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Cyberthreats Require Government and Business Risk-intelligence
May 7, 2013 4:28 pm | by Jeff Falk | CommentsIn an age where cybersecurity is of foremost interest for governments and businesses, public and private organizations must deploy risk-intelligence governance to secure their digital communications and resources from eavesdropping, theft or attack, according to a new paper from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Small Countries Want to Wage Cyberwar Too
May 7, 2013 9:24 am | by Leo Mirani | CommentsAmerica’s Department of Defense has released its annual report on China’s military capabilities. The report includes “electronic warfare” and “information dominance” as part of a larger campaign it says is an “essential element, if not a fundamental prerequisite” of China’s defense planning.
Pentagon Warns of a Hacking North Korea
May 6, 2013 4:57 pm | CommentsNorth Korea is barely connected to the global internet. But it’s trying to step up its hacker game by breaking into hostile networks, according to a new Pentagon report. North Korea appears to be feeling its way around in the dark of the internet and seeing what it can get away with.
iPhone GPS Sets Off a High-speed Chase
May 6, 2013 3:44 pm | by Michael Wilson | CommentsThe woman was talking on her iPhone, and never saw coming her induction into a large and growing subset of crime victims. But there it happened shortly after noon on April 15, on a busy corner of Main Street in Flushing, Queens. A teenager zipped past, snatching the phone out of her hand and kept running.
Cyber Crimes Unit Grows, but Still Sees Backlog
May 6, 2013 2:49 pm | by Jessica Maher | CommentsMost people don't know what happens in the small office space in the Loveland Police Department in Colorado that has a sign in the window to designate it the "Cyber Crimes Unit." Most people don't want to know — an office door that even others within the department prefer to see closed.
'White Hats' Wage War against Hackers
May 6, 2013 10:44 am | by Erik Lacitis | CommentsHe’s 26, likes industrial and electronic music, has a bleached-blond Mohawk haircut and sometimes, Mikhail Davidov said, he starts his day “at the crack of noon.” The late hours are in front of a computer, working on reverse engineering, tearing apart computer programs to find their vulnerabilities. Sometimes he works 18 hours straight.
UTSA Receives $1 Million for Digital Forensics Research
May 6, 2013 10:30 am | by KC Scharnberg and Wendy Frost | CommentsIs someone from your organization stealing trade secrets and selling them to your competitors? Does your organization struggle with detecting and stopping Internet attacks? Researchers in the UTSA College of Business have received two grants totaling $1 million to help companies better detect insider threats and enhance computer security.
On the Frontline of the Cyber Crime Fight
May 6, 2013 9:54 am | by Henry McDonald | CommentsInside the tightly controlled security area of Symantec's Dublin headquarters, a screen on the wall flashes up hacking hotspots as they are detected around the world. Last year the company estimated it blocked nearly 250,000 cyber attacks. One out of every 532 websites was infected with viruses, it said, and 1.6 million instances of malware were detected.
Algerian National Extradited to Face Federal Cyber Crime Charges
May 6, 2013 9:35 am | CommentsHamza Bendelladj, an Algerian national also known as Bx1, will be arraigned on federal cyber crime charges for his role in developing, marketing, distributing, and operating the malicious computer virus SpyEye. Bendelladj, 24, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, Ga., on December 20, 2011.
Dutch Bill Seeks Law Enforcement Hacking Power
May 3, 2013 3:24 pm | by Loek Essers | CommentsThe Dutch government has presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems — including those located in foreign countires — to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data.
Steganography and the Insider Threat
May 3, 2013 8:50 am | CommentsWhether the insider threat or the external threat is more serious has been the subject of perennial discussion ever since the concept of threats to information systems emerged. And there is no end in sight. The insider threat is a particularly intractable problem because there are so many ways insiders can steal information from an enterprise network.
Defense Contractor Spied on for Years by Chinese Hackers
May 2, 2013 3:55 pm | by Sean Gallagher | CommentsQinetiQ, a UK-based defense contractor, has its fingers all over some of the US Defense Department's most sensitive systems. The company's subsidiaries provide robots, diagnostic systems, intelligence systems for satellites, drones and even "cyber-security" to the US Department of Defense. But for at least three years, QinetiQ was apparently unintentionally supplying its expertise to another customer: China.
Fast Digital Forensics Sniff Out Accomplices
May 2, 2013 3:06 pm | by Paul Marks | CommentsWhen a suspect is apprehended, their computers, phones and other devices become important sources of evidence. But mining all that data – a typical case can involve several terabytes of information — takes time, and usually requires specially trained officers. Backlogs can delay investigations for weeks.
Cyber-dam Busted
May 2, 2013 11:09 am | by Bill Gertz | CommentsU.S. intelligence agencies traced a recent cyber intrusion into a sensitive infrastructure database to the Chinese government or military cyber warriors, according to U.S. officials. The compromise of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams (NID) is raising new concerns that China is preparing to conduct a future cyber attack against the national electrical power grid.
Chinese Cyberespionage: Brazen, Prolific And Persistent
May 2, 2013 10:12 am | by Kelly Jackson Higgins | CommentsTracing malware and breaches to their attackers is not straightforward — anyone can hide behind layers of IP addresses — but China has been confirmed as a major player in cyberespionage in multiple reports this month, as both Verizon and FireEye independently have released data that points the finger at the country for the bulk of cyberspying activity.
