cyber security

Until recently, "cyber war" has been reserved for science fiction thrillers--like something you might expect from William Gibson. In the past few years, though, the concept has been gaining more mainstream acceptance as a real possibility, but a recent report shoots that theory down, claiming "It is unlikely that there will ever be a true cyber war."

On the same day that Google Inc. and the GoDaddy Group Inc. complained about China to a congressional committee, U.S. Navy Admiral Robert Willard appeared before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee with an even stronger warning about cyber-threats posed by China.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is looking to Internet users for new ways of getting its cybersecurity message out, and before you ask, the agency says that the method chosen "may under no circumstance create spam."

Cloud security loomed over the RSA Conference this week as a major concern of business, but worry about the threat of cyberwar was also strong, with officials from the White House and FBI weighing in to encourage private participation in government efforts to defend information and communications networks.

Michael Chertoff, former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, talked of the difficulties in creating a national cybersucurity plan during an interview with Computerworld.

Even today there are some still blank stares when I suggest to an audience of C-level executives or security professionals that they should all read the front pages of the Financial Times, the Yomiuri Shimbun, etc., as well as the technology news, if they want to know what cyber risks and threats to prepare for.

One of two Chinese academic institutions identified in a New York Times report Thursday as the apparent source of the recent attacks against Google, has also been linked to a hacker who may have been involved with the takedown of whitehouse.gov nine years ago.

A report from the SANS Institute shows that it is all about unpatched applications, not the underlying operating systems. Most of the observed attacks have come from older, weaker apps and well known Internet vulnerabilities.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is providing the following statement by Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of BSA, on today’s report by the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency:

Computer systems that run the world's critical infrastructure are not as secure as they should be and insiders are mad.