Top 50 Government CIOs Announced

U.S. Cyber Command and NSA head Keith B. Alexander and White House cyber coordinator Howard A. Schmidt have been chosen among the top 50 government CIOs on InformationWeek Government’s compilation of technology leaders across federal, state and local agencies.

But what exactly makes a top government CIO? Although there is no…

Nigerian Scam Bamboozles $1.5 Million from Senior Citizens

A total of 10 suspects have been charged for running a $1.5 million California-based 419 scam targeting mostly elderly people, according to media reports.

Prosecutors said three defendants — Bright Amesi, Briceson Loving and Erika Fletcher — yesterday pleaded not guilty after being already charged by a federal grand jury in 2009. The alleged mastermind Claudio Uche Dibe, who is a Nigerian national, was extradited from Canada…

Hackers Find Google’s Yet-to-be-Launched Cloud-based Music Service

Hackers have discovered that Google’s rumored, yet-to-be-released cloud-based music service not only exists but is up and running, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

Users on a developers’ message board noted that if they installed the leaked Honeycomb music player app in a certain way on Android, they could sync their music collections with Google’s servers. In short: They can now stream their music files remotely…

Naval Academy Adds Cybersecurity to Curriculum

The U.S. Naval Academy is changing its core curriculum for the first time in about a decade by adding two cybersecurity courses to meet the growing demands of educating a cybersecurity workforce, The Associated Press reported.

Andrew Phillips, the academic dean and provost, told AP the school’s role has been to develop courses that would…

NCSA Picks SAIC VP John Havermann as New President for 2011 Board

The National Cyber Security Alliance today announced electing John Havermann, vice president and director of cyber programs at SAIC, to serve as president of NCSA’s board of directors.

“Cybersecurity education and awareness have emerged as a national priority thanks to the leadership of the National Cyber Security Alliance over the past decade,” Havermann…

Navy Veteran H. Denby Starling II Takes Reins as HP’s New VP of Command & Control

HP Enterprise Services has named retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. H. Denby Starling, II vice president for command and control, Infrastructure Services.

His duties will encompass the integration of command and control disciplines into the design and operation of the infrastructure services HP provides to the Defense…

US Firms Eye Israel’s ‘Silicon Wadis’ for Tech Investments

Fueled by venture-capital investment in industries like  communications, IT and green technology, Israel’s high-tech industry has in recent years become a worldwide leader, and more U.S. companies are eyeing the Middle Eastern nation for prospective investments.

Israel’s technology sector, which has been expanding at a 10-20 percent clip since 2003, has…

Stuxnet is Cyber ‘Hiroshima’

Snobbish protestations to the contrary, Stuxnet is a big deal in the cyber world. The little (computer) worm that targeted Iran’s nuclear program and served as a middle-of-the-night, cold-sweat wake-up call for cybersecurity professionals the world over was not merely the opening shot in a cyber war, a

Anonymous Launches ‘Operation Bradical’

Anonymous has declared it will go after those who are currently responsible for detaining Bradley Manning, and in a crowd-sourced document the collective identifies Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morell and Quantico’s Chief Warrant Officer Denise Barnes as targets and calls on members to uncover personal information on both, Forbes’ Firewall blog reported.

Calling their attack “Operation Bradical,” members of the online gathering have set out…

Centurum Awarded Contract to Provide US Navy with Cryptologic Systems Support

Centurum Information Technology, Inc., has won a $15.6 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee, performance-based contract to provide tactical cryptologic systems support for the Navy and the United Kingdom Navy shipboard and shore cryptologic systems worldwide in the areas of test and evaluation.

The contract comes with options, which, if exercised, would bring the total value of the deal…