State Department Cyber Official: Cybersecurity a US Diplomatic Priority

A senior State Department official has said cybersecurity is now a diplomatic priority for the United States with Washington looking to strengthen partnerships to fight data theft and reduce the risk of conflict, Reuters reports.

Christopher Painter, coordinator for cyber issues for the State Department, said the nation faces…

FBI Warns of Illegal Wire Transfers to China from Compromised Computers

The FBI is warning the public about a growing trend in which cyber criminals use exploited online banking credentials of U.S. businesses to send unauthorized wire transfers to Chinese companies.

Between March 2010 and April 2011, the FBI identified 20 incidents in which the online banking credentials of small- to medium-sized U.S. businesses were compromised and used to initiate wire transfers to Chinese economic and trade companies near the…

Social Justice Website Cyber Attacked for Supporting Chinese Dissident

A San Francisco-based website promoting social justice has been targeted by hackers for its support of a Chinese dissident, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Change.org founder Ben Rattray asked the U.S. State Department to condemn the “highly sophisticated” attacks, which he said began after the website’s petitioned to free Ai WeiWei, an artist and outspoken critic of the Chinese government.

The site was hit by an…

Human Factor Missing in Cybersecurity?

There is too much of an emphasis in cybersecurity on “technical solutions,” and not enough focus on the nitty-gritty unknowns of human behavor in cyberspace, says Eric Bonabeau, the founder and chairman of cutting-edge “idea-incubator” Icosystem Corporation.

“The extent to which research and development in cybersecurity has been skewed toward ‘technical solutions’ is mind-boggling,” Bonabeau,…

James Clapper: China’s Cyber Warfare Capabilities ‘Formidable Concern’ to US

China’s growing capabilities in cyber warfare and intelligence gathering are a “formidable concern” to the United States, the intelligence director told a Senate panel yesterday.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the Chinese have invested significantly in cyber warfare capabilities and “this is…

35K Chinese Websites Hacked in 2010

Tens of thousands of websites in China were attacked by hackers in 2010, including 4,635 government websites, according to a report released by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China.

The report, quoted by People’s Daily Online, said government websites are vulnerable to cyber attacks, and websites of financial institutions have become hackers’ first choice. The number of compromised government…

Think Tank to Publish Report on China-US Effort to Fight Spam

A New York-based think tank is planning next month to release a report on cybersecurity and how to build a partnership between the United States and China to combat spam.

“Fighting Spam to Build Trust” will be the first product of talks between Chinese and United States experts convened by the EastWest Institute. The…

Kelly Collins of Fortify Software: Possible Creation of Cyber Weapon ‘Significant Concern’

President of Fortify Software Public Sector, an HP company, Kelly Collins has a mantra for software security: Find, fix and (from the title of her firm) fortify.

For too long, software security assurance has slipped under the radar. But now, Collins said the government is beginning to move to patch up “gaping holes…

Iranian Cyber Army Hacks Voice of America

The Voice of America website has been attacked by Iranian hackers who defaced the homepage and disabled the organization’s online news service to more than 30 countries, according to NewZimbabwe.com.

Claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army, the hackers defaced VOA’s main website and left a message addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying, “Mrs. Clinton, do you want to hear the voice of oppressed…

Minister: Cyber Attack on Canada Didn’t Compromise Budget Data

Hackers who broke into the computer system at Canada’s Finance Department and Treasury Board were not able to extract any confidential information on the forthcoming federal budget, according to Finance Minister James Flaherty.

“There’s no suggestion that budget secrecy has been compromised in any way in my finance department,” the minister told reporters in Paris, according to Reuters. “We’re concerned about it.”

Canadian news outlet…