• Obama, Romney differ on major homeland security issues

    Tomorrow, Tuesday 6 November, American voters will choose between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as the next president of the United States; the state of the U.S. economy and the best ways to reduce unemployment and increase the pace of economic growth were at the center of the campaign, leaving little room for other issues. Homeland security issues, in particular, played little, if any, role in the campaign or in the three debates between the presidential candidates and the debate between the vice-presidential candidates; still, if we examine the policy proposals each candidate has made, and also examine the details of policies posted on his Web sites, the differences between the candidates’ approaches on three major homeland security issues – immigration, cybersecurity, and infrastructure – are considerable

  • NIST awards $9 million to promote online security and privacy

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last month announced more than $9 million in grant awards to support the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC); five U.S. organizations will pilot identity solutions which increase confidence in online transactions, prevent identity theft, and provide individuals with more control over how they share their personal information

  • Cloud OS for the U.S. intelligence community

    Cloud management specialist Adaptive Computingis partnering with the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel, to develop a cloud operating system for use by U.S. intelligence agency

  • #WeGotBinLaden: how Twitter broke its biggest story

    A new study confirms the widely held belief that Keith Urbahn (@keithurbahn), an aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was the first person to break the news regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden on Twitter; his tweet was sent at 10:24 p.m.

  • HPDC to publish best grid computing cybersecurity papers

    In the late 1990s, as science was pushing new limits in terms of levels of computation and data and in the collaboration between scientists across universities, countries, and the globe, grid computing emerged as the model to support such large scientific collaborations by providing their computational resources and the structure behind them

  • Growing unease over illegal cell phone jammers

    For less than $40 nearly anyone can purchase a cell phone jamming device to prevent those nearby from making calls, which has law enforcement agencies uneasy

  • HP wins $47M contract to support HSPD-12 implementation

    On Monday the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced it had awarded Hewlett Packard a one-year contract worth as much as $47 million to support government-compliance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 (HSPD-12)

  • Anonymous takes down DHS website in hacking spree

    Last Friday the hacktivist group known as Anonymous momentarily took down DHS’s homepage along with several other high-profile attacks in a coordinated campaign

  • Ranking countries’ cyberattack preparedness

    A new McAfee cybersecurity survey concluded that Israel, Finland, and Sweden are leading other countries in “cyber-readiness”; the report says that China, Brazil, and Mexico are among the least cyber-prepared to defend these countries’ networks against cyber attacks

  • Gender gap hinders cybersecurity hiring boom

    As governments and private businesses clamor to hire computer experts, women are conspicuously missing from the employment boom; women account for over half the professional workforce, yet only 25 percent of information technology jobs are filled by females

  • Sandia addresses complex DNS vulnerabilities

    A Sandia researcher has developed a visualization tool to help network administrators within the federal government and global IT community better understand Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) and also help them troubleshoot problems

  • UMD, Lunarline partner on cybersecurity

    The University of Maryland Cybersecurity Center will partner with Lunarline Inc. on cybersecurity education, research, and technology development

  • National Guardsmen, the new front line in cybersecurity

    In an aggressive push to expand the military’s cyber warfare and defense capabilities, the National Guard has formed an increasing number of special cybersecurity units; National Guard cybertroops have proven to be particularly appealing solution, especially with defense cuts looming, as they cost less to train, maintain, and retain than active duty forces

  • Government outlines cybersecurity R&D priorities

    The Obama administration recently unveiled its plan for government sponsored cybersecurity research and development programs

  • $3 million NSF grant for research into assured data provenance

    The National Science Foundation supports funds new cyber security research into assured data provenance, the discipline of computer science concerned with the integrity and privacy of data sources, contents, and successive transformations