Government

FTC Demands Companies Disclose How They Gather, Use Consumer Data

The Federal Trade Commission Tuesday demanded nine data brokerage companies turn over details on how they collect and use consumer information as part of an inquiry into the industry’s business practices.The companies include Acxiom of Little Rock, Ark.; Corelogic of Irvine, Calif.; Datalogix of Westminster, Colo.; eBureau of St. Cloud, Minn.; ID Analytics of San Diego; Intelius of Bellevue, Wash.; Peekyou of New York; Rapleaf of Chicago; and Recorded Future of Cambridge, Mass.

Government Report Warns of ‘Persistent, Pervasive’ Economic Espionage Attacks on U.S.

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.

Aramco Hack Aimed at Curbing Oil Production

An August attack on the Saudi Arabian national oil company, Aramco, was reportedly launched in order to hinder oil production at the world’s most valuable company, according to a report published in the New York Times yesterday.

Team Ghostshell Allegedly Dumps 1.6 M Aerospace, Nanotechnology Records

by Chris Brook

Hacktivist collective Team Ghostshell is claiming this morning to have spilled 1.6 million accounts from a handful of companies in the aerospace, nanotechnology, banking, law, education and government realm, a hack the group deems Project White Fox.The group claims White Fox is its “final stand” this year in a lengthy diatribe posted to  Pastebin. The post goes on about internet freedom, espionage and trolling before addressing the actual leak.

U.S. Cyberwar Doctrine Would Not Matter Without International Agreement

by Dennis Fisher
4

When the history of cyberwar is written, 2012 may well be marked down as the year that it all began in earnest. Governments have been attacking one another electronically for decades now, but the last 12 months have seen both the concept and reality of cyberwar elbow their way into the consciousness of the general public through attacks such as Flame, Gauss and Shamoon, and also have seen government officials openly discussing offensive operations and calling out other nations for their extensive attacks on U.S. networks. Now, those same U.S. officials are in the process of developing doctrines for cyberwar operations as way of defining how and when military and government teams can act. 

Pentagon Deploying DARPA to Wage War on Backdoors

by Brian Donohue
1

The speculation is rampant that certain manufacturers are installing backdoors in their own products or that foreign and criminal elements are exploiting weaknesses in the supply chain to compromise IT and networking equipment somewhere between vendors and their customers. The Pentagon is trying to find some way of guaranteeing that their hardware and software are secure, and so the Department of Defense is assigning its out-there research division, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to do just that.

DARPA Seeks Revolution, Not Evolution, in Cyberspace Capabilities

by Brian Donohue

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the avant-garde research and development arm of the Department of Defense – perhaps best known for its central role in the development of the Internet – is soliciting research proposals that would help the military improve its cyber battlespace capabilities such that they match the DoD’s existing superiority in the other domains of war.

Man Convicted of Illegally Accessing AT&T Servers by ‘Impersonating’ an iPad

by Anne Saita
7

A 27-year-old New York man known online as “Weev” was convicted Tuesday of “impersonating” an iPad in order to gain access to AT&T’s servers and swiping 114,000 email addresses, including some belonging to celebrities.

Andrew Auernheimer faces up to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to access a protected computer without authorization and fraud in connection with personal information.

Adequate Attack Data and Threat Information Sharing No Longer a Luxury

by Michael Mimoso

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.

Cybersecurity for your growing business
Cybersecurity for your growing business

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