Secret Service IT Infrastructure Outstanding…in 1980

Although the Secret Service’s most well known job is the task of protecting the President, they still focus on their original mandate investigating counterfeit currency crime.  Last Thursday, Secret Service director Mark Sullivan testified before a House Appropriations hearing about the status of counterfeiting and protective detail and their newest budget requests. Sullivan and his…

Gov Info Sharing

Public-private partnerships are often the cornerstone of influential legislation. With a new bill about cybersecurity going through both houses, public-private partnerships will  be extended between intelligence agencies and the private sector. Historically, such partnerships have caused major issues and public outrage such as the AT&T involvement with warrantless surveillance. But this new legislation hopes to change the…

Madoff Programmers Indicted

Two computer programmers were indicted by the Federal Grand Jury on charges in fraud and conspiracy. Jerome O’Hara and George Perez knowingly  created the software programs used by Bernard Madoff to “cook the books” in the billion dollar bonzi scheme.

The indictment claims  O’Hara and Perez knew their programs were being used to falsify information being provided to the United States Security and Exchange commission….

Cooperation Key to Catching Criminals

Cyber criminal cases are illusive, invisible and devastating. A criminal’s location does not need to be near the area of the crime and criminals do not leave finger prints or much physical evidence. Motives of money, drugs and valuables don’t come close to the appeal and intrigue of illegal sharing and stealing data. Because cyber crime transcends traditional crime,…

2010 Marks The First Cyber Tax Day

April 15th 2010 is no ordinary tax day. This year, for the first year, most tax payers will use IRS e-file to file their federal tax forms. The IRS anticipates more than 2/3rds of individuals to file electronically.

Doug Shulman, IRS Commissioner, said “Electronic filing is more and more popular every year, and most taxpayers now use e-file….

TSA Employee Attempted Sabotage on Terror Database

Former U.S. Transportation Security Agency data analyst, Douglas Duchak, has been accused of trying to sabotage a terrorist database one week after losing his job. The database stores updated information from the government’s terrorist watch-list and criminal histories. Also, the database is used to examine people with access to sensitive information and secure data.

The attack was designed to cause damage intentionally by disrupting data on servers. Planting malicious code…

Researchers say Security ID Questions Inadequate

Researchers say that security questions on websites need to be replaced with harder more complex questions. A study, from the University of Cambridge,  proved the ease of guessing answers to common questions. Another study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft proved that 17% of answers can be guessed by those that know the target.

Many websites such as…

Skimming Off the Top: Crime’s Easy Target

Skimming is a big business. Internationally, 40 million Euros are scammed each year through ATM scamming, and domestically the numbers are  just as high. Worldwide $8.5 billion is lost from consumers and credit card companies.

Skimming attacks almost always happen in the same way. Criminals paste a fake card reader over the actual reader. A…

Twitter Adds Security to Combat Phishing

As a reaction to increasing phishing attacks against Twitter users, Twitter is tightening security. Released, all direct messages submitted to Twitter will be viewed through a new URL, twt.tl. This new coding will not effect the user interface, but provide a more secure platform for direct messages.

This site will capture a blacklist of URLs that have been linked to…

GAO Sees Challenges with CNCI

The Government Accountability Office has released a study of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative established by President Bush in 2008. Last week, a declassified version of the CNCI was released with the new administration’s changes and adaptations. GAO issued the study in response to ongoing threats to federal system by cyber attacks.

GAO was asked to determine what actions…