Archive for February, 2014

From: Breaking Defense

By Colin Clark

CAPITOL HILL: On the day that China’s president took personal charge of his country’s new cyber body, pledging to make the People’s Republic of China a “cyber power,” the outgoing head of America’s Cyber Command laid out a clear red line that, if crossed, could lead to war.

“If it destroys government or other networks, I think it would cross that line,” Army Gen. Keith Alexander, head of both Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee today when asked what level of cyber “attack” would potentially cause America to go to war.

From: Reuters

BOSTON: A cybersecurity firm said on Tuesday that it uncovered stolen credentials from some 360 million accounts that are available for sale on cyber black markets, though it is unsure where they came from or what they can be used to access.

The discovery could represent more of a risk to consumers and companies than stolen credit card data because of the chance the sets of user names and passwords could open the door to online bank accounts, corporate networks, health records and virtually any other type of computer system.

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

Jordan Robertson

In news accounts of cyber attacks plaguing computer networks around the world, the bad actors are almost always the same – faceless adversaries hailing from shadowy regions of Asia and Eastern Europe.

But what if the issue was examined from the other direction, from the perspective of people living in countries identified as launching pads for the world’s hacking attacks?

New research by security firm Lookout shows that when it comes to cyber threats, countries reap what countries sow.

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From: The Wall Street Journal

Cybersecurity Experts Find Trove of Information on File-Sharing Web Site

By Rachael King

Computer-security researchers have discovered on a website documents that could allow hackers easily to obtain electronic medical records and payment information from health-care providers.

The documents—found by two cybersecurity firms on a site commonly used by hackers—detail the type of equipment used in computer networks, the Internet addresses for computers and other devices, and the passwords to network firewalls run by health-care providers such as nursing homes, doctors’ offices and hospitals.

From: Out-Law.com

FOCUS: Most companies will have an information security breach in most years, so businesses should focus on preparing for incidents, because they are inevitable.

The increase in the volume of data that businesses now store; the growing use of mobile devices, and the trend of users connecting their own devices to corporate networks are factors making data breaches more likely. And proposed changes to EU law mean that organisations will no longer be able to keep breaches a secret.