An update from the Heritage Foundation documents 23 terrorist plots against the United States have been foiled since 9/11. While some trials have ended in mistrial and charges against some suspects were dropped, significantly more individuals have been convicted and sentenced for their crimes. READ MORE
July 2009 Archives
Government and industry experts told House lawmakers that the administration needs to restructure how Federal interagency information-sharing initiatives are funded and implemented to encourage compliance by agencies that currently place a higher priority on their own missions.
"Differing missions, overlapping turf conflicts, resource constraints, bureaucratic inertia and agency tunnel vision still exist and impede information sharing," said Ambassador Thomas McNamara, program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, a post within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. READ MORE
RELATED:
Information Sharing Emerges as DHS Secretary's Top Priority, READ MORE
Remarks by Secretary Napolitano at the Council on Foreign Relations, VIEW
"Differing missions, overlapping turf conflicts, resource constraints, bureaucratic inertia and agency tunnel vision still exist and impede information sharing," said Ambassador Thomas McNamara, program manager of the Information Sharing Environment, a post within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. READ MORE
RELATED:
Information Sharing Emerges as DHS Secretary's Top Priority, READ MORE
Remarks by Secretary Napolitano at the Council on Foreign Relations, VIEW
A consortium of cybersecurity leaders in government and industry has announced an initiative that pits young adults against one another in competitions to determine who has the best cyber defense skills, with the most talented becoming eligible to receive college scholarships and employment with federal agencies and security firms READ MORE
U.S. Cyber Challenge
U.S. Cyber Challenge
One of the most important areas of concern to the 9/11 Commission was the improvement of intelligence collection and dissemination across the board throughout government. In marking the fifth anniversary of the issuance of the 9/11 Commission Report Wednesday, DHS has released a progress report outlining advancements in the Department's capabilities to protect against and respond to acts of terrorism and other threats. Read More.
DHS Press Release
DHS Report
DHS Press Release
DHS Report
While addressing cybersecurity funding, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee called for the national intelligence director and Homeland Security Department to submit by Jan. 1 2010 a comprehensive cybersecurity assessment detailing threats and vulnerabilities. "The country's electric power grid, communications systems, and financial infrastructure are all critical to our way of life yet [are] unacceptably vulnerable to cyber attack," the panel wrote.
The administration also should create "a survivable government communications network to sustain critical national security functions under and following [a] major cyber attack," the committee said. Additionally, the administration should give the intelligence director primary authority to manage all aspects of cybersecurity within the intelligence community. These issues were included in a report that accompanies the FY10 Senate Intelligence authorization bill. VIEW REPORT
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The administration also should create "a survivable government communications network to sustain critical national security functions under and following [a] major cyber attack," the committee said. Additionally, the administration should give the intelligence director primary authority to manage all aspects of cybersecurity within the intelligence community. These issues were included in a report that accompanies the FY10 Senate Intelligence authorization bill. VIEW REPORT
READ MORE
The National Dialogue is a conversation between you, other Homeland Security stakeholders, and DHS on an innovative web-based platform. The National Dialogue is an iterative process, building on your input over the course of three dialogues. Each of the three dialogues will involve discussions on six topics being reviewed by DHS:
MORE INFO...
The House of Representatives * Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology recently held a hearing concerning "Securing the Modern Electric Grid from Physical and Cyber Attacks".
The chairman for the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse, a congressionally mandated commission to study the risk of EMP pulses testified at this hearing. "By ignoring large scale, catastrophic EMP vulnerability, we invite such attack on our infrastructure by adversaries looking to attack us where we are weak, not where we are strong." READ MORE
The chairman for the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse, a congressionally mandated commission to study the risk of EMP pulses testified at this hearing. "By ignoring large scale, catastrophic EMP vulnerability, we invite such attack on our infrastructure by adversaries looking to attack us where we are weak, not where we are strong." READ MORE
National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP). READ MORE
Regulations, privacy and security concerns, and other issues could hold back development of the "Smart Grid". READ MORE 
The Department of Homeland Security's Directorate for Science & Technology and the United States Secret Service are sponsoring a cyber security conference that will bring together an unprecedented number of partners from government, international, federal, state and local law enforcement, the private sector and academia."Global Cyber Security: Threats, Challenges & Opportunities", a three-day cyber security conference, will take place August 4-6, 2009 in Washington D.C. DOWNLOAD EVENT FLYER
News sources are reporting that a variety of U.S. government public web sites have been suffering a denial of service attacks since around July 4th. READ MORE
Follow-up: Cyberattacks on Federal web sites may be smokescreen READ MORE
Follow-up: Lazy Hacker and Little Worm Set Off Cyberwar Frenzy READ MORE
As of 07/09/09 07:25AM PDT there is no mention of anything about this on the secure InfraGard site!
Follow-up: Cyberattacks on Federal web sites may be smokescreen READ MORE
Follow-up: Lazy Hacker and Little Worm Set Off Cyberwar Frenzy READ MORE
As of 07/09/09 07:25AM PDT there is no mention of anything about this on the secure InfraGard site!
A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer has been charged by federal prosecutors with stealing trade secrets from the bank, including codes for high-volume trades.
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It is expected that the Obama administration will continue a program approved during the Bush administration where NSA data and hardware would be used to protect the networks of some civilian government agencies. The plan reportedly called for telecommunications companies to route the Internet traffic of civilian agencies through a monitoring box that would search for and block computer codes designed to penetrate or otherwise compromise networks. READ MORE
