ISR News: Cyber-Spies Hack US Power Grid
Excerpts From WSJ.com
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.
ISR News: NSA Not Right For InfoSec Lead
Excerpts From blog.wired.com
The government’s national cybersecurity efforts would be in “grave peril” if they were dominated by the intelligence community, said Amit Yoran, former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division.
Top 10 Breaches By Removable Device
By Richard Stiennon, Chief Research Analyst, IT-Harvest
Ten Most Important Security Incidents Involving Removable Devices: I thought it would be valuable to put the top ten most important incidents regarding removable devices, including hardware keystroke loggers, USB thumb drives, and MP3 players, together into a list. It helps highlight the risks inherent in removable devices to have all of these incidents in one place.
ISR News: N. American Power Grids At Risk
Excerpts From isn.ethz.ch
With cyberspace no longer dominated by the US and its allies, there are increasingly sophisticated threats emerging from state sponsored sources. In 2007, researchers on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project called “Aurora” demonstrated the threat by exploiting a power grid network vulnerability to destroy a generator. A successful actual attack on one third of the North American power grid would cost the American and Canadian economies US$700 billion over three months.
ISR News: CA To Expand Breach Notification
Excerpts From Blog.Wired.com
California State Sen. Joe Simitian, the man responsible in large part for the nation’s first data-breach notification law, has introduced new legislation that would require companies doing business in the the state to provide more information in their breach notification letters to consumers, and to send simultaneous notices to state authorities. “The future of e-commerce is directly linked to the public’s confidence in online protection and data security,” he said. “Enlightened self-interest should have made the hi-tech industry an advocate rather than an adversary for this legislation.”
ISR News: Communicating Security’s Value
Excerpts From CIO.com
The biggest challenge security teams face in their organization is one of perception, according to Michael Santarcangelo, founder of Security Catalyst, a New York-based consultancy focused on changing the way people protect information. “They lack relevant context,” said Santarcangelo. “So security people get wrapped up in thinking: ‘The CFO wants an ROI. We better work on ROI.’ But what the CFO is really saying is:’ I don’t understand what you do. So you have to justify it to me.’
ISR News: “NetBook Web Surfers Beware”
Excerpts From eweek.com
Since their introduction less than two years ago by Taiwan’s Asustek, nearly all major PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Lenovo, have jumped on the netbook bandwagon. But their no frills nature, combined with low computing power and relative lack of sophistication among their users could combine to create the perfect storm for hackers and virus creators looking for easy targets, analysts say.
ISR News: NSA Should Oversee InfoSec
Excerpts By Blog.Wired.com’s Kim Zetter
Despite the fact that many Americans distrust the National Security Agency for its role in the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, the agency should be entrusted with securing the nation’s telecommunications networks and other cyber infrastructures, President Obama’s director of national intelligence told Congress on Wednesday.
Recession Leads to More Cyber-Scams
Excerpts From InsideSelfStorage.com
Cyber-scams have been a problem since the Internet’s conception. But with the economic recession, the number of scams is on the rise. Experts and law-enforcement officials who track Internet crime say scams have intensified in the past six months, as fraudsters take advantage of economic confusion and anxiety to target both consumers and businesses.
FDIC Q4 2008 Graphs Show No Bottom
Source: FDIC.gov
Insured banks and thrifts set aside $69.3 billion in provisions for loan and lease losses during the fourth quarter, more than twice the $32.1 billion that they set aside in the fourth quarter of 2007. Loss provisions represented 50.2 percent of the industry’s net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income), the highest proportion since the second quarter of 1987 when provisions absorbed 53.2 percent of net operating revenue. As in the fourth quarter of 2007, a few institutions reported unusually large trading losses, while others took substantial charges for impairment of goodwill.
