The Black Hawk Safety Net has recruited over 12,000 VIP members, collecting around 7 million yuan in fees for membership. An additional 170,000 users have registered for free with the organization.

The Chinese are often accused of being behind hacker efforts against foreign companies and governments. Earlier this year, news reports suggested that a hacking attack against Google emanated from China.

John Brennan

President Obama’s top counter terrorism adviser, John Brennan, recently said on NBC’s Meet the Press, that the US faces serious threats in cyberspace. “The threats and the vulnerabilities within the cyber domain are serious and significant,” he said.

Brennan did not name a specific country (or countries) as being responsible for the threat. President Obama has made cyber security a central issue that his administration is looking to tackle. Back in May 2009, Melissa Hathaway revealed the 60 Day Cyber Security Review, which called for the creation of a cyber security coordinator at the White House. In December, Obama named Howard Schmidt to the post.

“We’re looking at these issues from the standpoint of espionage from governments, from different individuals, whether they be hackers or terrorist organizations,” said Brennan. “The opportunities to create problems within the cyber sphere are significant and this government is taking steps.”

Another central issue in cyber security, particularly for the US, is that the majority of the critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector. “It’s a very complex and complicated challenge, but we are working very closely with the private sector.  We’re working very closely with the different instruments of government as well as our foreign partners,” he said.

Brennan ended by discussing the shared responsibility for cyber security.

“National security is something that is at risk, and that’s why what we’re trying to do is to ensure that our networks, our government networks, our private sector networks, have the ability to withstand these attempts to hack in and to conduct activities, whether it’s stealing intellectual property rights or whether it’s trying to steal government secrets, or whether it’s trying to cause problems or steal one’s identity. And that’s why this is a shared responsibility–government, private individuals and private sector,” Brennan said.

To conduct the study, SurfRight used their HitmanPro 3 behavioural scan to scan over 100,000 computers for malware. Approximately one quarter of the users did not have any anti-virus scanner on their computer or using out-of-date software, according to an article on The Register.co.uk.

The video references a number of slang terms used in Nigeria. Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has stepped up efforts to combat the growing rates of cyber crime in Nigeria.

One of the most popular scams is the advanced free fraud (AFF). It involves targeting victims with e-mail or letter messages which convince the victim to send the criminal money in the belief that they will receive a larger sum at a later date.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for overseeing all technical aspects of the company’s strategy and implementation. Using an active and practical approach, the CTO will direct the technology focus to attain Ericsson Federal’s strategic goals and plan.

Responsibilities:

- Reports directly to the CEO – Institute policy, program and standards that ensure technology development and deployment is done within the context of industry best practice. – Drive programs that supports increasing the organization’s capacity for innovation. – Define high-level design and requirements, and documentation. – Establish governance structures that will serve to support the enterprise and federal architecture vision. – Improve the overall architecture competency and capability organization-wide and promote technology best practices. – Create long term strategy prioritization plan for shared architecture development across the organization that supports integrated products. – Act as the architectural evangelist, socializing and marketing the benefits of key architectural initiatives to senior leaders throughout the organization defining and driving common architectural standards across the organization. – Enhance and develop product and service delivery by supporting due diligence and planning for acquisition integration…

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Security agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) are investigating over 20 cases of possible money laundering via gambling websites in an effort to finance terrorism. The revelations demonstrate that the gambling industry still remains vulnerable to exploitation despite the publicity in 2007 of the “godfather of cyber-terrorism for al-Qaida” and his accomplices, who used gambling sites to launder money received from stolen credit card credentials.

One of the men was found to still be accessing gambling sites from prison and had a number of credit card accounts.

In looking to build a more skilled cyber security workforce, the bill, which has moved to the Senate, will provide $108.7 million over a five year period for a scholarship program for cyber security. In return for the scholarship, students will be required to serve in the government for a period equal to their length of scholarship once they graduate.

One of the central issues for the federal government and private industry is hiring and retaining skilled cyber professionals.

