• Experts call for a new organization to oversee grid’s cybersecurity

    In 2013, U.S. critical infrastructure companies reported about 260 cyberattacks on their facilities to the federal government. Of these attacks, 59 percent occurred in the energy sector. A new report proposes that energy companies should create an industry-led organization to deflect cyber threats to the electric grid. Modeled after the nuclear industry’s Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the proposed organization, to be called the Institute for Electric Grid Cybersecurity, would oversee all the energy industry players that could compromise the electric grid if they came under a cyberattack.

  • Iranian court orders man's eyes to be gouged, and nose and one ear cut off

    An Iranian court sentenced a main who poured acid on a young girl’s face to having his eyes gouged out and his right ear and nose cut off. The man was convicted last October of intentionally attacking the girl with acid, causing her to lose her eyesight and right ear.

  • Islamists kill nearly 100 in weekend attacks in Nigeria

    At least ninety people have been killed in three weekend attacks over the weekend by Islamist group Boko Haram. The attacks took place in northeast Nigeria, the area where the group attacks have killed thousands of people since 2009. This past weekend’s attacks cap three weeks in which the Islamist militants killed more than 400 people. Since last May, the Nigerian government has placed three states in the region — Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe — under a state of emergency in an effort to defeat the Islamic insurgency, but to little effect. The Nigerian military campaign has been criticized by military experts, who say the military has adopted an approach which is too passive to be effective against nimble insurgents. The quality of the troops and their commanders is low, resulting in guard being left unstaffed, slow response – at times several hours — to reports of attacks and calls for help, and soldiers abandoning their posts and running away in the face of the attacks.

  • NIST’s voluntary cybersecurity framework may be regarded as de facto mandatory

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) voluntary cybersecurity frameworkissued in February establishes best practices for companies that support critical infrastructure such as banking and energy. Experts now warn that recommendations included in the framework may be used by courts, regulators, and even consumers to hold institutions accountable for failures that could have been prevented if the cybersecurity framework had been fully implemented by the respective institution.

  • Google asks court to allow reposting of anti-Islamic film on YouTube

    Google on Friday asked a U.S. appeals court to allow the reposting of an anti-Islamic movie on YouTube pending a re-hearing of the copyright case which led to the movie removal. Last Wednesday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Google to remove the movie from YouTube. Google told the court it has complied with the court’s earlier “unprecedented sweeping injunction,” but argued that irreparable harm is being done to Constitutional rights of YouTube, Google, and the public.

  • DHS drops plans for national license-plate database

    DHS has recalled its solicitation for bids by private companies to help the department create a national license-plate database which would allow unlimited access to information obtained from commercial and law enforcement license plate readers (LPRs). DHS wanted to use the database to track fugitive undocumented immigrants and others sought by law enforcement, but the database, which could have contained more than one billion records, raised privacy concerns and questions about the safeguards which would be used to protect innocent citizens.

  • Google to fight order to take down Islamophobic movie

    The amateurish anti-Islamic movie “Innocence of Muslims” triggered a wave of violence in the Middle East and North Africa when it was released in 2012. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco accepted the copyright claim of an actress who said she was duped into appearing in the movie, and ordered Google to remove a trailer for it from YouTube. Google complied, but said it would fight the decision.

  • Positive safety results Marburg drug candidate announced

    Marburg hemorrhagic fever is a severe and potentially fatal disease in humans first recognized in 1967. It is caused by an RNA virus of the Filoviridae family and is understood to be endemic to Africa. The Marburg virus is classified as a Category A bioterrorism agent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and in 2006 was determined by DHS to be a material threat to national security and public health. There are currently no treatments for Marburg virus infection beyond supportive care. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Sarepta Therapeutics, a developer of innovative RNA-based therapeutics, announced positive safety results from a Phase I multiple ascending dose study of AVI-7288 in healthy volunteers. AVI-7288 is the company’s lead drug candidate for the treatment of Marburg virus infection.

  • Washington State offers college financial aid to children of undocumented immigrants

    Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State yesterday signed legislation which will offer college financial aid to students brought into the United States illegally by their parents. California, Illinois, Texas, and New Mexico have passed similar legislations. The measure represents a shift in the position of State Senate Republicans: last year, the GOP-controlled Senate blocked a similar measure,called the Dream Act of Washington State, but earlier this month the Senate passed its own version of the bill, which the the governor, a Democrat, signed.

  • Hezbollah acknowledges Israel’s Monday air strike

    Hezbollah, after initially denying that any of its forces were attacks Monday night, earlier today (Wednesday) admitted that Israel carried out an airstrike targeting the militia’s positions in Lebanon near the border with Syria. Hezbollah’s statement said the air strike caused damage but no casualties. A senior Israeli security official told reporters that the missiles destroyed in the attack could carry warheads heavier and more dangerous than almost all of the tens of thousands of missiles and rockets Hezbollah now has in its arsenal.

  • Large terrorism database offers valuable information

    The federally funded national consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), located at University of Maryland, has developed its Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the largest database of its kind. It includes more than 113,000 identified cases of terrorism around the globe – among themmore than 52,000 bombings, 14,400 assassinations, and 5,600 kidnappings – and provides available  information on the date, location, weapons used, nature of target, number of casualties, and name of the group or individual responsible for each incident.

     

  • Israeli jets attack Syrian weapons convoys in Hezbollah-held area in Lebanon

    For the second time this year. Israeli jets attacked targets on the border between Lebanon and Syria on Monday night as part of an ongoing campaign to prevent the transfer of advanced weapon systems from the Syrian military to Hezbollah. In 2013, the Israel Air Force (IAF) attacked military bases and arms depots inside Syria on six occasions — 30 January, 3 May, 5 May, 5 July, 18 October, and 30 October. The first attack in 2014 took place on 26 January. The previous seven air strikes were on targets inside Syria, but last Sunday attack was on Syrian military convoys just inside Lebanon, in Hezbollah-controlled areas near the Lebanon-Syria border.

  • Veterans of U.S. Special Forces say Chechen militants are the most ferocious

    Since the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, U.S. Special Operation forces have fought against Chechen jihadists based in Pakistan’s tribal areas and fighting alongside Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Veterans of U.S. Special Forces say that Chechen fighters were more determined and ferocious than other Islamists. Some scholars dispute these reports, pointing out that there were no Chechen among militants captured in Afghanistan, but rather Russian-speaking Uzbeks and Tajiks. Other scholars say that the fact that there were no captured Chechen militants is indication that they are zealots who fight to the death rather than let themselves be captured.

  • Cost of plutonium disposal facility skyrockets

    The Mixed Oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel factory at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, being built to help dispose of cold war-era weapon-grade plutonium, would cost up to $30 billion in addition to the $4 billion spent on construction so far. The staggering cost overruns have led many to call for a new, less expensive solution. Matthew Bunn, a former Clinton White House official who helped develop the plutonium disposal program, agrees that the cost of the MOX factory is excessive. “The things we’re trying to accomplish aren’t worth that amount of money,” he said.

  • Facebook-WhatsApp deal raises security concerns

    Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp made headlines for its sheer size — $4 billion in cash and $15 in Facebook stock, for a total of about $19 billion – but security experts are worried about the security aspects of the deal. Even security specialists advising WhatApp’s customers not to panic about the deal, use language which is not exactly reassuring. Serge Malenkovich of Kaspersky Labs says: “There are no new [emphasis in original] reasons to worry about messaging privacy. Honestly speaking, WhatsApp was never meant to be a true confidential messaging tool; there were even multiple breaches in the past, including some attacks, which make eavesdropping possible.”