In Through The Out Door

Cyber attacks from individuals, organized crime, extremist groups, terrorists as well as nation states pose a significant threat to the national security of the United States. While many believe that this is a government issue, closer analysis of the problem suggests otherwise. Any computer that is not properly protected can be compromised and used as [...]

Computers and networks have blurred the boundaries when you look at cyber warfare, cyber crime, and cyber terrorism. There is no doubt that future conflicts will involve cyber warfare between nations. Distinguishing between military and criminal and civilian attacks is tough and could create a dangerous problem in determining who is behind a cyber attack. [...]

In the face of growing demand to target security investments based on risk management principles–a domain foreign to many CIOs and infosec practitioners–there’s wisdom to be garnered from our peers.

[From 2008 Security Survey: We're Spending More, But Data's No Safer Than Last Year]

Throughout history wars have been triggered by events. Being at war is a state or condition. To be legal, a war must be declared by a branch of the government entrusted by the Constitution with this power. In the Constitution of the United States, Article I provides Congress the power to declare war. War is [...]

Recently much attention is being given to the topic of cyber warfare and rightfully so. Our computers and networks are under continuous attack from all over the world. The level of sophistication of these attacks and the quality of the code written to perform these attacks both have raised significantly in the past year. Experts [...]

The good folks over at Verizon Business have released a report that summarizes what they’ve found after looking through 500 forensic investigations involving 230 million records, and analyzes hundreds of corporate breaches including three of the five largest ones ever reported. What did they find? How about (1) Nearly nine in [...]

Albert writes “Storm shows several key characteristics, some new and advanced. It uses cunning social engineering techniques — such as tying spam campaigns to a current event or site of interest — as well as a blend of email and the Web to spread. It is highly coordinated, yet decentralized — [...]

“Chinese hacking is getting some serious Congressional attention. Two House members said Wednesday their Capitol Hill computers, containing information about political dissidents from around the world, have been hacked by sources apparently working out of China. Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf says four of his computers were hacked. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith says [...]

Admins warned of brute-force SSH attacks
[From News: Admins warned of brute-force SSH attacks]

“Former black-hat hacker Noah Schiffman details why DARPA’s National Cyber Range project is bound to fail. The NCR is proposed as a simulation of the Internet, including replicating ‘human behavior and frailties.’ Schiffman argues that if the Defense Department is really building something of this scope, it might as well use the actual [...]

The cover story of the current issue of National Journal reports in depth on China’s cyber-aggression against US targets in the government, military, and business. We have discussed China’s actions on numerous occasions over the years. The news in this report is the suggestion that Chinese cyber-attakers may have been involved [...]

While rootkits for common operating systems, like Windows, are well known, they haven’t been a security issue for Cisco’s IOS until now.

[From Cisco IOS Rootkit Demonstrated]

Did China’s Hackers Shut Off the Lights?— Hackers working on behalf of China’s People’s Liberation Army have penetrated networks controlling electric power grids in the United States, computer security experts believe. And that may have precipitated a massive blackout …

[From Did China's Hackers Shut Off the Lights? (Updated) (Noah Shachtman/Danger Room)]

The standard way to take control of someone else’s computer is by exploiting a vulnerability in a software program on it. This was true in the 1960s when buffer overflows were first exploited to attack computers. It was true in 1988 when the Morris worm exploited a Unix vulnerability to attack computers on [...]

U.S. military to build botnet?
[From Brief: U.S. military to build botnet?]

[From Proposed Cybersecurity Bill To Pressure DHS ]

There are new developments in the case of the counterfeit Cisco routers, which we have been discussing for some time. The NYTimes updates the story after an FBI PowerPoint presentation made its way onto the Web. It seems that experts at Cisco have examined some of the counterfeit routers in detail [...]

India, Belgium warn of Chinese attacks

[From Brief: India, Belgium warn of Chinese attacks]

[From FBI Backs Down On Web Gagging Order]

Excellent article, chronicling the surveillance debate from the mid 1980s until today. Don’t expect good coverage of the current debate, however: the legality of the NSA’s recent domestic eavesdropping program, and the legality of the assistance provided by the telcos.