army.mil

According to the Fort Leavenworth Lamp, the U.S. Army Contracting Command is embracing social media to help its public relations strategy. Hundreds of millions of people use social networking sites including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. 

“Statistically, social networking sites are where people spend most of their online time,” said Art Forster, director of the ACC Office of Public and Congressional Affairs Utilizing social media. “We are able to share our news and information with both our folks and the general public.”

Forster says the use of social media has become such an important part of the command’s communication strategy that ACC hired a social media manager earlier this year. Since experimenting with social media in 2009, ACC says it has seen a significant increase in traffic.

“We owe it to the American public to be candid, and honest, and approachable, and there is no better way that we know of to be as accessible to so many people in such a convenient way,” said Maj. Juanita Chang, director, Online and Social Media Division, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Headquarters, Department of the Army.

Earlier this year, ACC’s public website, www.acc.army.mil and recruiting website, www.armyhire.com, were made available in mobile format. Mobile applications for the websites are also being developed.

IBM itself is also part of the BYOD trend, as previously covered here on The New New Internet. IBM said in its announcement that employees can use the apps to collaborate and share data, images and conduct meetings.

As reported by NetworkWorld, the new apps are free to customers who have active licenses of the IBM software being made available on mobile devices.

A new app makes social software program IBM Connections available on the iPad and adds the ability to edit documents. Users of web-based meeting service LotusLive can view shared presentations and participate in online meetings. The LotusLive app is available on iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry devices.

IBM Sametime users, on iPad and Android devices, can participate in both one-on-one and group instant messaging conversations.

Other apps include widgets to access email and calendar and an app for telephony.

“The ability to play Angry Birds is fun, but being able to also securely access business applications, enterprise content and accelerate your organization will be the real gift that keeps on giving,” said Alistair Rennie, IBM general manager of social business. 

The U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, among other agencies, have now joined Google’s social network, according to a report from Information Week.

Originally only made available to individual users, Google Plus was recently opened to businesses and organizations through Google+ Pages. When it first rolled out its social network, Google shut down some business-oriented

For the most part, agencies have been posting content similar to the content posted on other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Information Week’s report says the Marine Corps’ Google Plus page consists of posts that are exactly the same as the service branch’s Facebook page.

Since launching its Google page on Monday, NASA has gained more than 18,000 followers. The space agency has mostly posted images and multimedia, but much of the information is different than that from its other social media platforms.

Other agencies that have joined Google Plus this week include:

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• Army Aviation’s Fort Rucker
• Texas Army National Guard
• National Weather Service’s field office in El Paso, Texas
• National Weather Service’s Warning Decision Training Branch

Previous Google Plus agency coverage:

•  NASA First Agency to Join Google Plus

NASA photo

Once selected as the most innovative federal agency by the Partnership for Public Service, NASA is on the forefront yet again as it is apparently the first agency to join Google Plus.

The space agency’s Google Plus page went live Monday, the same day Google began to open its social networking service to government agencies for the first time, according to a report from FCW.com.

“We are just getting started on Google+,” the agency said in its first posting according to the report.

The space agency’s page now has items on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, a mission in the Antarctic region and a photograph of nebula.

Google debuted its social networking service in July, allowing users to create “circles,” groups of organized contacts they can share content with. Until recently, Google Plus only accepted individual user profiles.

Monday, Google opened the network to agencies, corporations, and non-governmental agencies. Google officials say the social network has nearly 40 million users, according to the FCW report.

Photo: LordNikon

Yahoo Research launched an online study this week to test the well-known social theory that says any two people can be linked through six degrees of separation.

To pull off the Small World Experiment, Yahoo is asking for help from the the nearly 750 million Facebook users.

Any Facebook user can sign up to participate in the experiment. The experiment tests whether anyone in the world can get a message to anyone else in six steps by passing the message from friend to friend.

The experiment starts with a sender, or a person at one end of the chain. The sender is then given a target to reach in six or less steps.

The target also volunteers some information such as work history, schools attended, place of residence, name of spouse and age.

After viewing the personal information, the sender chooses one Facebook friend to start the chain. Anyone can choose to become a target after completing one sender transaction. Targets will fill out an additional questionnaire, which the sender will use to reach the target.

Duncan Watts, principal research scientist for Yahoo Research, will direct the study.

Forge.mil Community will help users connect, collaborate, share information and manage content, as well as provide a more holistic view of Forge.mil activities, the agency said in a release.

“We knew the community layer would be a tremendous benefit to our customer base by allowing users to organize around communities of interest that make sense to them, and it’s been very well accepted with more than 10,000 users added during the beta test phase,” said Forge.mil project manager Dan Gahafer.

With Forge.mil Community, groups can form built around communities of interest, organizations, mission areas, or specific technologies as well as groups created around topics of interest to the IT acquisition community.

The Forge.mil Community website is available to U.S. military, DoD government civilians and DoD contractors for government-authorized use, and access requires a valid DoD Common Access Card or a PKI certificate issued by a DoD-approved External Certificate Authority with government sponsor, according to DISA.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking comments from the public on its biennial update of the catalog of security controls for the federal government, which provides a series of management, operational and protective measures that can be used by federal agencies to help protect their information systems.

