Government — News

24,000 Pentagon Files Stolen in Major Cyberattack

The Department of Defense says it was hit by a cyberattack by a "foreign intelligence service" that managed to pilfer 24,000 sensitive files.The attack, which occurred in March, was perpetrated by an unnamed "nation state," according to Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III. Lynn who disclosed the breach during a speech Thursday outlining the Pentagon's new cyber strategy for dealing with cyber-breaches.

Sarah Jacobsson Purewal | 16 Jul | Read more

"Depraved" Wi-Fi hacker gets 18 years in prison

A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after he hacked a neighbor's Wi-Fi <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/120909-network-router-cheat-sheet.html?ts0hb&amp;story=rtrcheat">router</a> and then launched a vengeful two-year campaign to frame them with child pornography and threats to government officials, including Vice President Joe Biden.

John Cox | 14 Jul | Read more

Leverage government innovation to reduce identity management risks

Managing consumer or citizen identities comes with two key problems--scale and cost--prompting organizations that require onboarding, authentication, and <a href="http://www.csoonline.com/article/684895/password-management-systems-how-to-compare-and-use-them">password management</a> to look for ways to outsource this effort. Entertainment websites, online retailers, and even US federal government-to-citizen websites are experimenting with a federated model for more of their identity management life cycle. By using single sign-on (SSO) and attribute-sharing between "social" identity providers (IdPs) (i.e. Google and Facebook) and relying parties (RPs), this model effectively reduces cost and improves the customer experience.

Eve Maler | 14 Jul | Read more

Cyberwar and cyber-isolationism

There has been a bit of a splash in the press recently about a mention by former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden of the idea of creating new, extra secure internets for government or commerce. Users would have to give up their privacy to use these versions of the Internet, with a requirement for the use of real names and all their traffic subject to deep packet inspection. The vision seems to be that government would use one such network and services such as banking would use another.

Scott Bradner | 13 Jul | Read more

Lulzsec: the rise and fall of a hacking collective

The curtain has fallen on the 50 day performance by hacker group LulzSec. Its campaign of mayhem and destruction, peppered with witty commentary captivated the world. In an alternate universe where Lulzcats reign and anti-security is the norm, it might have even earned a spot on its first target, The X-Factor. But on this earth its members may still be captured by its later targets: the CIA, US law enforcement and the FBI.

Liam Tung | 12 Jul | Read more

Aussie businesses would snub free security audits

Despite the current focus on security stemming from the massive data breaches that resulted from hackers exploiting low- and high-level system vulnerabilities, few businesses in the UK and Australia are interested in auditing systems -- even when they're free.

Liam Tung | 08 Jul | Read more

Arizona State Police Hit with Second Data Dump

Arizona State Police recently fell victim to a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/231067/lulzsec_said_it_leaked_arizona_police_documents.html">second embarrassing data dump</a> that included information stolen from the personal e-mail accounts of 12 Arizona police officers. The stolen data, according to the hackers, includes names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, online dating account info, voicemails, chat logs, internal police reports, and racist chain e-mails. Hackers also say they nabbed the personal data of Stephen Harrison, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Ian Paul | 01 Jul | Read more