Healthcare's latest data breach, affecting 4.5 million patients....

BY Ann Longmore-Etheridge

08/27/2014

"Healthcare's latest data breach, affecting 4.5 million patients, offers the industry a sobering reminder that is simply isn't doing enough to protect patient data from known security threats," reports CIO. "In the days since Community Health System announced a data breach affecting 4.5 million patients, the security community has responded by telling healthcare organizations to stay the course. At its essence, that message means two things: Remain vigilant and don't fall asleep at the switch." The article notes that the FBI and other government agencies would like to be more timely in issuing flash bulletins that hackers are targeting healthcare firms. "Security of healthcare systems is also lax because data resides on legacy systems that go unpatched and "partly because security and privacy provisions are largely uninformaced and unaudited." 

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Britain's government must take action against Islamic terrorists....

BY Ann Longmore-Etheridge

08/27/2014

Britain's government must take action against Islamic terrorists using the nation as a base for global operations, according to Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, who was interviewed by Fox News. The need has been emphasized by the apparent role that British national Abdel Majed Abdel Bary played in the murder of James Foley. Meanwhile, the United Nations is accusing Islamic State militants of war crimes in Syria, saying that the group has used chemical weapons in eight instances, as well as training child soldiers, and public executions, and whippings.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

JPMorgan Chase and at least four other banks have become the latest targets...

By Lilly Chapa
08/28/2014

JPMorgan Chase and at least four other banks have become the latest targets of hackers in what security experts described as a series of coordinated attacks this month, according to The New York Times. Gigabytes of data, including checking and savings account information, were compromised. The intrusions are potentially the work of Russian cyber criminals in response to economic sanctions placed on the country, but it is too early to tell. “Companies of our size unfortunately experience cyber attacks nearly every day,” a JPMorgan spokeswoman said. “We have multiple layers of defense to counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels.”
http://www.securitymanagement.com/

The latest security threat to the retail industry is “Backoff,” a malware program....

By Lilly Chapa

08/28/2014

The latest security threat to the retail industry is “Backoff,” a malware program that targets point of sale (PoS) systems and steals payment card data. The U.S. Secret Service issued an advisory last week, stating that more than 1,000 businesses in the U.S. alone have been affected by the malware. Backoff, which was first detected in October 2013, has not been recognized by antivirus software until recently. And yesterday, PCI Security Standards Council, an organization formed by major credit and debit card companies, warned retailers of the urgency to secure their systems against the program. Companies should check with their antivirus vendor to make sure their product detects Backoff and run a scan immediately, according to PC World. Retailers should also change passwords and review system logs for strange or unexplained activity, the PCI Council recommended.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Russian forces have entered Ukraine in what Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described as a “sharp aggravation”...

By Lilly Chapa

08/28/2014 - Russian forces have entered Ukraine in what Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko described as a “sharp aggravation” in an area filled with separatist rebels. Pro-Russia rebels have taken the coast town of Novoazovsk, potentially attempting to create a land link between rebel-held Crimea and Russia. However, Russian envoys have denied the presence of troops in Ukraine. Poroshenko has called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. The invasion comes just two days after Poroshenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to ease tensions between the two countries, according to USA Today.  The move has already struck the Russian economy as fears grew that the U.S. and European Union will impose further sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Britons who go to Syria 'are guilty until proved innocent’, says Boris Johnson

In an article for The Telegraph, Mayor of London warns that police are finding it 'very difficult' to press charges against suspected jihadists without direct evidence of their 'ghastly' activities

The Mayor of London also joins calls for jihadists to be stripped of their citizenship Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

By Steven Swinford, Martin Evans and Matthew Holehouse

10:59PM BST 24 Aug 2014

Britons who travel to Syria and Iraq without informing the authorities should be presumed to be potential terrorists until proved innocent, Boris Johnson says.

In an article for The Telegraph, Mr Johnson warns that police are finding it “very difficult” to press charges against suspected jihadists without direct evidence of their “ghastly” activities.

He suggests there should be a “swift and minor change in the law” to introduce a new “rebuttable presumption” that those who travel to war zones without notifying the authorities have done so for “terrorist purposes”.

The Mayor of London also joins calls for jihadists to be stripped of their citizenship, despite opposition from Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who warned at the weekend that such a move would be illegal.

He calls for control orders, which kept terrorism suspects in their homes, to be brought back amid concerns that hundreds of jihadists could return to Britain and pose a threat to national security if Isil (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) loses ground in Iraq and Syria.

Mr Johnson’s intervention came as the British ambassador to the US said intelligence agents believe they have identified “Jihadi John”, the Briton responsible for beheading the American journalist James Foley, after employing voice recognition technology.

Peter Westmacott, the ambassador to Washington, also disclosed that 70 militants have been arrested after returning from Syria, a number of them carrying instructions for “very specific missions” to unleash terrorist atrocities on British soil.

Mr Johnson says Britain needs to help to “close down” the Islamic caliphate before it is too late, adding that “doing nothing is surely worst of all”.

He says: “If we let Isil get their way, then we will be acquiescing, first, in a gigantic and violent change in international borders.

