Pentagon Assigning More Experts to Boost Cyber Security & Protect U.S. Computer Networks
Cyber security has become one of the most sophisticated area of National security and defense, and in order to implement that Pentagon has increased their estimated expense on cyber security. And this deceleration has been made while publishing the budget late in last year. Now that implementation is getting executed as the Pentagon is moving toward a major expansion of its cyber security force to counter increasing attacks on the nation’s computer networks, as well as to expand offensive computer operations on foreign adversaries. This confirmation has came from defense officials. The expansion would increase the Defense Department’s Cyber Command by more than 4,000 people, up from the current 900, an American official said. Defense officials acknowledged that a formidable challenge in the growth of the command would be finding, training and holding onto such a large number of qualified people. The Pentagon “is constantly looking to recruit, train and retain world class cyberpersonnel,” a defense official said Sunday.
As part of the expansion, officials said the Pentagon was planning three different forces under Cyber Command: “national mission forces” to protect computer systems that support the nation’s power grid and critical infrastructure; “combat mission forces” to plan and execute attacks on adversaries; and “cyber protection forces” to secure the Pentagon’s computer systems. Cyber Command’s connections to the NSA are also leading some officials to ask how much of the expansion will be focused domestically, especially considering the opening of the NSA’s new, $2 billion Utah Data Center, scheduled to go live later this year. An unnamed "senior defense official" said that the agency’s efforts would remain focused outside US networks, unless it were asked to assist "another agency with domestic authority, such as the FBI." There is significant overlap between Cyber Command and the NSA — until recently, some employees of the former had nsa.gov email addresses, for instance — and there is some doubt that the nascent offshoot of US Strategic Command will be able to achieve true independence under NSA Director Alexander.
Hackers will face tougher penalties in the U.S. if the Obama administration's proposed cyber-security measures become law, in an attempt to deter attacks on critical online infrastructure.Under the new law, hackers would face 20 years in prison for endangering national security, 10 years for stealing data and three years for accessing a government computer.
The proposal doubles the penalties from current laws in nearly every category, responding with force to the spate of hacks that have made headlines this last month.The Obama administration first suggested the law last month, before the hacking group LulzSec broke into FBI, CIA and U.S. Senate websites. If prosecuted under the new law, its members could face hefty prison terms for flaunting national security.Compared to the anonymous hacks against Lockheed Martin and the International Monetary Fund, however, LulzSec's distributed denials-of-service, or DDoS, attacks against government websites were merely an annoyance.
Groups like LulzSec, who hack for the fun of it, may face the same sentences as serious data thieves under the cyber-security plan.
Either way, the trouble lies in catching computer hackers who use botnets and server mis-location to cover their tracks. Months after Sony's disastrous data breach left 100 million users' information exposed, Sony and the FBI still haven't found those responsible for the attack.
Tracking down "smoking keyboards" is not impossible, however, as Spain and Turkey proved by arresting members of the Anonymous hacking group. Spain's authorities captured three men accused of intending to publish "sensitive data" about Spanish politicians and policemen. Turkey nabbed 32 Anonymous hackers that had coordinated DDoS attacks against the Turkish government after the country announced plans to restrict Internet services starting this August.
Arresting hackers may deter some from attempting further exploits, but in Anonymous' case the group's loose-knit organization means hundreds of new hackers can rise to fill one member's shoes.
Furthermore, some hackers may have government backing, as IMF officials believe was the case in their hack and as Google alleges happened to them in China.If governments are indeed involved in some of the major recent hacks, things could get sticky, as the Pentagon is set to publish a policy to use physical force against online crime. As one official warned, "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks."
The difficulties of catching and prosecuting hackers seem nearly insurmountable. But the new law in the U.S. could encourage a reduction in cybercrimes if it makes an example of even a few.
