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The Obama administration has revised federal policy, enabling the military to assist during a domestic cyber-attack, reported the New York Times on Oct. 21. Typically, the military cannot deploy units within the country's borders, except for natural disasters, and even then, a presidential order is required. However, under a new agreement between the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, military cyber experts can now be called upon if critical computer networks in the United States are attacked. Robert J. Butler, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy, told the Times that this policy change will allow agencies to focus on how to respond to such attacks more effectively. The two agencies "will help each other in more tangible ways than they have in the past," Butler stated in an article in Defense News, an Army Times publication. He added that closer collaboration will provide "an opportunity to explore new ways for ...

Department of Homeland Security Releases Cyber Security Evaluation Tool (CSET) The Cyber Security Evaluation Tool (CSET) is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) product that assists organizations in protecting their key national cyber assets. It was developed under the direction of the DHS National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) by cybersecurity experts and with assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This tool provides users with a systematic and repeatable approach for assessing the security posture of their cyber systems and networks. It includes both high-level and detailed questions related to all industrial control and IT systems. The tool is available for download, and the program also offers training and support at no cost to organizations engaged in administering networks that control facilities identified as being crucial to both the nation's economy and national security. CSET is a desktop software tool that guides users through a step...

The rise in the costs of data breaches, ransomware, and other cyber attacks leads to rising cyber insurance premiums and more limited cyber insurance coverage. This cyber insurance situation increases risks for organizations struggling to find coverage or facing steep increases. Some  Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP's  law firm clients, for example, reported a three-fold increase in insurance rates, and carriers are making "a huge pullback" on coverage limits in the past two years. Their cybersecurity practice co-head, Michelle Reed, adds, "The reduced coverage amount can no longer shield policyholders from cyber losses. A $10 million policy can end up with a $150,000 limit on cyber frauds." The cyber-insurance situation is so concerning that the U.S. Treasury Department recently issued a  request for public input  on a potential federal cyber-insurance response program. This request is in addition to the assessment led conjointly by the Federal Insura...

The last several years have seen an ever-increasing number of cyber-attacks, and while the frequency of such attacks has increased, so too has the resulting damage. One needs only to look at  CISA's list of significant cyber incidents  to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. In May of 2021, for example, a ransomware attack brought down the Colonial Pipeline, causing a serious fuel disruption for much of the United States. Just last month, a hacking group gained access to call logs and text messages from telecommunications carriers all over the world. These are just two of dozens of cyber-attacks occurring this year. Because of these and other cyber security incidents, the Department of Homeland Security issues a  compulsory directive  to federal agencies to better protect federal information systems and the data that they contain against cyber-attack. This directive is based around  CISA's catalog of vulnerabilities  that are known to pose a signific...

Members of the hacker community are leery of working with the government and sharing their skills, if it means navigating through outdated regulations and being viewed as potential security risks. Hackers and other computer experts willing to collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security to bolster the nation's cyber-defense are unable to do so because of red tape, according to the former head of the department. Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, two former secretaries of Homeland Security, joined current DHS boss Janet Napolitano to discuss the evolution of threats facing the United States, including the challenges of securing cyber-space. They expressed their views during a March 2 roundtable discussion at Georgetown University, which was webcast by the Aspen Institute, marked the department's eighth anniversary. "The portfolio of threats is a lot broader," Ridge said. There are a number of possible scary scenarios, including a sophisticated hacker from another country break...

Sony Hires Ex- Homeland Security Official after PlayStation Hack Sony has hired a former official at the US Department of Homeland Security for the new post of chief information security officer, months after a massive hacking attack leaked information on 100 million user accounts on its games networks. Philip Reitinger, formerly the director of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Center, will join Sony in the newly created position of chief information security officer and a senior vice president. The new hire signals a heightened seriousness by Sony in the aftermath of an intrusion into its online videogame service earlier this year. The breach compromised the personal information of more than 100 million accounts from its online networks, including the possible loss of some credit card information. Sony said there have been no reports of any credit card data theft. Sony shut down the PlayStation Network and Qriocity streaming video and music network on April 20...

Department of Homeland Security Out to Get PSN Hackers ! The external intrusion into the PlayStation Network has led to undoubtedly the worst fiasco in the PlayStation universe since the ApocalyPS3 of 2010. If the readers are like us, then we're all not only sick of the PSN being down but are also sick of all the news surrounding it with little to no positive light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, there finally appears to be some progress in the making thanks to the unveiling of some assuring details. Despite the word that SCEA is working around the clock with third-party security organizations to bring the network back up for our online gaming pleasure, users were not told what team was conducting the investigations, how large the said company was, and to what extent their resources were spanning out to. However, in a surprising turn of events, the United States Department of Homeland Security revealed that the federal division is lending their hand in assessing the damages o...

The U.S. and U.K. on Thursday formally attributed the supply chain attack of IT infrastructure management company SolarWinds with "high confidence" to government operatives working for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). "Russia's pattern of malign behaviour around the world – whether in cyberspace, in election interference or in the aggressive operations of their intelligence services – demonstrates that Russia remains the most acute threat to the U.K.'s national and collective security," the U.K. government  said  in a statement. To that effect, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia for "undermining the conduct of free and fair elections and democratic institutions" in the U.S. and for its role in facilitating the sprawling SolarWinds hack, while also barring six technology companies in the country that provide support to the cyber program run by Russian Intelligence Services. The com...

