Why everyone is left less secure when the NSA doesn’t help fix security flaws
In a frank discussion about the government's approach to vulnerabilities in cyber-infrastructure during a Washington Post Live summit Thursday, former NSA chief Michael Hayden said the agency is not...
View ArticleWill the shutdown drive cybersecurity experts away from the government?
Cybersecurity threats don't just disappear during a government shutdown -- in fact, some think that the shutdown increases the risks associated with digital federal infrastructure. We spoke to Mike...
View ArticleAre Obama’s new cybersecurity standards a form of privacy regulation in...
While the National Security Agency has been working to gather data about Americans' communications, other branches of government have been working to develop new rules to promote online privacy and...
View ArticleWhy Apple’s claim that it can’t intercept iMessages is largely semantics
A lively debate is brewing over the security of Apples iMessages. I was quoted yesterday on this issue, but Apple has since responded, and it seems important to clarify that the argument now seems to...
View ArticleYes, terrorists could have hacked Dick Cheney’s heart
On "60 Minutes" this Sunday, former Vice President Dick Cheney revealed that his doctor ordered the wireless functionality of his heart implant disabled due to fears it might be hacked in an...
View ArticleThis Obamacare contractor doesn’t take security seriously. That needs to change.
Yesterday's congressional hearing on Obamacare's faulty Web site gave CGI and the other federal contractors a chance to explain themselves. Instead, we saw a lot of finger-pointing and blame-shifting....
View ArticleOnly 2 countries have been hit with DDoS attacks every day since May. The...
Only two countries have suffered significant DDoS attacks every single day for the past five months, and they’re probably exactly the countries you’d expect: China and the United States. This...
View ArticleThis film says we’ll all devolve into animals if a cyberattack took out the...
On Sunday the National Geographic Channel aired a film purporting to show what might happen if the U.S. suffered a 10-day blackout due to a devastating cyberattack. Shot Cloverfield-style from the...
View ArticleThe Army’s cyber command facility with a Star Trek-inspired showroom may be...
Army Times reports that the U.S. Army Cyber Command is looking to build new facilities, because their current operations base is basically falling apart. Fort Gordon, Ga., and Fort Meade -- also home...
View ArticleWhen bitcoins go bad: 4 stories of fraud, hacking, and digital currencies.
With Bitcoin interest (and prices) spiking, you might be considering investing in your own little cache of digital currency. But before you set up a Bitcoin wallet, you should think long and hard about...
View ArticleNSA uses Google cookies to pinpoint targets for hacking
The National Security Agency is secretly piggybacking on the tools that enable Internet advertisers to track consumers, using "cookies" and location data to pinpoint targets for government hacking and...
View ArticleNews sites could protect your privacy with encryption. Here’s why they...
"I've basically been trying to bribe media organizations at this point to turn on SSL," jokes Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist and a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy...
View ArticleThe Switchboard: Inside the NSA’s elite hacking unit
Published every weekday, the Switchboard highlights five tech policy stories you need to read. Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit. The German magazine Der Spiegel has an interesting look...
View ArticleMandiant, which rooted out Chinese hackers for the NYT, is being snapped up...
The past year saw the dramatic rise of information security firms in the face of sustained foreign spying against U.S. corporations. One of those firms, Mandiant, became a household name last January...
View ArticleCyber Command’s exploding budget, in 1 chart
On Tuesday, the House passed a massive, $1.1 trillion spending package. Among other things, it rolls back some of the budget cuts known as sequestration and trims some money from the Affordable Care...
View ArticleAmazon is a hornet’s nest of malware
Amazon's cloud computing service plays host to some of the most prolific malware distributors on the Internet, security researchers have discovered. Of the 10 sites that pump out malware most...
View ArticleResearchers say they see Russian hackers’ hands in cyber espionage against...
Russian hackers appear to be targeting Western energy interests for cyber espionage, according to a report to be issued Wednesday by a security research firm. Though researchers at CrowdStrike say they...
View ArticleHow the Chinese Internet ended up in Cheyenne, Wyoming
It's not clear how it happened, but for several hours on Tuesday thousands if not millions of Chinese Internet users were being dumped at the door of a tiny, brick-front house on 2710 Thomes Ave....
View ArticleOnline attack cripples U.S. court system
The federal court system was hit with a denial-of-service attack Friday afternoon that brought several government Web sites to a halt. PACER — the site for accessing the electronic court filing...
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Obama’s big plan to protect businesses from cyberattack
(Warner Bros.) It's been a long time coming, and some experts say it isn't enough. But the White House has now put the finishing touches on a set of security guidelines meant to help businesses defend...
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