build directly into its hardware the kind of security features more traditionally provided by software like McAfee’s
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Technological challenges to Intel's embedded security approach
Embedding security in silicon faces many challenges, among them: how much can be placed into a chip, and the fact that patching hardware or firmware is when a security vulnerability is discovered, is much harder than patching software
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Powerful GPU processor puts password security system at risk
A readily available piece of hardware, a graphics processing unit (GPU) costing only a few hundred dollars, now brings supercomputer-level power to any desktop; this new capability puts power into many hands — and could also threaten the world’s ubiquitous password-protection model because it enables a low-cost password-breaking technique that engineers call “brute forcing”
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The reason for Intel's acquisition of McAfee
The merger between the two companies takes place ahead of the release in 2011 of new — and as yet undisclosed — products developed by a joint venture the two companies have operated in the past eighteen months; those undisclosed products may be part of the reason why Intel decided to purchase McAfee instead of extending or expanding the two companies’ joint venture; says one analyst: “If what came out of that joint venture was revolutionary it could be that Intel wanted to lock that [intellectual property] down”
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Sector Report for Thursday, 19 August 2010: Cybersecurity
This report contains the following stories.
Plus 2 additional stories
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Intel acquires McAfee for $7.68 billion
Intel says security is now a fundamental component of online computing, but today’s approach to security is not adequate for the growing availability of Internet connections on mobile phones, medical devices, ATMs, automobiles, and elsewhere; the industry needs a new approach that combines software, hardware, and services to meet tomorrow’s needs
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Shop Shield privacy protection expanded to IE browser
Experts say that the best way to assure the safety of financial and personal identifying information (PII) transmitted on the Internet, and prevent it from being lost, stolen, or misused, is to keep it private by not transmitting it to Web sites in the first place; Shop Shield allows consumers to engage in commercial transactions on the Web without giving these Web sites information such as e-mail addresses, passwords, usernames, phone numbers, billing addresses, credit card numbers, or other user payment information; Shop Shield even allows consumers to do business on the Web without giving out their names
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House Cybersecurity Caucus launches new Web site
Billions of dollars are spent on cybersecurity; the House cybersecurity caucus has launched a new Web site, and observers say it could provide a valuable public service if it helps aggregate disparate activities and acts as a Federal cybersecurity information hub
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Cyberthreat "deniers" say cybersecurity experts are crying wolf
There are those who argue that security experts warn about cyber threat are only scaring people in order to sell their security products and consulting services; one observer says: “To be sure, the financial interests of those warning about cybersecurity vulnerability should be disclosed, but their warnings shouldn’t be dismissed either— Just because you can still download movies from Netflix or update your Facebook status doesn’t mean everything’s fine”
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Huntsville, Alabama, to become center for the war on cyber crimes
Mayor Tommy Battle unveiled plans to build the Cyber Center complex — a 52-building campus housing government agencies and academic teams dealing with cyber crimes
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Indian government: Google, Skype will follow BlackBerry in being forced to open networks
The Indian government, in a meeting last month with representatives of network operators and Internet service providers, said that after RIM was forced to open BlackBerry-based communication to government eavesdropping, Google and Skype would be asked to do the same — or face bans on some of their services in India; It is unlikely that the Indian government is interested in Google’s search business, but about twenty million Indians are active on Google’s social networking service, Orkut, which encourages them to communicate with each other over Google Talk
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The long view
Researchers Calculate Cyberattack Risk for All 50 States
Local governments are common victims of cyberattack, with economic damage often extending to the state and federal levels. Scholars aggregate threats to thousands of county governments to draw conclusions.