TNNI Interview With Leslie Harris of CDT: Privacy Needs To Be Obama’s Priority

Internet privacy expert and president and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, Leslie Harris, gave The New New Internet her thoughts on the current administration’s plan to improve  US cybersecurity. Harris was pleased with President Obama’s collaboration with civil liberty advocates and the private sector on the White House 60-Day review and hopes the partnership will continue. Yet Harris is also…

GSA Awards 5 Cybersecurity Software Firms Estimated $20M Contract

GSA has approved 5 cybersecurity software firms to supply cyber defense solutions  to government agencies. GSA worked with the Department of Homeland Security on the $20 million contract, according to Lawrence Hale, director of infrastructure optimization at GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services.

Under the agreement federal agencies will now have the ability to buy discounted situational awareness incident response (SAIR) software tools. SAIR technology causes agencies to identify and act upon outside…

International Cooperation Cyber Bill Propsed By Senate

The Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) and Senator Snowe (R-ME) Cybersecurity Act of 2009 has yet to be passed and there is still the questioning of the president’s unchecked power to ”declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network.” 

However, a new cyber bill was introduced last week by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) entitled Fostering…

IT Dashboard Halts $200M Worth Of Veteran Affairs Projects: Cites Inefficiency

It seems that just after a few weeks in motion the first federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s IT Dashboard is doing its job. The US Department of Veterans affairs announced that 45 of its technology projects that are either behind schedule or over  budget have temporarily been halted. The 45 initiatives are now awaiting approval to continue progress or news of termination.

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to audit the $200 million worth of suspended projects. Kundra…

Booz Allen Hamilton Wins $22.6M Cyber Security Air Force Contract

Booz Allen Hamilton is now on the cyber-bandwagon and won a $22.6 million two-part contract with the US Air Force. $16.4 million is designated for information security services at the Defense Logistics Agency. Under the contract Booz Allen Hamilton will provide information technology that educates individuals on how to detect and penetrate cyber attacks. $6.2 million is for the US Air Force Space Command’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Directorate to aide…

The President’s CIO Proposes One-Stop Government Cloud Shop

We all know that Obama’s Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra believes cloud computing should be the dominate technology in the US federal government and that it should be the future of IT technology. Kundra plans to make this goal a reality with the launch of a General Services Administration (GSA) ‘storefront’.

At a cloud computing symposium last week, Vivek Kudra said, “We will abstract…

Social Network Hacking: Who’s To Blame?

After the massive amount of Twitter hacking attempts earlier this week the question must be asked: is cyber hacking the fault of an individuals lack of password security, or is the social networking provider to blame?  Gartner analyst John Pescatore notes, ”Twitter and most of Google Apps until, say, 18 months ago, were built as consumer-grade services to share information very widely and easily, not to protect information and prevent information from…

DHS To Vendors: Need Cyber Protection Of .Gov Websites

The Department of Homeland Security has posted a notice on its website asking the private sector for “end-to-end solutions for protecting the federal ‘.gov’ cyber domain”. Registrations will be accepted up until July 22, 2009. Full details are published on the Federal  Business Opportunities website. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C), and the National Cybersecurity Division (NCSD) hope vendors will provide the agencies…

The New New Internet: Interview With SANS Internet Storm Center Director Marc Sachs

Cyber expert Marcus Sachs, director of SANS Internet Storm Center and executive director of government affairs for national security policy at Verizon had a few minutes to discuss with The New New Internet the future of cyber security. Sachs emphasizes the difference between what should be done and what will be done in terms of cyber security. Sachs recognizes that there…

July 4th Cyber Attacks: North Korea? Doubtful. Britain? Maybe

The US government has yet to even acknowledge that there was a denial of service attack on government websites as well as private entities such as the New York Stock Exchange and The Washington Post. South Korean delegates are the only persons effected by the attacks to openly accuse North Korea of the denial of service attacks, and that was off the record. 

Representative Peter Hoekstra told the Washington Times last week that,…