The publication in question is Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations, which federal agencies and their contractors have used the past five years to enhance the security of information systems.

For the first time since the document’s original publication in 2005 and its major updates in 2006 and 2009, NIST is seeking public input before developing its revamped cybersecurity guidance.

“To keep pace with the growing threat brought about by an increasing number of cyber attacks against federal information systems, NIST is committed to producing a comprehensive catalog of cutting-edge safeguards and countermeasures that are necessary to help protect the core missions and business functions of the federal government,” said Joint Task Force leader and NIST fellow Ron Ross.

The 2011 catalog will feature updated security controls, control enhancements and supplemental guidance as well as new tailoring and supplementation guidance. The public is requested to provide comments for areas such as:

• insider threats
• software application security
• social networking, mobiles devices and cloud computing
• cross domain solutions
• advanced persistent threats
• supply chain security
• industrial/process control systems
• privacy

Suggestions should be sent to sec-cert@nist.gov by April 29, 2011.

Conducted by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the 2011 (ISC)² Global Information Security Workforce Study says new threats from mobile devices, the cloud, social networking and insecure applications, as well as added responsibilities have led to “information security professionals being stretched thin, and like a series of small leaks in a dam, the current overworked workforce may be showing signs of strain.”

The study also shows a significant gap in skills needed industrywide. While information security professionals said they needed better training, a large number reported many of these technologies are already being used without consideration to security.

Other key findings from the study include:

• Mobile devices are one of the most pressing concerns among respondents. The study concludes mobile security could be the single most dangerous threat to organizations for the foreseeable future.
• Nearly 70 percent of respondents do not expect to see any increase in budget for information security personnel and training in 2011.
• Salaries have grown despite a global recession, with three out of five respondents reported receiving a pay increase in 2010.

“We need a paradigm shift in our global cybersecurity strategy to address the skills gaps revealed by the study,” said W. Hord Tipton, executive director of (ISC)². “(ISC)² believes it will take a combined effort of industry, government, academia and the profession to attract and educate a new generation of high-quality information security personnel and equip current professionals to address the latest threats.”

Photo: dinostock

Gone are the days of teens keeping their diaries under lock and key: Now, their deepest, darkest thoughts are for the world to see, according to new findings indicating that less than half of 18-25-year-olds across the United States, UK and Australia use passwords to protect their laptops and mobile devices when accessing social-networking sites.

AVG’s latest study was commissioned to highlight the dangers of status jacking, which is especially common among students and adults under the age of 25. AVG and Research Now surveyed more than 1,000 18-25 year-olds across the United States Australia, UK, Czech Republic and Japan in the first week of September.

While 78 percent of 18-25-year-olds secure their laptops with a password, only 41 percent of young adults in the United States protect their mobile devices by using a password. Among British young adults, half of of the surveyed said they secure their mobile devices with a password, while in Australia just more than half take the same precaution.

Roughly 40 percent of young adults across the UK and Australia share their passwords with friends and family. Among American youth, the figure is 35 percent.

Overall, young women take less security measures than their male counterparts. Forty two percent of women under 25 share their passwords, compared to 28 percent of men. Additionally, 81 percent of men under 25 years old password protect their laptops and PCs, however, a quarter of women fail to take this security measure.

Image: chrisharvey

A Symantec report has found that a majority of cyber-crime victims blame themselves for the web attack, experiencing a sense of powerlessness and lack of justice.

More than 7,000 adults from 14 countries took part in research for the Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact, which revealed that nearly 65 percent of adults globally have been a victim of some kind of cyber crime, including viruses and malware attacks, online scams, phishing attacks, hacking of social-networking profiles, credit-card fraud, and sexual predation.

According to the report, nearly 54 percent of the victims believe they are at fault when a cyber attack happens. Fueling the feeling of powerlessness is the notion that “faceless” criminals are the main perpetrators, as well as beliefs that cyber crooks won’t be brought to justice.

Surprisingly, when cyber crime occurs, less than half of all victims call their financial institution or the police, and just more than a third contact the website owner or email provider. Perhaps even more puzzling: Only half of respondents say they would change their behavior online if they became a victim.

According to associate professor of psychology at Loyola Marymount University Dr. Joseph LaBrie, those individuals are experiencing what is known as “learned helplessness.”

“Learned helplessness happens when people don’t know enough about a problem or don’t know how to resolve it,” he said in the report. “It’s like getting ripped off at a garage–if you don’t know enough about cars, you don’t argue with the mechanic. People just accept situations, even if it feels bad.”

Adam Palmer, Norton’s lead cybersecurity adviser, said everyone should all be able to enjoy the Internet without fear of victimization.

“Empowerment will occur by raising awareness of the issues related to cyber crime and educating people on best practices and the right products and technologies to prevent becoming a victim,” he said. “We are committed to standing on the frontline of the fight against cyber crime to see these numbers shift for the better each year.”