Tag: CYBERSECURITY

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/06/18/new-bill-grants-fed-power-to-shut-down-the-web/'; Connecticut Senator, and chairman of the Homeland Security committee, Joseph Lieberman introduced legislation last week that would grant broad new emergency powers over the Internet to the federal government. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA) would require broadband ...

Just two days after a group of hackers successfully swiped personal information from over 114,000 of AT&T's iPad users, the New York Times is reporting that the FBI has stepped in to investigate. Jason Pack, a supervisory special agent from the Bureau's new media office, says, "The F.B.I. is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation to address the potential ...

For the first time in U.S. history, the Pentagon has appointed a general to oversee the country's cyberwarfare operations. According to the Guardian, four-star general Keith Alexander was appointed Friday to head up the Cyber Command unit. The unit's job is to orchestrate virtual military operations across worldwide computer networks. In other words, Alexander will work to protect U.S. computer ...

DARPA, the U.S. military's awesomely terrifying Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, possesses an uncanny proficiency for constructing both devastating weaponry and catchy acronyms. The organization, which has previously spawned the GUARD-DOG (Analysis for Rapid Detection - Deployed on the Ground) and RATS (Robust Automatic Transcription of Speech), is reportedly now developing a SMITE ...

Share To get a look at the world of cyber-security from an insider, Switched turned to noted and notorious hacker Jeff Moss, a.k.a Dark Tangent. Moss got his start hacking the phone system before founding DefCon, the long-running annual hacker convention in Las Vegas, in 1992. He then took his l337 skillz to big industry by founding the network security consultancy firm Black Hat. Moss's ...

A new survey of government IT administrators reveals that almost three-quarters of them (74-percent, to be exact) expect the U.S. to be targeted by a foreign power in a cyber-attack this year. More alarmingly, 42-percent of those surveyed rated the government's ability to respond to or protect against such an attack as only "fair" or "poor." The threats to our cybersecurity are seen as coming ...

Believe it or not, that lowly office copier may just be the weak link in your office's security. Modern copy machines aren't just dumb blocks of electronics that photograph documents and regurgitate them on a piece of paper. They're networked computers, with hard drives, that store anything and everything you scan or copy. The Toronto Star talked to Victor Beitner, founder of Cyber Security ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... The Lady Gaga spectacle has evolved into a full-fledged phenomenon, as the eccentric and eclectic performer has accomplished an amazing Web milestone. According to tracking service Visible Measures, the Lady has astoundingly drawn more than 1 billion total views just for three videos, making her the "most watched franchise in ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... CTIA has released the results of its semi-annual wireless survey, and every usage statistic continues to escalate. The most astronomical figure, of course, relates to text messaging, as carriers reported an incredible total of 1.5 trillion text messages sent during 2009. That breaks down to 5 billion texts per day. [From: CTIA] ...

Attention, amateur hackers: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight cyber-crime -- and he's getting pretty desperate, too. As cyber-attacks become more complex and virulent, the U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into securing our nation's digital borders. Problem is, it's facing a severe shortage of manpower. Out of the roughly 20,000 "elite" cyber-experts that the U.S. needs, there are ...

Details of the plan are still top secret, but we the American public have gotten our first glimpse of the federal government's cyber-security initiative. A five-page overview of the goals and components of the Comprehensive National Cyber-Security Initiative (CNCI) has been posted on WhiteHouse.gov. The initiative's measures include consolidating government networks and access points, ...

A new Zogby poll on cyber security and education reveals that, while 90-percent of administrators believe it's important to teach kids basic Web safety, a vast majority offer no such lessons. The study, commissioned by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Microsoft, found that only 27-percent of teachers offered any instruction on safe social networking, and less than 20-percent ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... It only took seven months, but President Obama has finally appointed a cybersecurity chief. Because "protecting the Internet is critical to our national security," the President has selected former Bush administration cyber-consultant Howard Schmidt to officially serve as the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. [From: Washington ...

Last week, the U.S. Cyber Challenge, a nationwide recruiting venture for America's digital army, was wrapped up when 21-year-old Chris Benedict, of Nauvoo, Illinois, was crowned, in CNN's words, "king of the hacker hill." The series of three competitions, which pitted hackers from around the country against one another and included an electronic version of Capture the Flag, was launched this July ...

Two months after delivering a speech that outlined sweeping cybersecurity plans, President Barack Obama and his staff are still struggling with just how to protect the country from electronic terrorists and spies. With the resignation of the woman many people thought could take the reigns, things won't get any easier, either. Melissa Hathaway, who led a cybersecurity review in April, resigned ...