• AFIT team wins annual DOD Cyber Crime Center Challenge

    Four graduate students from the Air Force Institute of Technology win highly competitive annual DOD Cyber Crime Center Challenge; the winning team used innovative techniques to crack passwords; repair damaged media such as CDs, DVDs, and a thumb drive; extract hidden information from audio files; and dissect digitally altered photos

  • Defense panel worries about foreign software development

    The U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies rely more and more on software developed outside the U.S.; a Defense Science Board task force warns that this “creates a rich opportunity to damage or destroy elements of the [U.S.] warfighter’s capability”

  • McAfee sees wave of international cyber crime

    International cyber crime and espionage are on the rise, and will likely pose the most significant security threats in 2008; cyber attacks have evolved into well-funded and complex crime organizations. Governments in 120 countries — particularly China — and other allied groups are using the Internet for cyber espionage and attacks

  • SANS Top 20: Some IT risks did not materialize, others more severe

    SANS Top 20 IT risks (this year, the list contained only 18 of them) show that: Client-side threats are on the rise (if for nothing else, than owing to the sheer attention vendors paid to server-side risks); Web application threats are bigger than ever (50 percent of the 4,396 vulnerabilities report by SANS between November 2006 and October 2007 were Web application flaws); mobile, voice-over-IP (VoIP), IPv6, and zero-day threats were not as big as expected

  • Cities worry about toxic substances in freight cars

    Water treatment facilities in Baltimore no longer use chlorine, but city residents are still exposed to risk because trains carrying the toxic substance to facilities elsewhere go through the city; city officials want to change this situation

  • Europeans install radiation detectors as U.S. question detectors' efficacy

    U.S. legislators raise questions about DHS’s $1.4 billion program which aims to deploy nuclear radiation detectors in U.S. ports; GAO raises questions about test methodology of latest technology; Europeans, though forge ahead with port deployment

  • How real is the nuclear threat for the United States?

    Graham Allison: “Based on current trends, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is more likely than not in the decade ahead”

  • Acoustic sensors to protect borders, critical infrastructure

    Two British companies offer an intriguing border, perimeter, and critical infrastructure protection solution: Sensors, using optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR), continuously monitor the length of existing or installed cable to detect, locate, and categorize security breaches every 10 meters over a 40 km length of optical fiber

  • How to pay for greater chemical plant safety

    Critics point to the price tag of the chemical plant safety measure as a reason why it should not be imposed on the chemical industry; they are wrong: Meaningful safety standards should be imposed on chemical plants, but since it is a public good, the taxpayers — not the industry alone — should shoulder the cost

  • Boeing successfully tests TSAT

    As worries about China’s growing anti-satellite warfare capabilities grow, Boeing and partner companies successfully test a system for encrypted communication with satellites

  • Uncertainties about nuclear waste storage

    The waste created in the production of U.S. nuclear weapons is buried in Hanford, Washington; there is a growing uncertainty about the subsurface paths nuclear contaminants take, where they travel, and how fast

  • Top Internet security risks of 2007 revealed today

    This year’s SANS Top 20 illuminates two new attack targets that criminals have chosen to exploit and the older targets where attackers have significantly raised the stakes

  • Security software may be posing security risks

    Security maven Thierry Zoller says that file-parsing bugs in security software could become a big problem: Increasing your use of antivirus software only increases the chances that you could be successfully attacked

  • Talk of nuclear power renaissance not matched by action

    The rising price of oil and growing concerns about the environment have fueled the notion that nuclear power will soon enjoy a renaissance; new study shows that facts on the ground tell a different story

  • Pay attention to the human element in IT security

    As far as information security is concerned, even the world’s best technological solution cannot replace a piece of paper –- the company security policy