cybersecurity

The industry side of the military industrial complex is on the scent of the federal government's cybersecurity dollars.

Bloomberg has a year-end rundown on the efforts of the big defense contractors to tap into a market that could swell to $11 billion by 2013. Boeing and Lockheed, for instance, both set up new cyberdefense business units in the last six months, the news agency says, while Raytheon in the last 18 months has acquired a trio of network security providers and is looking to boost the number of its certified security engineers by 50 percent in 2009.

"The … Read more

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was created, it was supposed to find a way to respond to serious "cybercrises." "The department will gather and focus all our efforts to face the challenge of cyberterrorism," President Bush said when signing the legislation in November 2002.

More than six years later, and after spending more than $400 million on cybersecurity, DHS still has not accomplished that stated goal. "We need to have a plan tailored for a cybercrisis," DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday.

Chertoff told a conference in Washington, D.C., … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security has failed to ensure the nation's cybersecurity, a new report to be released Monday concludes, because the threat of cyberattacks is too vast for any one agency to tackle and must be addressed by a new White House office, as well as revised laws and government practices.

As President-elect Barack Obama fills the remaining cabinet positions in his administration, a Center for Strategic and International Studies commission is recommending Obama create a new office in the White House: the National Office for Cyberspace, headed by an Assistant to the President for Cyberspace. The Commission … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security is too reactionary to cybersecurity threats, policy experts said Wednesday, and needs to develop stronger incentives for the private sector to take preventative measures against cyberthreats.

The DHS cybersecurity initiative has come under heavy criticism, and some have suggested responsibility for cybersecurity be shifted to the White House. Panelists at a roundtable discussion Wednesday hosted by the House of Representative's Homeland Security Committee agreed there could be stronger leadership, but they emphasized that there are potentially more effective means of improving the nation's response to cyberthreats.

"I personally don't believe you … Read more

The University of Texas at San Antonio launched a new incubator that will help commercialize security technologies.

The Institute for Cyber Security's (ICS) new incubator will provide start-ups access to seed capital, business advise, and office space and infrastructure on the campus. It is getting $5.5 million in funding from the state of Texas.

The first two start-ups being incubated are Denim Labs, which developed technology that protects PHP-based Web sites against certain types of intrusions, and SafeMashups, which enables Web mashup applications to authenticate with each other before exchanging data.

The ICS also has ongoing projects dealing … Read more

The federal agency responsible for regulating the export of sensitive goods and technologies is moving to an entirely Net-based system to process applications for export licenses and other requests.

Starting Monday, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security is requiring members of the public to submit export and re-export license applications--along with classification requests, encryption review requests, and agricultural commodities license exception notifications--via its Simplified Network Application Process (SNAP-R) system.

The BIS is retiring its Electronic License Application Information Network (ELAIN). Paper forms may only be submitted if the applicant meets one of a handful of exceptions, such … Read more

WASHINGTON--The threat of cybersecurity attacks are on the rise from organized crime, terrorists, and foreign governments, an FBI official warned on Wednesday.

There are a "couple dozen" countries interested in breaching U.S. networks, said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI cyber division, though he declined to list any specific countries.

The attempted attacks on U.S. networks are "increasingly sophisticated" and "the amount of information that has been stolen is significant," Henry said.

In particular, the use of botnets continues to increase, he said, while companies have lost tens of millions of … Read more

The government has made great strides working with private industry to secure the nation's critical infrastructure, an advisory board to the president and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday, but top executives in the private sector need to step up and do more.

With infrastructure like electric grids, water, and telecommunications largely in the hands on private industry, it is up to the leaders in those sectors to work with government to keep the country safe--yet the participation of chief executives in such efforts has steadily waned since September 11, 2001, according to a working group … Read more

Two Europeans, one of whom is English, have been indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in connection with a 2003 distributed denial-of-service attack that is the focus of a major FBI investigation.

The two men, who are not in custody, were indicted as part of the FBI's Operation Cyberslam, initiated in 2003 following a series of crippling distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks on a large Los Angeles vendor of digital recorders. The attacks effectively knocked that business offline, along with other private and government bodies, for two weeks, resulting in losses ranging from $200,000 to more … Read more