NIST, Maryland to Open Natl. Cyber Center for Health IT, Cloud

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is partnering with the state of Maryland and Montgomery County, Md. to establish a cybersecurity center near NIST’s Gaithersburg, Md. campus.

NIST said on Tuesday it signed a memorandum of understanding with state and county representatives to establish the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence.

NIST said…

DARPA Looking to Develop Human Illusion Tech

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency requested $4 million for a project to develop human deceptive technologies, Wired reports.

DARPA will investigate new technologies that can create illusions on the battlefield.

Wired reports DARPA hopes to better understand how the human brain processes sensory inputs and develop auditory and visual hallucinations to interfere with enemy actions.

This is not the first…

Xerox Subsidiary to Develop Govt. Tech Using Habit Info, Data to Find Insider Threat

Xerox subsidiary PARC will help the Defense Department identify internet threats before damage is done under a $3.5 million contract, Xerox announced Wednesday.

Under the two-year contract, PARC will partner with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop technology for finding insider threats.

PARC will work with DARPA on…

Air Force, Postal Inspectors Sift Big Data to Find Hacker

The Air Force and Postal Service inspectors recently caught a cyber thief by analyzing computer data, according to an official Air Force report. 

Rene Quimby located vulnerabilities in the Army and Air Force Exchange Service website compromised 16,000 users’ information.

Postal Inspection Service agents obtained Quimby’s computer, which contained 132 gigabytes of victim…

Report: NSA to Use ‘Whitelist’ Approach for PC Security

In the cybersecurity realm, malicious software is not blacklisted unless it is first labeled as malicious.

However, the National Security Agency has plans to use a program where software is blocked unless it is approved by a systems administrator or “whitelisted,” NextGov reports.

This would shift the focus on securing computers using a…

Symantec Opens Herndon, Va. Cybersecurity Center

Symantec Corp. has opened a new security operations center in Herndon, Va. to support the company’s managed security services group, the company announced Tuesday.

The new center was formerly located in Alexandria, Va. and Symantec also operates centers in Australia, India and the UK.

Brian Dunphy, a Symantec senior product management director, said the new center provides nearly…

Report: NATO Saving Cyber Offense Plans for Later

 In a 2010 strategic concept report, NATO said cyber attacks were becoming more damaging to government administrations and economies.

NATO leaders are meeting in Brussels, Belgium this week but cybersecurity measures from the organization are still not clear because NATO is not sure of what to do in the event…

NIST Wants Security Beyond Passwords for Cyber Transactions

The National Institute of Standards and Technology will award $10 million for pilot projects aimed at creating a trusted online identity using aspects other than passwords or simple IDs.

NIST said on Wednesday it launched a competition for the funds, which will range from $1.25 million to $2 million per year.

A NIST-hosted program office for…

Los Alamos Lab Uses Quantum Physics for Mobile Security

Through quantum cryptography, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have invented a new system to secure large transfers of information between mobile devices.

LANL recently released information about the QKarD, a miniature transmitter which generates random cryptographic keys to encode and decode information.

LANL says the QKarD uses the laws of quantum physics and…

SAIC, Energy Software Firm Form Joint Product Alliance

SAIC Inc. and energy software firm C3 have formed an alliance to deliver energy solutions to public sector, industrial and commercial customers, according to an SAIC release.

SAIC said the companies initially formed a partnership in 2011. The new agreement includes joint product development, sales, marketing, and support.

SAIC will sell, install and support…