News

• Can Cloud-based collaborative data-sharing be secure enough for defense systems?

  Though wariness about the perceived lack of security in cloud-based services is often voiced, there are some situations where the opposite is the case. Some businesses mindful of security say the cloud services that are important to them have done a lot of work to meet their expectations about security.

• Your identity up for grabs

  Security was a big issue in 2011 with more sophisticated and a wider range of threats than ever before wasting even more of everyone's time at a cost of billions of dollars.

• Security roundup: Lockheed Martin sounds alarm on Adobe Reader zero-day; Microsoft patchfest coming

  When Adobe last week issued an advisory about a dangerous zero-day attack based on an unpatched Adobe Reader vulnerability that was being exploited in the wild to try and seize control of both PCs and Macs, it credited Lockheed Martin for sounding the alarm about it.

• Symantec confirms Flash exploits targeted defense companies

  Security researchers at Symantec today confirmed that exploits of an unpatched Adobe Reader vulnerability targeted defense contractors, among other businesses.

• Biometrics scares most people

  Biometrics — the security method for identifying an individual by making a match of fingerprints, iris, face, voice, DNA and other unique physical traits — scares people, an industry leader in the field acknowledged this week. But enterprise technology managers say there's no doubt biometrics is a boon to enterprise security.

• SAIC, others pay $22.7 million to resolve contracting case

  Science Applications International (SAIC), a subcontractor and two former government employees will pay nearly US$22.7 million to resolve allegations that they rigged bids for a $3.2 billion supercomputing contract with the U.S. General Services Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

• RankMyHack Adds Leaderboards, Achievement Points to Hacking

  Hacking has gone the way of FourSquare and gaming in general by adding scores and leaderboards for who can make the most daring hacks. We're not making this up.

• Pentagon building Internet simulator to practice cyberwar

  A model of the Internet where the Pentagon can practice cyberwar games -- complete with software that mimics human behavior under varying military threat levels -- is due to be up and running by this time next year, according to a published report.

• In wake of breach, RSA names chief security officer

  Eddie Schwartz, former chief security officer at Netwitness Corp., a company recently acquired by EMC, has been named chief security officer of the storage vendor's RSA security division.

• Few cyberattacks are cause for major retaliation: Experts

  Cyberattacks on U.S. networks by other nations may not always demand the same level of retaliation, and only attacks that cause major damage or loss of life should prompt similar responses, a group of national security experts said Wednesday.

• Cyberattacks fuel concerns about RSA SecurID breach

  Recent attacks against two major defense contractors are fueling concerns about the extent to which RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication technology may have been compromised in a breach the company acknowledged in March.

• Lockheed Martin acknowledges 'significant' cyberattack

  Lockheed Martin Saturday night acknowledged that it its information systems network had been the target of a "significant and tenacious attack," but said that its security team detected the intrusion "almost immediately and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data."

• RSA tokens may be behind major network security problems at Lockheed Martin

  Lockheed Martin’s has “major internal computer network problems,” that one security blogger is linking to compromised RSA tokens, according to published reports.

• NASA astronauts to fly Orion spacecraft into deep space

  NASA announced Tuesday its plan to build a spacecraft that will fly astronauts into deep space, going as far as near asteroids and even Mars.

• Program links small manufacturers with supercomputers

  About US$4.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce and private companies will create a program to link small manufacturers in the U.S. Midwest with supercomputing resources, U.S. officials said Wednesday.