GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: U.S. and EU Launch Negotiations for Counter-Terrorism Information Exchange

 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Department of Homeland Security

30March2011 11:02amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: On March 28, 2011, the European Union and the United States opened negotiations on an agreement to protect personal information exchanged in the context of fighting crime and terrorism. The negotiations will build on our long-standing, robust cooperation and agreements in this area. The United States and the European Union are committed to ensuring a high level of protection of personal information, while fighting crime and terrorism. The United States and the European Union are strongly determined to reach, without delay, an agreement that will advance our mutual goals. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: RSA security breach compromised federal network ID tool

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: NextGov

24March2011 7:00amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:  A product many federal employees use to log on to computers and networks should be regarded as compromised, due to the infiltration of key information about the application during a cyberattack against manufacturer RSA, some security experts said.

The Homeland Security Department -- the civilian agency that oversees commercial and government cybersecurity -- has relayed mitigation procedures to federal agencies that have installed RSA's SecurID tools, the department announced on Friday. A DHS official on Monday said the government is not recommending that agencies replace their SecurID products. The department is helping RSA and clients who control critical infrastructure deal with the threat to the devices, which are a single point of failure in the computer security ecosystem, according to some industry observers.

Agencies "should consider [the ID tools] breached," said Tom Kellermann, a former World Bank computer specialist and now an executive at Core Security Technologies, a firm that lawfully penetrates its clients' systems to identify network weaknesses.

SecurID, which verifies the identities of authorized users, consists of a token -- a portable physical object such as a smart card or USB drive that controls access to a system. The device displays a continuously changing code that the user enters, in conjunction with a personal identification number, or PIN, to log into a network through a process known as two-factor authentication. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Security concerns suppress Pentagon's appetite for wireless devices

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: NextGov

22March2011 6:00amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: The U.S. military wants to go wireless. It wants handheld devices to replace desktop computers, it wants information available for troops "anywhere, on any device anytime," it wants employees to telework, and it wants to do this all with commercial products.

But it also wants security. And for now, the lack of military-grade security for smart phones, iPads, tablets and other mobile devices is the biggest impediment to a wholehearted embrace of mobile computing, military officials told a gathering of technology vendors Thursday.

"Security -- I can't stress that enough," said Robert Carey, the Defense Department's deputy chief information officer. And today, the security provided in commercially available mobile devices simply doesn't meet military requirements, he said. That's why the military limits the use of many mobile devices, such as Apple iPads, and services such as social networking.

"Operational security comes first," Carey said.

When Marine Corps pilots wanted to load digital maps into iPads and Kindle devices so they could get rid of bulky briefcases full of paper maps, the Corps said no, Brig. Gen. Kevin Nally, the Corps' CIO, recalled.

The pilots pushed back, demonstrating how they could Velcro the devices to their thighs for quicker, easier access to maps in flight. The Corps finally relented, but forbade connecting the devices to aircraft communications networks -- for security reasons, Nally explained. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS CYBERSECURITY BRIEFING: RSA SecurID Theft Spawns Speculation on Potential Attack Scenarios

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: EWeek

22March2011 4:30amEST

GCIS CYBERSECURITY UPDATE:  The network of one the world’s largest and trusted security firms has been breached, and an unknown amount of information about its popular multifactor authentication technology has been stolen. Customers are worried about what form potential attacks could take.

The SecurID information that was stolen would not allow attackers to launch a successful direct attack on existing SecureID customers, Art Coviello, executive chairman of RSA Security, wrote in an open letter to customers posted on the company’s Website March 17. However, the company acknowledged the information could be potentially used to “reduce the effectiveness” of an existing SecurID deployment as part of a broader attack.

With RSA keeping mum about what exactly was stolen, when the data breach occurred, how attackers got into the network and how long the breach lasted, security experts can more or less give their imaginations free reign to suggest potential attack scenarios.

Adam Vincent, CTO of the Public Sector group at Layer 7 Technologies, wondered about the implications of a broader attack hinted at by Coviello. “Reading between the lines,” RSA made it sound as if the data theft made RSA SecureID ineffective without needing to compromise any specific usernames or passwords, Vincent told eWEEK.

The “well-organized group” of hackers behind this targeted attack would have to complete “many steps” to successfully attack an organization using SecurID tokens for authentication, Nick Percoco, senior vice president of SpiderLabs, told eWEEK. While it was “less likely” there will be a direct head-on attack, it wasn’t impossible, he said. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS CYBER-SECURITY BRIEFING: Computer users facing new backdoor threat

 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: World Net Daily

28February2011 10:00amEST

GCIS CYBER-SECURITY UPDATE: Data encryption is a method of protecting information from unauthorized use, and will make a cell phone call sound like static and turn an e-mail into gibberish

But according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, sources have reported that two software companies have partnered with defense contractor General Dynamics to work on a project code-named "Task B" that has as its goal the mission of slipping a backdoor onto a laptop without the owner's knowledge.

The team ultimately found four methods of entering a computer's information system and while few computers have all four entry points, almost all have at least two, allowing code to be slipped into the computer without the user's knowledge and ultimately spread to entire networks from that single machine. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS CYBER-SECURITY BRIEFING: Lynn Urges Partnership Against Cyber Threat

 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Defense Aerospace

16February2011 2:35pmEST

GCIS CYBER-SECURITY UPDATE: SAN FRANCISCO --- Government and industry must work more closely together to counter the growing threat to the nation’s cyber networks, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn told information technology professionals here today.

The Defense Department and other federal departments and agencies need to pursue or expand avenues in information sharing, strengthening network architecture, and extending government’s network defenses to private networks key to national security and the economy, he said during a keynote speech at the annual RSA Conference for Internet security.

Lynn told thousands gathered for the conference that the private sector’s role in defending the cyber domain is critical. Unlike the sea, air, land and space domains, cyber is not an area where military power alone can dominate, he said.

“The overwhelming percentage of our nation’s critical [information] infrastructure, including the Internet itself, is in private hands,” Lynn noted. It will take the country’s “vast technological and human resources to ensure the United States retains its preeminent capabilities in cyberspace, as it does in all the other domains,” he said.  (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS TECHNOLOGY BRIEFING: All the Digital Data In the World Is Equivalent to One Human Brain

 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: POPSCI

14February2011 9:57amEST

GCIS TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: If you could put all the data in the world onto CDs and stack them up, the pile would stretch from the Earth to beyond the moon, according to a new study. The world’s technological infrastructure has a staggering capacity to store and process information, reaching 295 exabytes in 2007, a reflection of the world’s almost complete transition into the digital realm. That's a number with 20 zeroes behind it, in case you're wondering.
Martin Hilbert and Priscila López took on the unenviable task of figuring out how much information is out there, and how its storage and processing have changed over time. Some of their findings seem obvious, like the fact that Internet and phone networks have grown at quite a clip (28 percent per year), while TV and radio grew much more slowly. But others are more surprising, like the nugget that 75 percent of the world’s stored information was still in analog format in 2000, mostly in the form of video cassettes. By 2007, 94 percent of the world’s info was digital. (read full report)

 

 

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.