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…

Australia Considers Cyber Czar Model

Following the recent creation of the “cyber czar” post by the Obama administration, Australia is looking to the United States for feasible upgrades to its own cybersecurity.

The need for a centralized authority to facilitate better security protocols throughout Australia’s critical infrastructure has been highlighted by a number of cyber attacks in Australia against the government.

The Prime Minister’s website was subjected to a distributed denial of service attack in early…

Army Developing Manual for Fighting in Cyberspace

The U.S. Army is currently working on a manual for using cyberspace as a war fighting platform that will be released in October. Once the manual is completed, it will provide battlefield commanders with a coherent guide to exploiting cyberspace in military operations.

The new doctrine is focused on both the offensive and defensive capabilities of cyberspace. The manual is set to cover concepts such as attacking the…

Raytheon Buys out BBN Technologies

Raytheon, which recorded more than $23 billion in revenue for 2008, announced recently it has settled on terms to purchase BBN Technologies, an R&D company involved in the development of the Internet.

Raytheon is looking to build its capacity as a leading player in technology services to the government, alongside the likes of Northrop Grumman and Booz Allen Hamiliton.

BBN Technologies has developed a number of cybersecurity systems for…

Hunting for the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals

The 6th Annual Cyber Security Awareness Week, developed and run by students at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, is set to kick off later this month. The graduate students in the Information Systems and Internet Security Lab, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, developed a series of cyber-war games in which students from high school, undergraduate, and graduate programs can participate.

The program is…