Lt. Gen. Bob Elder (AF ret.) recently told The New New Internet in an interview regarding cyber security at the Air Force, “our biggest challenge is that once we get them trained, they’re trained so well that they’re worth a lot of money on the outside, so then it becomes hard to keep them.  This poses a difficult challenge:  We can find people who have the right potential, and we train them, but it takes time to develop the experience to be really good in this business, and about the time our Airmen reach that point they become very attractive to the private sector.”

Similarly, Mark Orndorff, who heads the Information Assurance program at DISA, also is competing with the private sector for skilled cyber professionals.

When asked about attracting cyber professionals, Orndorff told The New New Internet, “That’s a great question and definitely a challenge that is facing us as we speak.  We are working this week to try to fill quite a number of vacancies and address the problem that you are talking about.”

However, DISA is already looking to take advantage of trying to get students interested in the field prior to graduate, providing training and job opportunities.

“We’re heavily dependent on the intern program and we work that in partnership with NSA where NSA has an active effort to offer up scholarships for college students with a commitment after graduation for a tour of service with the government.  We get a good number of interns coming out of that program and that’s been a huge benefit for us,” Orndorff said.

Gen Hayden

The Bipartisan Policy Center announced yesterday that it will host a simulated cyber attack on the US. The simulated attack, called Cyber ShockWave, will be held February 16 and will examine how the government would work to respond to a cyber attack.

Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden and the BPC’s National Security Preparedness Group was developed in partnership with General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, SMobile Systems, Southern Company and Georgetown University.The simulation will bring together a representative group of former administration and national security individuals who will play cabinet members. They will be required to advise the ‘president’ during the crisis and respond to the attack.

The exercise will be carried out in real time with intelligence and news reports being delivered. The debrief from the simulation will include a discussion on possible government responses in the event of an attack.

Individuals participating in the event include:

Former senior administration officials and national security experts participating include:

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff as National Security Advisor

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte as Secretary of State

White House Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend as Secretary of Homeland Security

Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin as Director of National Intelligence

Senator Bennett Johnston as Secretary of Energy

Director of the National Economic Council Stephen Friedman as Secretary of Treasury

Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick as Attorney General

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart as Counselor to the President

General Counsel of the National Security Agency Stewart Baker as Cyber Coordinator

Business Development Manager: Lead new business identification, business capture and proposal processes for the Defense Logistics Systems Operating Unit (OU) of NGIS’ Defense Systems Division reporting to the OU Director, Defense Logistics Systems and dotted line reporting responsibilities to the Business Unit BD Director. Identify, qualify, pursue, bid, and win competitive and sole source DoD logistics technology business opportunities. Assist in long range and strategic planning activities. Lead opportunity pursuit strategy formulation and execution activities. Investigate and form partnerships and alliances specific to market segments and business opportunities. Lead Pursuit and Bid/No-Bid decision briefings. Provide business and competitive intelligence to OU line and Business Development organizations. Participate in Capture Management and Proposal Development activities. Maintain positive, ongoing relationships with existing and potential customers at all levels of an organization. Interface with NGIS technology function to develop technical discriminators and customer solutions. Basic Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree with 7 or more years of industry experience in a similar role. US Citizenship and the ability to obtain a Secret and/or a TS/SCI clearance. Proven success rate…

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Rep. Dan Lipinski (D, IL), the sponsor of the bill, said “The amount of time all of us spend on the Internet, the vulnerabilities that are out there, hopefully through this work, we can really make things better, make our Internet more secure, so we have fewer problems with attacks, not just on government but on individuals.”

The bill is designed to help the federal government acquire skilled cyber security professionals, coordinate R&D efforts, promote education and awareness among the general populace and enhance the ability to transfer cybersecurity technologies.

If the bill is passed by the Senate and approved by President Obama it will strengthen the power of NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology). NIST will be required to develop an educational campaign to encourage wholesale cyber hygiene. The bill also authorizes the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct R&D surrounding the cyber workforce.