Update: ' Hack The Pentagon ' has opened registration for its pilot bug bounty program of $150,000 for hackers in return for the vulnerabilities they find in its public facing websites. The Defense Department has enlisted the bug bounty startup HackerOne to manage the pilot program. Interested hackers can Register Now to participate in the Bug Bounty program. The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has the plan to boost their internal and network security by announcing what it calls "the first cyber Bug Bounty Program in the history of the federal government," officially inviting hackers to take up the challenge. Dubbed " Hack the Pentagon ," the bug bounty program invites the hackers and security researchers only from the United States to target its networks as well as the public faced websites which are registered under DoD. The bug bounty program will begin in April 2016, and the participants could win money (cash rewards) ...

Department of Homeland Security warns Anonymous Hackers The Department of Homeland Security is beginning to take Anonymous and other non-professional cyber-attackers more seriously as it issues a warning about potential attacks. The 2 September security bulletin from the DHS National Cyber-Security and Communications Integration Centre warned financial services companies to be on the lookout for attackers operating under the Anonymous umbrella to "solicit ideologically dissatisfied, sympathetic employees" to the cause. The unclassified DHS communique is addressed broadly to those in charge of cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection and also warns about new tools that Anonymous has said it plans to use in launching future attacks. One of the attack tools highlighted in the alert is dubbed #RefRef, which is said to be capable of using a server's resources and processing power to conduct a denial of service attack against itself. " Anonymous has stated publi...

The new Trump administration has terminated all memberships of advisory committees that report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  "In alignment with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security, I am directing the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately," Acting Secretary Benjamine C. Huffman said in a January 20, 2025, memo. "Future committee activities will be focused solely on advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland and support DHS's strategic priorities." This includes members of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), which last year issued a scathing report excoriating Microsoft for a "cascade" of avoidable errors that led to its infrastructure being abused by a China-based nation-st...

" If you want to keep living, Pay a ransom, or die ." This could happen, as researchers have found thousands of vulnerabilities in Pacemakers that hackers could exploit. Millions of people that rely on pacemakers to keep their hearts beating are at risk of software glitches and hackers, which could eventually take their lives. A pacemaker is a small electrical battery-operated device that's surgically implanted in the chest to help control the heartbeats. This device uses low-energy electrical pulses to stimulate the heart to beat at a normal rate. While cyber security firms are continually improving software and security systems to protect systems from hackers, medical devices such as insulin pumps or pacemakers are also vulnerable to life-threatening hacks. In a recent study, researchers from security firm White Scope analysed seven pacemaker products from four different vendors and discovered that they use more than 300 third-party libraries, 174 of which are...

Since cybersecurity is definitely an issue that's here to stay, I've just checked out the recently released first episodes of Cato Networks  Cybersecurity Master Class Series .  According to Cato, the series aims to teach and demonstrate cybersecurity tools and best practices; provide research and real-world case studies on cybersecurity; and bring the voices and opinions of top cybersecurity thought-leaders. Designed for security and IT professionals, C-level managers and security experts, each session contains both theory and hands-on examples about strategic, tactical, and operational issues on a wide range of topics.  The classes are hosted by industry-recognized cybersecurity researcher and keynote speaker, Etay Maor, who is also Senior Director of Security Strategy at Cato. Four out of the planned annual 8-10 episodes are currently available online.  Episode 1 , entitled  How (and Why) to Apply OSINT to Protect your Enterprise  takes an in-depth ...

It's not a mystery, every nation is worried of the level of security of its infrastructure, the United States are among the most concerned governments due the high number of cyber-attack against its networks. US Government representative such us former States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned in more than one occasion on the possible consequences of a cyber offensive and declared the necessity to improve the cyber capabilities of the country.  Senators are interested to evaluate the level of protection of nuclear stockpile of foreign governments against cyber attacks, question has been raised after that Pentagon's chief cyber officer admitted to ignore if countries such as Russia or China have adopted efficient countermeasures. Nelson and Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. will request to national intelligence an assessment about the ability of foreign states to safeguard networked ...

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have issued a joint advisory warning of potential cyber attacks from Iranian state-sponsored or affiliated threat actors.  "Over the past several months, there has been increasing activity from hacktivists and Iranian government-affiliated actors, which is expected to escalate due to recent events," the agencies said . "These cyber actors often exploit targets of opportunity based on the use of unpatched or outdated software with known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures or the use of default or common passwords on internet-connected accounts and devices." There is currently no evidence of a coordinated campaign of malicious cyber activity in the U.S. that can be attributed to Iran, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3), and the National Security Agency (NSA) noted. Emphasizing the need for "incr...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) yesterday revealed charges against two Chinese nationals for their alleged involvement in a decade-long hacking spree targeting dissidents, government agencies, and hundreds of organizations in as many as 11 countries. The 11-count indictment , which was unsealed on Tuesday, alleges LI Xiaoyu (李啸宇) and DONG Jiazhi (董家志) stole terabytes of sensitive data, including from companies developing COVID-19 vaccines, testing technology, and treatments while operating both for private financial gain and behalf of China's Ministry of State Security. "China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being 'on call' to work for the benefit of the state, [and] to feed the Chinese Communist party's insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies' hard-earned intellectual property, includ...

The US federal agency has notified its 4 Million current and former government employees that their private data has been compromised in a massive data breach. Hackers managed to break into US government computer systems in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and steal records of Millions of employees, making it one of the largest known breaches of information ever on federal workers. The stolen information includes birth dates, credit card data, banking records, security clearance information, and background checks dating back three decades, potentially affecting people across the spectrum of the federal agency. The massive breach is believed to be carried out by the hackers based in China, the Obama administration announced on Thursday. The breach is believed to be an "attack against the (American) nation." Biggest Data Breach in US History However, China has denied any involvement in what could be the largest cyber-attack in US history by c...