cybersecurity

Cloud computing leaders from the governments of Canada, China, Japan and the United States pledged their continued international cooperation to fulfill cloud computing‘s potential to transform public services worldwide.

The leaders made their comments, while also touching on a range of legal, security and data standards issues during an executive session at the 5th annual Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop, sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Tuesday. Keep reading →


About one of every two laptop users, according to a new survey, is unaware of the possibility that a hacker can remotely access and control web camera technology – allowing cybercriminals to secretly watch and record activities near a user’s machine.

“It is alarming that high numbers of women (who are the primary caregivers of children) and young people (who spend a significant amount of time using their laptops) do not know their webcams can be easily hacked,” said Dr. Ruby A. Rouse, who conducted the study. More than 6 in 10 women were unaware of the risk, compared to 40% of men. Additionally, 57% of Generation Y study participants were unaware of the risk, she said. Keep reading →

In a move that suggests the incendiary impact of malicious software, Iran has now publicly threatened the United States over the Flame malware incident that has gained worldwide attention in recent days.

Flame has been dubbed the “utlimate spy” and for good reason. Iran was the country hit the hardest by the state-of-the-art piece of malware. Keep reading →

General Dynamics is hardly a name that comes to mind in today’s fast moving smartphone market. Inside National Security Agency circles, however, General Dynamic’s Sectera Edge smartphone — for awhile at least — had gained a reputation for its ability to make secure phone calls and access email and data on classified networks via cellular networks and Wi-Fi access points anywhere in the world.

But priced at more than $3,100 per phone, and weighing 12 ounces, and about as user friendly as its generic government name, the Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device (SME PED) was all but destined to lose its appeal as smartphone makers and application developers continued to revolutionize what smartphones could do. (Even President Obama, upon taking office, balked at using one, preferring his BlackBerry at the time.) Keep reading →

It happened again. A number of countries have been hit by what has been called the most sophisticated piece of malware seen to date.

The malware is called Flame – appropriate given the number of computers that have been burned by this latest cyber weapon. Keep reading →

Fresh off of a splashy announcement of the new federal digital strategy in New York, Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel and Federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park described some of the details of the plan on home turf Thursday.

The pair addressed about 200 government insiders at an event hosted by the ACT-IAC and AFFIRM in a Department of Interior auditorium. (Watch the recorded video.) Keep reading →

The White House moved quickly Thursday to name Michael Daniel as President Obama’s cybersecurity adviser to replace retiring Howard Schmidt.

Daniel assumed the key position immediately as Congress and the White House continue to spar over how best to protect critical U.S. industries from crippling cyberattacks. He served for 17 years in the Office of Management and Budget’s National Security Division and worked for the past 10 years on cybersecurity as chief of the Intelligence Branch. Keep reading →

Security, mobility and social networking are driving a new vision within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that’s led the department to embrace cloud computing.

This fall, the component within the Department of Energy that is responsible for the security and reliability of the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will begin rolling out a major component of its new Network Vision – YourCloud. Keep reading →

On a fine spring day in the nation’s capital, I’m not the only one to succumb to the temptation to work from home instead of heading into an airless office building. But cybersecurity experts warn that when I log into the AOL server to upload this article, I’m also opening a door for malware and hackers.

With more and more federal workers working from home or on the road all the time, including in the Department of Defense, even as cyberattacks from foreign powers are on the rise, telecommuting has become a national security issue. The solution? Smarter people – using stupider computers. Keep reading →


The Pentagon’s most expensive program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, might prove to be as vulnerable to enemy hackers as inadequately armored Humvees were to roadside bombs, and could prove even more costly to remedy, warned former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, USMC (Ret.)

“We built the F-35 with absolutely no protection for it from a cyber standpoint,” he said, speaking at the annual Joint Warfighting Conference hosted by the US Naval Institute and the industry group AFCEA, according to a report on Breaking Defense, an affiliate of Breaking Gov. Keep reading →

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