Do we need a unified US Government Cyber Effort? "Obama to Create New Agency to Examine Cyberthreats"

SSG Norman Lihou — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 23:20:38 -0500

The White House is setting up a new agency designed to coordinate cyberthreat intelligence that currently is spread across the federal government.

The agency would be modeled after the National Counter Terrorism Center, which was set up after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate terrorism intelligence. A failure to do so led to missed opportunities to thwart the attacks.

Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, was to announce the new agency in a speech today at the Wilson Center in Washington, said a White House official who was not authorized to be quoted by name ahead of the announcement. The plan was first reported Tuesday by the Washington Post.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-create-agency-examine-cyberthreats-28861192

Politics

Get the latest breaking politics news and political coverage of U.S. elections. Get updates on President Obama's White House, Congress and more at ABC News.

Response by SFC Christopher Perry made Apr 29 at 2014 8:12 AM

SFC Christopher Perry — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:12:16 -0400

MAJ. Christensen,

Good information, thanks for posting it!

Response by MSG Wade Huffman made Apr 29 at 2014 8:16 AM

MSG Wade Huffman — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:16:40 -0400

I rarely use IE, switched to Chrome several years ago and never looked back.

Response by SSgt Gregory Guina made Apr 29 at 2014 3:50 PM

SSgt Gregory Guina — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:50:41 -0400

Does that mean they wil lput Firefox on my work computer now?

Response by SGT Ben Keen made Apr 29 at 2014 4:29 PM

SGT Ben Keen — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:29:02 -0400

IE is far from the most popular browser. According to stats posted on w3schools.com, Chrome is the most popular with 57.5% of all internet traffic being viewed through it. Firefox is second with 25.6% and in a distant 3rd is IE with 9.7% (numbers based off of information for March 2014).

We all knew with the end of support of Windows XP; hackers would set off on a mad dash to exploit holes within XP and yes using a browser is an easy way of doing that. Personally, as an IT nerd, I try to stay as up to date on things as I can. A lot of my stuff is running beta versions of applications. Knowing Microsoft and how much they hate bad press, I'm sure the KB will be released in a few days to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices so I don't see it being that big a of thing. For people running XP or even worse, VISTA I would install Chrome or Firefox if upgrading the OS of your machine is not a question and of course only do so after checking with your Systems Administrator if the PC is owned by your employer.

Response by TSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 6 at 2015 3:11 AM

TSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 03:11:10 -0500

IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN 2015 FOR ONE WEEK!

I'm just saying, it's a premature to call anything "the biggest X of 2015" this early in the game.

The hype machines these days have a lack of sense for timing and proportion matched only by their misunderstanding of sarcasm.

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 10 at 2015 11:32 PM

CW5 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 23:32:43 -0500

What we need, SSG Norman Lihou, is for the lawyers to back off and give our cyber warriors some freedom of movement when it comes to dealing with the cyber threat. In my admittedly limited experience in this realm, I have noticed that by the time the lawyers have finished arguing out the fine points and writing papers on the subject, delivering opinions, etc., the bad guys have come, done their evil deeds, and gone. We need to be more agile in the cyber network operations world. I think we are hamstrung by legal BS about whether the attacker used as U.S. server to launch their attack ... and many other fine points. Until we change this, I think we are going to always be reacting, and in cyber war, that's not a good position to be in.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 10 at 2015 11:34 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 23:34:30 -0500

I feel like we could add a department to an already existing agency, instead of creating a completely new one. The CIA already has tons of technology and cyber monitoring equipment. Instead of creating an completely new agency lets add a cyber terrorism division to the CIA. This would allow for the new jobs to still be created, while saving precious dollars from being invested in to a new building, equipment and all of the costs associated with creating a new agency. In a time of financial instability for our country, and I not sure that creating an entirely new agency is the best move.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Feb 10 at 2015 11:39 PM

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 23:39:46 -0500

Well didn't that used to be a Mainstay of the NSA? My guess just a new kind of Beauracratic Smoke and Mirrors. Make the Bad Guys Keep Guessing. Just like when they Decommissioned the "Naval Security Group". I'm pretty sure Navy Spooks are still around.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 27 at 2015 2:25 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 02:25:01 -0500

Politics

Get the latest breaking politics news and political coverage of U.S. elections. Get updates on President Obama's White House, Congress and more at ABC News.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 27 at 2015 2:26 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 02:26:28 -0500

0 0 0 The Biggest Hack-Attack of 2015
COL Ted Mc, 30 0 4 Defence One has an article about how the US government gave critical defence information away for free.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/12/forget-sony-hack-could-be-he-biggest-cyber-attack-2015/101727/?oref=d-mostread

Forget the Sony Hack, This Could Be the Biggest Cyber Attack of 2015

On Friday, December 19th, the FBI officially named North Korea as the party responsible for a cyber attack and email theft against Sony Pictures. The Sony hack saw many studio executives’ sensitive and embarrassing emails leaked online. The hackers threatened to attack theaters on the opening day of the offending film, “The Interview,” and Sony pulled the plug on the movie, effectively censoring a major Hollywood studio. (Sony partially reversed course, allowing the movie to show in 331 independent theaters on Christmas Day and to be streamed online.)

Technology journalists were quick to point out that, even though the cyber attack could be attributable to a nation state actor, it wasn’t particularly sophisticated. Ars Technica’s Sean Gallagher likened it to a “software pipe bomb.” The fallout, of course, was limited. And while President Barack Obama vowed to respond to the attack, he also said it was a mistake for Sony to back down.

“I think all of us have to anticipate occasionally there are going to be breaches like this. They’re going to be costly. They’re going to be serious. We take them with the utmost seriousness. But we can’t start changing our patterns of behavior any more than we stop going to a football game because there might be the possibility of a terrorist attack; any more than Boston didn’t run its marathon this year because of the possibility that somebody might try to cause harm. So, let’s not get into that — that way of doing business,” he said at a White House briefing on Friday.

But according to cyber-security professionals, the Sony hack may be a prelude to a cyber attack on United States infrastructure that could occur in 2015, as a result of a very different, self-inflicted document dump from the Department of Homeland Security in July.

[EDITORIAL COMMENT:- The stalwart professionals at the Department of Home and Insecurity strike again. What do they do, swap people with FEMA?

Forget the Sony Hack, This Could Be the Biggest Cyber Attack of 2015

The Sony hack may have gotten a movie pulled from theaters, but it’s not the cyber war you’re looking for. By Patrick Tucker

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 27 at 2015 2:27 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 02:27:30 -0500

In an effort to protect my fellow service members and veterans I am sharing the following:

In a rare move that highlights the severity of the security hole in one of the Web's most popular browsers, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team and its British counterpart tell people to stop using Internet Explorer until Microsoft can fix it.

http://www.cnet.com/news/stop-using-ie-until-bug-is-fixed-says-us/

Stop using Microsoft's IE browser until bug is fixed, US and UK warn - CNET

In rare move that highlights severity of security hole in popular Internet Explorer, US Computer Emergency Readiness Team and UK counterpart say some IE users may want to "consider employing an alternate browser" till flaw is patched.

Response by SPC David Shaffer made Apr 1 at 2015 2:46 AM

SPC David Shaffer — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 02:46:40 -0400

Smells fishy to me