The Last Watchdog

on Internet security by Byron Acohido

cyber_warfare

Pressure mounts for naming of a White House cybersecurity adviser with clout
April 15, 2009

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whitehouse_eveningWord is that Melissa Hathaway’s 60-day review of U.S. cybersecurity policy  will hit President Obama’s desk this Friday, April 17. Precisely when the White House makes it public will be an indicator of how high a priority this is with Obama, who certainly has his plate full with a few other weighty matters.

A leak of the executive summary of Hathaway’s review sometime in the next 48 hours — in …More

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Debate over significance of Conficker phoning home on April Fools Day
March 28, 2009

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joestewart2Many security experts are downplaying the significance of  millions of Conficker-infected PCs initiating an elaborate calling home sequence on April 1.

Still, concerns are growing  about the much firmer grip the bad guys are on the cusp of securing on the corrupted PCs, whether or not they choose to do anything with them on April Fools Day.

SecureWorks senior researcher Joe Stewart, who gave up playing bass guitar in a rock band …More

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‘Cyberinvaders’ crack into Sen. Bill Nelson’s staff PCs — twice
March 20, 2009

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billnelson_soldiers_cropCyberinvaders, as a peeved Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. called them today, continue cracking into U.S. government systems with impunity.

Nelson, who serves on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services and Finance committees,  has just issued a statement disclosing that criminal hackers twice this month cracked into two PC workstations used by three of his key staffers. No classified information was kept on the breached PCs, which were used by Nelson’s foreign-policy aide, …More

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The cybersecurity mess on the White House front steps
March 16, 2009

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Special to Threatpost
by Byron Acohido (LastWatchdog.com)
March 16, 2009, 7:55 AM

obama_flag_cropIf President Obama thinks fixing the broken U.S. economy is a challenge, and ending the ground wars in the Middle East a conundrum, wait until he gets around to tackling cybersecurity.

Obama must reverse the abject lack of any sort of meaningful coordinated defense against intensifying and overlapping cyber attacks on U.S. citizens, businesses, schools, hospitals, governments and military from unseen …More

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Beckstrom Q&A: Cybersecurity official explains how he was hamstrung by NSA
March 9, 2009

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rodabeckstrom_crop_edited1The sudden resignation  of Rod A. Beckstrom, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior  official tasked with unifying the federal government’s cybersecurity intiatives, bodes ill for a new age of transparency and collaborative problem-solving in government. Beckstrom was unable to maneuver around, much less partner with, the powerful National Security Agency (NSA).

In this stunningly frank March 5th resignation letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom, Director of the National …More

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Chinese hackers seek U.S. access
March 12, 2007

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USA TODAY
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

Find an original copy of this article here.

SAN FRANCISCO – The cyberattack of a U.S. military computer system has deepened concern about cyberspying and the security of the Internet’s infrastructure.

Chinese hackers were most likely behind an intrusion in November that disabled the Naval War College’s network, forcing it to disconnect from the Internet for several weeks, says Lt. Cmdr. Doug Gabos, a spokesman for the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command in Norfolk, Va.

Forensic analysis …More

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