UPDATE — The group that claimed responsibility for large-scale distributed denial-of-service attacks against major U.S. banks in September and October has carried out another flurry of attacks that are still ongoing today.
An FBI memo says cyber intruders took advantage of weak credentialing in an industrial control system to gain control of a New Jersey air conditioning company’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.
Attempts by foreign governments, individuals and government-associated groups to steal intellectual property, state secrets and other sensitive data from U.S. companies and government agencies are ratcheting up and government officials say the threat has become especially “persistent, pervasive, and insidious” in the last couple of years. Much of the threat is coming from China and other countries in East Asia, and officials say they expect economic espionage activity from that region to continue to focus on the theft of IT, aerospace and military technologies.
It is open season on SCADA software right now. Last week, researchers at ReVuln, an Italian security firm, released a video showing off a number of zero-day vulnerabilities in SCADA applications from manufacturers such as Siemens, GE and Schneider Electric. And now a researcher at Exodus Intelligence says he has discovered more than 20 flaws in SCADA packages from some of the same vendors and other manufacturers, all after just a few hours’ work.
Try to dampen your innate cynicism for one second, forget the source of this next comment, and absorb it: “We need resilient defenses.” Dr. Steve King uttered those words at a small security event in Boston last week. Four simple words you’ve heard before that today make so much sense.
Scott Tousley, deputy director cybersecurity division at Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology, is an advocate of integrating cybersecurity education into all disciplines of IT and business and risk management. “We don’t want to teach cybersecurity as a stovepipe, but to do it so that it makes sense in overall teaching,” Tousley said.
BOSTON – While some industry groups such as the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and cross-industry groups such as the Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC) facilitate the exchange of threat information, for the most part organizations are still hamstrung by legal constraints and other business factors that prevent an adequate flow of actionable information.
The term cyberwar has become a catch-all used by politicians, talking heads and others to encompass just about any online threat, regardless of the attacker or the target. Among security professionals, however, the word has a specific connotation–an attack by one nation against another nation’s infrastructure. Aside from the semantic issues, one of the major challenges for government agencies and security teams dealing with his problem is attribution and recognizing what constitutes an actual act of cyberwar. Stuxnet, Flame and their cousins may qualify, but more discussion is needed to help define the terms of these new conflicts, experts say.
No CFO thinks that his signature approving a purchase order for a new five-figure piece of hardware could ultimately cost his company seven-figures, or maybe force them to shut their doors forever. But that’s the reality many companies need to face when it comes to supply chain security and risk management. Core IT equipment used inside most American companies is likely to be purchased from an American vendor. But most of the gear is built overseas, likely in Asia, where little oversight is offered into its construction and shipping.
When Barack Obama was sworn in four years ago for his first term, there was genuine optimism that he would make meaningful improvements to the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure as well as the policies that govern security and privacy in the private sector. After the Bush administration relegated security to afterthought status for much of the 2000s as it concentrated on terrorism and fighting two wars, many in the security community were hopeful things would soon get better. Things certainly have changed, but whether they’ve improved is a difficult question. With Obama’s second term about to begin, there are still plenty of things he can do to effect real change.
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