ACC Publishes Report on Cybersecurity for Companies Abroad

The American Chemistry Council has published a report stressing companies must focus on cybersecurity in emerging geographical manufacturing sectors, such as Asia. The report, titled “Cyber Security in Emerging Geographies”, calls on companies to increase cybersecurity to secure intellectual property and data privacy.

The report breaks down the emerging sectors into Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. The report gives helpful overviews of…

Cyber Squatting on the Rise

According to industry experts, incidents of cyber squatting are on the rise. Cyber squatters are using the false domains to disseminate malicious software to unsuspecting individuals on the Internet.

Cyber squatting involves taking a web address similar to an established product and using a variety of techniques to manipulate search engines to ensure the website is one of the top hits. The sites often appear legitimate and use…

DoD Needs Better Management System

The Government Accountability Office recently released a report citing the Department of Defense still needs to improve portions of its system for developing and acquiring new software products. GAO was investigating the implementation of the Software and Systems Process Improvement throughout the DoD.

SSPI is meant to increase the effectiveness and cut costs on programs that are software intensive. In the next five years, DoD is expected to…

Top 10 Universities Preparing Future Cybersecurity Professionals

As the need for increased cybersecurity is acknowledged, universities across the United States are looking to help fill the gap with well-trained graduates. Each of the following universities are certified National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security. Schools must meet a number of stringent criteria in order to receive certification. Below are The New New Internet‘s…

DNI Places Cybersecurity as Top Mission Objective

In the 2009 National Intelligence Strategy, Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, placed enhancing cybersecurity as one of the six top objectives for the Intelligence Community. NIS highlights the importance of increasing cooperation and coordination between intelligence organizations, the private sector, and academia.

The nation’s cyber infrastructure “is neither secure nor resilient,” according to the NIS, which highlighted the integral role the Intelligence Community should play in securing…

Hackers Better at Information Sharing

Philip Reitinger, deputy undersecretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate at DHS, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that “Hackers, in some way, have remained better in information sharing than we in government have been.”

Hackers gather on servers and share information on new techniques and sell stolen information to one another, such as credit-card numbers. Participants in these chat spaces are difficult to find as…

Chinese Researcher Causes DHS to Investigate California Power Grid

Network analyst Jian-Wei Wang of Dalian University of Technology in China, used public information to demonstrate how to cause a power spike that could cause serious power failures throughout a power grid network in California.

An article, published in New Scientist, brought Wang’s study (which has been publicly available since March) to the attention of DHS officials who are now reportedly reviewing the problem.

The problem, known…

SANS Institute Report on Top Cyber Risks

The SANS Institute published a report Tuesday highlighting the top cyber risks based on data collected from government and the private sector. According to the report, websites and unpatched software are the greatest cyber risks.

More than 60 percent of attacks on the Internet are against websites and often take the form of “convert trusted websites into malicious websites,” according to the report. The other main focus is…

Hathaway Optimistic on Direction of Cybersecurity

At the ArcSight Protect 09 conference, keynote speaker Melissa Hathaway, former acting senior director for cyberspace at the White House, pointed to her belief that the federal government is moving in the right direction for securing cyberspace. However, she highlighted that currently the nation is not where it should be in terms of protecting cyberspace, and more needs to be done.

Hathaway warned cyber incidents involving…

Lack of Cyber Czar Criticized

The chairs of the House Cybersecurity Caucus urged President Barack Obama to appoint a “cyber czar” quickly. In the letter dated last week, Rep. Michael McCaul (R.-TX) and Rep. James Langevin (D.-RI) highlighted Obama’s failure to successfully appoint a candidate to head cybersecurity issues.

The letter pointed to two major issues stressed by the December 2008 Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President, namely that a national strategy…