• Anonymous takes down U.S. weapons manufacturer

    On Monday hacktivists from the group known as Anonymous announced that they had taken down the website of Combined Systems, a U.S. based weapons manufacturer; the weapons company drew the ire of Anonymous as well as human rights groups for its role in the suppression of the Arab Spring protests across the Middle East

  • Anonymous takes down DHS website in hacking spree

    Last Friday the hacktivist group known as Anonymous momentarily took down DHS’s homepage along with several other high-profile attacks in a coordinated campaign

  • Justice Department appoints new CIO

    Last Friday the Justice Department appointed Luke McCormack as the agency’s new chief information officer

  • Bill would allow DHS to impose cybersecurity standards

    A bill before Congress would significantly increase the power of DHS to monitor the cybersecurity practices of industries and services which are part of the U.S. critical infrastructure

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  • Ranking countries’ cyberattack preparedness

    A new McAfee cybersecurity survey concluded that Israel, Finland, and Sweden are leading other countries in “cyber-readiness”; the report says that China, Brazil, and Mexico are among the least cyber-prepared to defend these countries’ networks against cyber attacks

  • Hackers attack U.S. railways

    Last month hackers took control of passenger rail lines in the Northwest, disrupting signals twice and creating delays

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  • 2012 business worries

    Businesses list the threats they are most concerned about in 2012; leading the list: unplanned IT and telecom outages, data breaches, and adverse weather

  • Water pumps and terrorism-related information sharing systems

    With thousands of local law enforcement agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and concerned citizens reporting suspicious incidents, Homeland Security officials are inundated with data; effectively sorting through that information is a problem, as was illustrated last November by a report that a water pump at an Illinois water utility was broken by Russian hackers; the preliminary report caused panic about U.S. infrastructure vulnerability, but ultimately proved incorrect; it took more than a week for federal investigators to reach its conclusion, showing DHS ongoing problems with streamlining information sharing processes with its Fusion Centers

  • Stuxnet and Duqu part of assembly line: researchers

    Stuxnet, the highly sophisticated piece of malicious code that was the first to cause physical damage, could just be the tip of the iceberg in a massive cyberweapon manufacturing operation; according to cybersecurity researchers at Kaspersky Labs and Symantec, Stuxnet appears to be part of a larger cybersecurity weapons program with fully operational and easily modified malicious code that can be aimed at different targets with minimal costs or effort

  • Hackers continue cyberwar against Israel

    As part of an intensifying cyberwar against Israel, on Monday hackers brought down several key websites including the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the national airline, and three banks

  • Chinese hackers target DoD, DHS smart cards

    Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious code developed by Chinese hackers to target the smart cards used by Defense Department, DHS, and State Department personnel

  • Gender gap hinders cybersecurity hiring boom

    As governments and private businesses clamor to hire computer experts, women are conspicuously missing from the employment boom; women account for over half the professional workforce, yet only 25 percent of information technology jobs are filled by females

  • Delaware student takes top prize at annual cyber competition

    The U.S. Cyber Challenge recently announced the results of its annual Fall Cyber Foundations competition with the top honors going to Gavy Aggrawal, a sophomore at Delaware’s Charter School of Wilmington

  • Japan develops anti-hacker weapon

    The Japanese Ministry of Defense recently revealed that it is developing a new weapon to combat hackers – a “seek and destroy” virus designed to track and disable the source of cyber-attacks

  • ETrade cyberattack shuts down trading

    Over the holiday season, Australia’s second-largest online brokering service, ANZ Bank’s ETrade was hit by a series of cyberattacks, temporarily locking out customers