Archive for September, 2011

2011 International IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security

From: IEEE

The eleventh annual IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security (HST ’11), will be held 15-17 November 2011 in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. This conference brings together innovators from leading universities, research laboratories, Homeland Security Centers of Excellence, small businesses, system integrators and the end user community and provides a forum to discuss ideas, concepts and experimental results.

Produced by IEEE with technical support from DHS S&T, IEEE Biometrics Council, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and IEEE-USA and organizational support from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Raytheon, and MITRE, this year’s event will showcase selected technical paper and posters highlighting emerging technologies in the areas of:

Cuts to E-Gov fund could slow federal cloud transition

From: NextGov

By Joseph Marks

Current funding levels for electronic government initiatives in the House and Senate Appropriations committees could cripple the government’s ability to modernize federal information technology and thereby save money in the long run, a General Services Administration official told lawmakers Wednesday.

That includes new security and certification projects aimed at helping agencies transition their data storage to more nimble cloud computing, a governmentwide initiative that officials expect to save $5 billion annually, GSA Associate Administrator Dave McClure said.

7 Lessons: Surviving A Zero-Day Attack

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory CIO Jerry Johnson takes you inside the cyber attack that he faced down–and shares his security lessons learned.

By John Foley InformationWeek

When Pacific Northwest National Laboratory detected a cyber attack–actually two of them–against its tech infrastructure in July, the lab acted quickly to root out the exploits and secure its network. PNNL then did something few other cyber attack victims have been willing to do. It decided to talk openly about what happened.

Northrop CEO urges more regulation

(Reuters) – Northrop Grumman Corp’s chief executive is making a rare request: more regulation from Washington.

Wes Bush said the threat from cyber attacks has become so intense and so wide that it requires a federal solution.

“This is something you often don’t hear from industry, but I think you probably need more of a regulatory perspective brought to this,” Bush told the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington on Wednesday.

Northrop Grumman is the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier of remotely piloted vehicles.

Cybersecurity is focus of new bills in Congress

From: Politico

By Jennifer Martinez 

House lawmakers have returned from the August recess resolved to fight the nation’s cyber adversaries with a flurry of new legislative proposals aiming to boost security of public and private networks and infrastructure.

Key House members are readying a series of bills that address a variety of issues — from toughening law enforcement of cybercrimes to giving the Department of Homeland Security oversight of federal IT and critical infrastructure security to lessening liability for private companies that adopt cybersecurity best practices.

Federal Agencies Agree to Work Harmoniously for Cyber Security

From: Daily Tech

By Tiffany Kaiser

The Department of Defense (DOD), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) all compete for cyber security primacy

Cyber security has become an increasingly important issue in recent years due to the number of attacks launched against corporations and governments around the world. For instance, hacker groups LulzSec and Anonymous as well as others have broken into several corporate websites/records such as Sony, Fox and Gmail accounts. Government websites such as those for the CIA and top U.S. government information technology services provider Lockheed Martin were hacked as well.