The FISMA Focus IPD

From: Los Angeles Times

Although hacking back is illegal in the U.S., companies see it as a way to curtail the breaches.

By Paresh Dave

Frustrated by their inability to stem an onslaught of computer hackers, some companies are considering adopting the standards of the Wild West to fight back against online bandits.

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From: The New Yorker

Posted by Matthew McKnight

Next week, President Obama will meet with China’s President Xi Jinping to discuss, among other things, cyber warfare. That makes the timing of the revelation this week of a confidential Pentagon report that alleges U.S. weapons systems may have been compromised by Chinese hackers—a charge China denies—particularly fortuitous for providing a good preview of what’s to come in the relationship between the two countries.

From: GCN

By William Jackson

During the first 40 years of the Internet, security has been about patching mistakes that have been made in its architecture and software and defending these vulnerabilities against attacks from the outside. The future will be about creating an environment that is secure by design and has the ability to anticipate rather than merely respond to threats, government and industry experts say.

This will not be a single secure infrastructure, but an ecosystem of technologies designed to better handle the basic chores of systems development; identity management and access control; and monitoring, analysis and response.

From: DISH

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — DISH Network (NASDAQ: DISH) responded to news today that the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has approved SoftBank Corporation’s acquisition of Sprint Nextel Corporation, subject to certain conditions.

The following statements can be attributed to Stanton Dodge, DISH executive vice president and general counsel:

“We believe the U.S. government should proceed with deliberation and caution in allowing assets of national strategic importance — such as the Sprint fiber backbone and wireless networks — to be owned and operated by a foreign company with significant ties to China. Oversight and accountability for these assets are critical at a time when offshore cyber attacks, including the hacking of weapons systems designs, continue to rise. Congress should take a close look at the CFIUS review process in this instance.

From: Nextgov/Op-Ed

By Audrey Taylor and Ben Knopf

The escalation of advanced persistent threats to federal systems has cybersecurity leaders rethinking their network protection and risk mitigation strategies. Nearly 50,000 incidents were reported by agencies in fiscal 2012, a 5 percent increase over the previous year.

The Obama administration’s response to these threats underscores the danger of cyberattacks. A February executive order, for instance, mandated the development of a framework to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from such threats, and President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal calls for an $800 million increase in Defense Department spending on cybersecurity.