Hidden Costs of 'Data Theft' A Serious Issue! What You Need to Know to Be Safe
Sitting at the edge of technology, we the people of this century are blessed with all the required equipment which makes our work so easy that one could have even imagined three hundred years ago. Along with these positive sides, we must have to keep in mind that, these technologies not only elaborating our effort making life easier, but also posing high level of threat. As the main concern of VOGH is cyber domain, so here w would like to share a fact which will make you think and even make your cyber life and your personal life too uncanny. Yes, I am talking about the rising cyber threats; the more we are shedding with technologies, the more we are involving our lives with some dangerous threats and challenges. Now a days cyber criminals are every where, you don't even know, what trap has already been set for you, that can ruin your happy life. One of the big example is "Data Theft" which becoming boomerang for us. In an age of fully digitized data, consumers and businesses can lose thousands of dollars in the blink of a hacker’s eye. The costs of data theft are well known to anyone who has ever found themselves victim to financial identity or medical record fraud. What few of us realize is that the procedures required to right a financial wrong are often costlier than the crimes themselves. Lets share some interesting statistic, which will surely put terror in your mind - the economy loses an average of $22,346 for every time an identity is stolen. And to fully recuperate losses, repair credit and prosecute fraudsters, consumers, accountants, lawyers and IRS officials can spend up to 5,000 hours, the equivalent of two years of full-time work on a single case. Even so, 60% of medical record fraud victims admit that they don’t monitor their medical statements for inconsistencies.
Shocking!! Why not?
For one, most consumers don’t have time every month to file through complex medical or financial statements and check for accuracy. And secondly, the image of thousands of evil savants working around the clock to hack BOA databases sure makes a consumer feel helpless. Identity theft seems random and unpreventable–a stroke of bad luck like getting struck by lightning. If we are struck, we tell ourselves, banks, credit agencies and insurance companies are legally bound to recover our funds and correct our records.
Now lets check out a fascinating video in our Hidden Costs Series to get a deeper look at how our high-cost, high-risk data management systems really work.
Hidden Costs of Data Theft (Statistic At a Glance):-
Data theft includes financial identity theft, identity cloning, and medical identity theft. The average cost per victim was $22,346 in 2012. And the total national cost of just medical identity fraud was $41 billion in 2012. The worst part – nearly 60% of reported victims say they don’t ever check their medical records for fraud. Depending on the severity of the case, it can take over 5,000 hours (the equivalent of working a full-time job for two years) to correct the damage.
Since 1935, over 435 million social security cards have been issued. That’s over 2,175 tons of paper issued as cards, or 52,200 trees and 5 million new cards are issued every year.
Worldwide, digital warehouses storing private information, like banking and personal history, use about 30 billion watts of electricity, which equals roughly the output of 30 nuclear power plants. Data centers in the US make up almost a third of that usage, and waste 90% of the electricity they pull off the grid.
On average, 47% of victims encounter problems qualifying for a new loan and 70% have difficulty removing the negative information from their credit reports.
Over the next five years, the IRS stands to lose as much as $21 billion in revenue due to identity theft, and worldwide, businesses lose close to $221 billion a year with the US, UK, Canada and Australia ranking the highest in reported fraudulent activity.
After reading the above story carefully, many of you will feel insecure and panic. But I would like to inform you that the main purpose of sharing such important information, is to enhance carefulness, to rise cyber awareness. Many people became victim, not because of less knowledge, but of less information, less awareness. So from now onward before connecting your self into the digital world make sure that the significant & the emergent knowledge and information you have gathered from the article, should remain intact inside your brain. Trust me, if you became a bit cautious, you can easily get rid of all those cyber threats, and can enjoy the bless of technologies to make your life prosperous and happy.
So stay tuned with VOGH and also be canny, be attentive and be safe inside the digital world.
We the Team VOGH heartily thanks one of our invaluable reader and friend Emily Stewart of Insurance Quotes for the statistic and the awesome video. We love you Emily :)
The White House has launched a new initiative designed to help companies in the electric power industry measure the maturity of their security programs against a new maturity model. The program is being run in tandem with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy and is meant to help the utility companies find their weak spots and where they need to improve.
