Homeland Security to Detail IT Attacks
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Homeland Security will hold a hearing to discuss the agency's own problems battling electronic attacks.
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The Department of Homeland Security's Project Hostile Intent aims to use behavioral profiling technology to catch bad guys posing as good guys. But getting it to work could be a challenge.
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At a hearing next week, a panel plans to ask Homeland Security officials to explain how a move to expand use of powerful surveillance tools will jibe with Americans' privacy rights.
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The Department of Homeland Security has launched several new cybersecurity initiatives that it hopes to add to pilot projects and operational systems and that can be deployed throughout the government and the private sector.
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I.BM plans to begin releasing on Monday a monthly report of threats to computer networks in an effort to establish an indicator similar to the federal government&#39;s Homeland Security Advisory System.
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Lawmakers are on alert as hackers increase attacks on US infrastructure.
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The U.S. government's drive for homeland security has produced a boom in antiterror technologies--as well as industry confusion and privacy concerns.
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Computer security experts have urged the White House to address threats to US IT systems. The group made 12 recommendations, including creating a backup communications network in case of a major Internet outage
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Federal agencies required to ensure security of their Windows XP and Vista PCs by the end of February are going to get some tools to help them.
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The Homeland Security Department spent more than $90 million to create a network for sharing sensitive anti-terrorism information with state and local governments that it has decided to replace, according to an internal department document.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)Â CIO was on the hot seat Wednesday on Capitol Hill after an independent audit found that a database that screens U.S. visitors lacked security controls. The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee called on DHS CIO Scott Charbo to explain why he should keep his job after persistent cybersecurity problems at the agency. "What happened to leadership?" Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee chairman and a Mississippi Democrat, said during a hearing of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science, and Technology. "What happened to accountability?" Lawmakers also said they were concerned that the agency reported 844 cybersecurity incidents in 2005 and 2006. "Although we still have a ways to go, we've made measurable improvements in the management of information security at the department," Charbo said. "Certainly, we need to increase our vigilance to ensure that such incidents do not happen again." Many of the 844 incidents were minor, and the agency has taken major steps to fix past cybersecurity issues, Charbo said. Many of the reported cybersecurity incidents related to problems like lost laptops that did not result in data breaches, he added. The subcommittee did not have a breakdown of the incidents Wednesday. Asked about reports of bots installed on DHS computers that could send information out to hackers, Charbo said he had "no evidence" that the bots caused a breach. Thompson's comments came as the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report saying DHS continues to have "significant weaknesses in computer security controls that threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of key ... systems." GAO investigators found no security controls on the US-VISIT database, the system that screens people who want to visit the U.S. for potential terrorists and criminals. Lawmakers are concerned whether terrorists could get into the database "and change or alter their names to allow them access to this country, and we wouldn't even know that they're doing it," said Representative Bob Etheridge, a North Carolina Democrat. A contractor provides IT security for US-VISIT, but DHS has its own security controls in place to protect the database, Charbo said. He didn't disclose specific security measures. The GAO doesn't have evidence that the US-VISIT database was breached, said Keith Rhodes, chief technologist and director of the GAO's Center for Technology and Engineering. "I did not see controls in place that would prevent it," Rhodes said. "I did not see defensive perimeters, and I did not see detection systems in place whether it had or had not [been breached]." GAO started a cybersecurity review of DHS a year ago but curtailed its efforts because it kept finding "more and more" problems, Rhodes said. "If we had continued to this day, I would argue we'd still be finding things," he said. "The problems were pervasive. The problems were systemic." Charbo outlined recent measures DHS has taken to improve cybersecurity there. The agency is collapsing multiple legacy WANs into a single WAN, and it is standardizing all e-mail and directory services onto a single platform, he said. The agency had 13 separate e-mail systems when it was formed out of 22 U.S. agencies in 2002, he said. DHS also is combining multiple data centers into a shared center, he said. Thompson asked how DHS officials can preach cybersecurity practices to other agencies and private companies while continuing to have its own problems. Among the incidents DHS reported were employees sending out classified documents on unclassified networks and contractors attaching unauthorized laptops to the DHS network, he said. "How can the Department of Homeland Security be a real advocate of sound cybersecurity practices without following some of its own advice?" he said. "What the department is doing on its own network speaks so loud that the message isn't getting across to anyone else."
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A spokesperson for the US Dept. of Homeland Security told the Associated Press this morning that the US-CERT preparedness team is monitoring a so-called "Jihadist Web site," following postings calling for online attacks on US financial sites sometime this month.
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The office in charge of cyber-security in the Department of Homeland Security is planning to continue moving ahead on the agenda the agency has already set.
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Contract with Department of Defense is part of homeland security boom.
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DHS huddled masses tracker further delayed The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s plan to build hundreds of all-seeing networked surveillance towers along American borders has run into further problems. The project in question is the technology portion of the Secure Borders Initiative (SBI).â¦
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WASHINGTON, Sept 23: Homeland Security official Asa Hutchinson on Thursday said the United States was on heightened alert for terrorist threats, particularly involving aircraft, ahead of the Nov 2 presidential elections.
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The director of cyber security for the Homeland Security Department, Amit Yoran, has resigned his post. The issue of whether cybersecurity was receiving sufficient attention at DHS created