Home · Security

White House Orders New Computer Security Rules

WASHINGTON — The White House plans to issue an executive order on Friday to replace a flawed patchwork of computer security safeguards exposed by the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of classified government documents to WikiLeaks last year. Multimedia

The order by President Obama culminates a seven-month governmentwide review of policies and procedures involving the handling of classified information, and recommendations on how to reduce the risk of breaches.

The directive enshrines many stopgap fixes that the Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency made immediately after the initial WikiLeaks disclosures last November. Since then, for instance, the military has disabled 87 percent of its computers to prevent people from downloading classified data onto memory sticks, CDs or DVDs.

The Pentagon has also developed procedures to monitor and detect suspicious behavior on classified computer systems. And the State Department stopped distributing its diplomatic cables over a classified e-mail system used by many in the military, including Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking the classified documents to WikiLeaks. More...

10-07-2011 18:19

Global cybercrimes cost $114 billion annually: Symantec

(Reuters) - A study by Symantec Corp, the maker of Norton computer security software, estimates the cost of global cybercrimes at $114 billion annually.

The Norton Cybercrime Report 2011 said 431 million adults were victims globally in the past year, with costs of cybercrime surpassing the combined global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin.

"Over the past 12 months, three times as many adults surveyed have suffered from online crime versus offline crime, yet less than a third of respondents think they are more likely to become a victim of cybercrime than physical world crime in the next year," said Adam Palmer, Norton Lead Cybersecurity Advisor.

The study also identified men in the 18-31 years age group, who access the Internet from their mobile phone, as likely victims. Source...

09-07-2011 16:04

Suspected LulzSec and Anonymous members arrested in UK

Four men have been arrested in separate parts of the UK by police investigating the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec.

The suspects - from Doncaster, Warminster, Northampton and London - are being questioned by Scotland Yard's e-Crime unit.

Their arrests are part of a wider operation involving UK law enforcement and the FBI.

At the same time, 14 suspected members of Anonymous appeared in a US court.

Authorities around the world have been rounding up suspects following a wave of attacks by both groups on major corporations and government institutions.

Amazon, PayPal, the CIA, US Senate and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency have all suffered either intrusions or denial of service attacks, designed to take their websites offline. More...

09-02-2011 16:57

<< First < Previous [3 / 20] Next > Last >>