June 2008 Archives

A panel of the National Academy of Sciences is looking at the risk of a terrorist nuclear attack on a U.S. city.  Six U.S. metropolitan regions are considered to be at most risk, New York City, Washington D.C., Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  To read more click here...

NOTE: To keep things in perspective USGS and CGS say California has more than a 99% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake (equivalent to about a .3 Megaton nuclear explosion) within the next 30 years, click here...

Next time you travel outside the country you might be surprised on your return that DHS wants to do a search or to copy your computer hard drive.  U.S. Courts have recently ruled that warrants or suspicions when a person is seeking to enter the country are not required to do a search of a computers hard drive  ... court rulings say "routine search" is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.  Independent of the privacy concerns, U.S. based companies and U.S. companies with foreign partners are concerned over the possible compromise of sensitive intellectual property.  For more info on this, click here...

A White House Memorandum issued on May 9, 2008 defines a new method for the handling of Sensitive But Unclassified information.  When implemented, this new system will have direct impact on the InfraGard secure sharing system. 

To read a Washington Post article about this, click here...

To read the Presidential Memorandum, click here...

FOLLOW-UP  June 6, 2006

Legislation that would set parameters for the Homeland Security Department's "controlled unclassified information" designation has been introduced.  To read more, click here...

FOLLOW-UP June 11, 2006

House Homeland Subcommittee Approves Bills to Ease Assess to Information, To read more, click here..

FOLLOW- UP June 26, 2008
House Moves To Cutback Secrecy - Classification overuse targeted.  To read more, click here...

The Colorado Emergency Preparedness Partnership is a public-private enterprise created by the Denver InfraGard Members Alliance (IMA), the Denver Police Foundation, Business Executives for National Security and the Philanthropy Roundtable. It is a broad coalition to implement a voluntary, all-hazards partnership between business and government and, to date, has been the product of many Colorado partners including leaders of the philanthropic community, federal, state and local agencies, business, academia, and US Northern Command.

For a news article on the CEPP, click here..

To view the CEPP web site, click here... (note: at the publishing of this this web site was not working)

This August 4th & 5th , Adobe Systems will be hosting IP3, Inc. for a comprehensive Information Assurance and Information Technology Security seminar delivered lecture-style.  InfraGard members receive a discount to attend this forum.  For more info, click here...

To read a RIT news release about this study, click here ...

To read the results of this study click here...

What's being done ... The Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative is a unique non-profit partnership between the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), numerous Rochester area school districts, the Diocese of Rochester Department of Catholic Schools, other higher education institutions and private schools, and regional offices of three national organizations, including the Rochester InfraGard chapter.  For more on the Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative, click here...

A Silicon Valley engineer who plead guilty on August 1, 2007 to two national security violations under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 is the first to be sentenced under this statute.  To read more, click here...

To read the U.S. Department of Justice Press Release on this case, click here...

U.S. authorities are investigating whether Chinese officials secretly copied the contents of a government laptop computer during a visit to China by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and used the information to try to hack into Commerce computers,

FOLLOW-UP - China denies computer spying, says "that as a developing country it wasn't capable of sophisticated cybercrime".  To read more click here...

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concludes that the "U.S. is not ready for the next catastrophe," and "... there are still no government-wide plans to respond to a catastrophe. There is still considerable confusion over who will be in charge during a disaster. There are still almost no dedicated military forces on rapid alert to respond to a crisis."  To download this report (.pdf), click here...

Related ... GAO report concludes - FEMA Needs More non-Federal Involvement in the National Response Framework.  To read the GAO report summary, and to download the complete GAO report, click here...

Security researchers have reported on a vulnerability in the Process Control software that runs a wide range of facilities including, water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities.  To read more, click here...

Core Technologies Press Release, click here...

DHS has announced that it is taking steps to enhance its Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). Known as HSIN Next Generation (NextGen), the enhancement will provide a secure and trusted national platform for Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information sharing and collaboration between federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private sector, and international partners. To read DHS press release, click here...

I have a HSIN account and used the current HISN during the 2006 Golden Guardian exercise.  It is really nothing to brag about.  As I see it the real challenge is to develop one disaster information network that will support all the disparate users, including InfraGard.

The U.S.'s fourth largest ISP, Charter Communications, has notified their users that they plan to test an ISP eavesdropping and advertising technology that an internal British Telecom report concluded crashed some unsuspecting users' browsers, and a small percentage of the 18,000 broadband customers under surveillance believed they'd been infected with adware.  For more info, click here...

Improved legislation recommended...the Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) and Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology Chairman James R. Langevin (D-RI) sent a letter to Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell (D-MI) suggesting that the Committee on Homeland Security work with the Energy and Commerce Committee to pass legislation granting FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) enhanced authority to adequately protect the bulk power systems against a cyber attack.  To read this letter, click here...

InfraGard is rolling out the Hawaii InfraGard chapter's Internet Safety Awards Contest nationwide.  The Internet Safety Awards Contest gives students, working individually or in teams, the opportunity to create and produce their own public service announcement on Internet safety issues. The contest is open to middle and high school students from public and private schools.  For more info, click here...