The National Security Agency is launching a mobile device capability at the end of this year that will allow its personnel to securely access classified information with their smartphones and tablet computers.
The program, which is a joint effort with the Defense Information Systems Agency, could potentially provide the military services with similar secure information access capabilities. Keep reading →
The intelligence community is developing a single cloud computing network to allow all its analysts to access and rapidly sift through massive volumes of data. When fully complete, this effort will create a pan-agency cloud, with organizations sharing many of the same computing resources and information. More importantly, the hope is the system will break down existing boundaries between agencies and change their insular cultures.
As in the rest of the federal government, lower costs and higher efficiency are the primary reasons for the intelligence world’s shift to cloud computing, said Charles Allen, formerly Under Secretary of Homeland Security for intelligence and analysis, currently a principal with the Chertoff Group, in an interview with Breaking Defense, an affiliate of Breaking Gov. Keep reading →
The push to adopt continuous monitoring as a more advanced means for ensuring network security can only work if other network technologies are made secure, said a leading computer scientist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Agencies need to understand the underlying security issues, beyond what continuous monitoring can offer, because adversaries can take advantage of weaknesses to bring down network capabilities, said Ron Ross, senior computer scientist and fellow at NIST. Ross (pictured above, seated far left) made the remarks at the recent Symantec Government Symposium on government security practices. Keep reading →
The nation’s top military cyber commander offered his version of how government and military agencies are likely to work together when America suffers cyber attacks, and warned that industry needs to take a greater role.
“We have laid out lanes of the road,” Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency said, sketching them out in broad terms for an audience of security professionals yesterday at a symposium in Washington sponsored by Symantec. Keep reading →
Open source software has long been touted as the antidote to monolithic, buggy, and security-challenged software packages developed by the industry’s 800-pound gorillas.
But a presentation from the National Security Agency (NSA) during a technology symposium last week presented a stark warning for the proponents of open source software: Get your house in order because sooner or later government and industry customers are going to demand verifiable information about where your software came from, who developed it, who had access to the code, and whether or not you can vouch for its security. Keep reading →
This feature showcases one video each Friday that captures the essence of innovation, technology and new ideas happening in government today.
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, Commander of US Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency addressed a standing room only crowd at the just-concluded 2012 GEOINT Symposium Oct. 11. The symposium is the nation’s largest intelligence event of the year. Keep reading →
Randy Siegel,a mobile computing executive who has worked with the federal government’s civilian, defense and intelligence agencies on mobile strategies and applications for more than a dozen years, has joined Breaking Gov’s Board of Contributors.
Siegel, who until last month, served as the director of mission critical mobility initiatives at Motorola Solutions, was just named Senior Vice President of U.S. Federal Government sales and strategy for Fixmo, a startup backed by Kleiner Perkins, Motorola Ventures, and other venture capital firms. Fixmo’s mobile risk management technology has been developed as part of a Co-operative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. National Security Agency. Keep reading →
The United States is “losing the cyber espionage war” against China, Russia and other countries, but even in the face of such a grave threat the country cannot agree on how to protect its precious intellectual seed capital from these predations, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says.
“We are running out of time on this,” Rep. Mike Rogers, respected for working closely with his ranking member, said in a speech at today’s Intelligence and National Security Alliance‘s (INSA) cyber conference here. Keep reading →
A top National Security Agency executive argued today that if the nation is to defend against escalating cyber threats, it will be increasingly important for individuals, corporations and institutions, including government, to be held more accountable for their contributions to, and their actions within, cyber space.
At the same time, there are limits to what actions private enterprises can take in protecting their networks, said NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis, speaking at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance forum in Washington. Keep reading →
For weeks now rumors have been circulating about the White House working to draft an executive order, which will put in place cybersecurity measures to protect the critical infrastructure of the United States.
A glimpse of the draft’s intent was released in news reports in recent days, including a Washington Post report, which among other points, noted that the plans called for voluntary standards. Keep reading →