The Electric Sector Cybersecurity Risk Maturity Model Pilot is the first such program launched by the White House, which has been pointing to information security--and specifically the security of systems running utilities and critical infrastructure--as a priority since the beginning of the Obama administration. The administration has developed a number of strategies and policy documents in the last few years, but this is the first foray into the kind of maturity model that typically is seen in private industry.
The White House, DHS and Energy launched the initiative last week with a meeting of government officials and executives from electric companies to discuss the main problems facing the industry when it comes to information security.
In his blog Howard Schmidt, the White House cybersecurity coordinator, said - "This initiative -- the Electric Sector Cybersecurity Risk Maturity Model Pilot -- is a new White House initiative led by the Department of Energy, in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, to develop a model to help us identify how secure the electric grid is from cyber threats and test that model with participating utilities. Gaining knowledge about strengths and remaining gaps across the grid will better inform investment planning and research and development, and enhance our public-private partnership efforts,"
Tracker Software Products, Ltd has just partnered with Spoon, a cloud computing and virtualization technology company, to offer its PDF and image viewing programs as cloud-based products. In other words, this means that Tracker Software's programs can now be used from any Windows-based computer in the world, as long as it has Internet access. No installation required! All a user needs to do is log on to Tracker Software's website and download the Spoon plugin. This will allow the user to access any Spoon-based products online in addition to Tracker Software's PDF viewers. Many businesses and professionals are making the switch to cloud-based programs due to the increased versatility, flexibility, and productivity. Additionally, cloud-based programs use less processing power, take up less hard drive space and tend to be better for a company's bottom line. By centralizing processing on the server side rather than the client side, Tracker Software assures users that they don't have to worry about ensuring that their version of software is up-to-date. When run from the cloud, programs are accessible with a single click, they don't take up valuable computer capacity, and any errors or bugs are easily fixed. Both the free and the professional versions of Tracker Software's PDF-XChange Viewer are available in the new virtualized cloud-based format. These programs allow for easy manipulation and annotation using the most feature-rich PDF viewer currently on the market today. While most people use Adobe to view PDF files, they often run into problems due to a buggy interface, lack of editing capability, non-intuitive design and poor customer support. PDF-XChange allows you to export PDF files to images, to add textual content and extract text, to add security/encryption, to mark up a page with pictures snapped to the grid, to create new documents, to add digital signatures and much more, all through an easy-to-use interface. This interface has since been put up on the cloud. The basic functionality remains the same, except users may find that the online PDF viewer is faster and doesn't lag the computer quite as much. Additionally, customer support is likely to be faster in the event of a bug, and new features will be added all the time without the need for additional downloads. This change in basic framework will, according to Tracker Software, be the basis for future improvements further down the line. In other words, the new Online PDF Viewer Cloud Applications don't offer significant change in what you can do right now, but the improved productivity will provide a level of increased ease that wasn't there before. Instead of new features, the skeleton of the program is getting a rework to be better suited for modern computing. More and more companies are going the way of the cloud and virtual machines, because keeping one hundred copies of PDF-XChange Viewer for business purposes, for instance, is inefficient and wasteful according to proponents of the technology. When it comes to providing PDF software to businesses and professionals worldwide, Tracker Software has been rated by many analysts as one of the best in the industry. They have consistently been on the forefront of technological development, and this latest move proves that they will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. About Tracker Software
Tracker Software Products, Ltd develops PDF and imaging software, with products including a free PDF reader and a TIFF creator. With sales offices in Canada and the UK and development offices in the USA and Ukraine, Tracker provides document/imaging applications and developer toolkits to professionals around the world. Tracker Software products conform to ISO-maintained PDF specifications, originally defined and extended by Adobe. About Spoon
Spoon is one of the leading developers of virtualization technologies and cloud computing, meant to connect data, applications and processing power to users instantly, anywhere. Spoon products are available online at Spoon.net, from third party sites through Spoon Feeds, and from within private clouds by way of Spoon Server. Spoon and Spoon-related products are used by industry leaders in a variety of fields, from education, government and health care to entertainment, finance and information technology. Satisfied customers include Novell, Namco Networks, Autodesk, Core Learning, the U.S. Marine Corps and thousands of software developers around the world