“Next, we will be allowing a new and hideous regime to be born, a country where black-flag waving jihadis compete to show they have the most bigoted and reactionary understanding of their religion by persecuting women, Jews, Christians, gays, Yazidis ande Shi’ites.

“The place would be a giant training ground for terrorists and wannabe jihadis. We need to try to close it down now, before it gets worse.”

Senior lawyers said that Mr Johnson’s proposals for “rebuttable presumption” would mark a “profound change” to British law.

Earlier this year, David Cameron announced new laws under which terrorist offences committed in Syria will be prosecuted as if they have taken place on British soil.

The lawyers said Mr Johnson’s plans would go significantly further by shifting the burden of proof from police and prosecutors on to suspected jihadists.

Mr Johnson also says that suspected terrorists who do not return to Britain and “continue to give allegiance” to Isil should be stripped of their citizenship. Similar calls have been made by David Davis, the Tory MP, and Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Biolabs : Concerns grow about CDC’s tracking, securing dangerous pathogens under its supervision

Published 21 July 2014

Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) officials reported that the same federal scientist who found vials of smallpox in a Food and Drug Administration(FDA) cold storage room at the National Institutes of Health facility in Bethesda, Maryland, also found a collection of 327 vials which could contain pathogens like dengue, influenza, and rickettsia. The new revelation adds to growing concerns about the government’s ability to track and secure dangerous pathogens under its supervision.”It is ironic that the institution that sets U.S. standards for safety and security of work with human pathogens fails to meet its own standards,” says a security expert. “It is clear that the CDC cannot be relied upon to police its own select-agent labs.”

Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials reported that the same federal scientist who found vials of smallpox in aFood and Drug Administration (FDA) cold storage room at the National Institutes of Health facility in Bethesda, Maryland, also found a collection of 327 vials which could contain pathogens like dengue, influenza, and rickettsia. The new revelation adds to growing concerns about the government’s ability to track and secure dangerous pathogens under its supervision.

“The fact that these materials were not discovered until now is unacceptable,” said Karen Midthun, FDA’s director for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “However, upon finding these materials our staff did the right thing — they immediately notified the appropriate authorities who secured the materials and determined there was no exposure.”

Yahoo News reports that FDA scientists have not confirmed whether the vials actually contained the pathogens listed on their labels, and whether the pathogens were active. The agency is now conducting a nationwide search of all its cold storage units for any other missing samples. The vials have posed no threat of exposure and several unlabeled vials have been sent to the CDC for testing; just as the CDC is under several investigations for its mishandling of dangerous pathogens.

Last month, roughly eighty employees at the CDC in Atlanta were feared to have been exposed to anthrax after live anthrax viruses, thought to be dead, were moved from high-security to low-security labs. USA Todayreports that a few weeks later, the agency disclosed that while investigating the anthrax scare, it learned that a group of CDC researchers had cross-contaminated a relatively harmless strain of bird flu with the dangerousH5N1 strain, then shipped the specimens to a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab, which then discovered the error when birds in their lab unexpectedly became very ill and died. CDC staff delayed reporting the error to supervisors for weeks. “I was, just frankly, stunned and appalled,”CDC head, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in a recent interview.

Frieden has appointed Dr. Michael Bell, a 19-year CDC veteran, to oversee laboratory safety at the agency. In an interview with the New York Times, Bell said he was most concerned about the “potential for hubris” among researchers who have become accustomed to the daily grind of working with deadly microbes that they cease to follow safety protocols. “It is ironic that the institution that sets U.S. standards for safety and security of work with human pathogens fails to meet its own standards,” said Richard H. Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University. “It is clear that the CDC cannot be relied upon to police its own select-agent labs.”

Later this month, the CDC will invite outside experts to form an external advisory group on lab safety, but some experts, including Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who teaches a course in investigating accidents, agree that theCDC should rely on independent institutions, likes the National Academy of Sciences, to address safety problems. Others suggest an agency with subpoena powers comparable to the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airline crashes and can ground entire fleets it deems unsafe. Frieden acknowledged that the idea of an independent investigative agency was “certainly worth exploring.”

For now, Frieden has closed the CDC’s flu and bioterror labs and has banned all shipments from the agency’s highest-security labs while safety protocols are being reviewed — a move that could halt work at many public-health labs that rely on such shipments, the Times notes.

www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com 

Surveillance : New 3D technology helps in identifying long-distance threats

Published 28 August 2014

At present, surveillance systems have difficulty capturing even 2D images at long range under normal sunlight conditions. The ability to extract high-resolution 3D video information up to hundreds of meters away, particularly in bright sunshine, would be a major advance. It would have immediate applications in the security and defense industries, for example for long-distance face-recognition, improved identification of left luggage, or the detection of concealed weapons.

At present, surveillance systems have difficulty capturing even 2D images at long range under normal sunlight conditions. The ability to extract high-resolution 3D video information up to hundreds of meters away, particularly in bright sunshine, would be a major advance. It would have immediate applications in the security and defense industries, for example for long-distance face-recognition, improved identification of left luggage, or the detection of concealed weapons.

Mel Smith, director of UWE’s Center for Machine Vision, said, “This study will test the feasibility of combining photometric stereo with recent developments in sensor and illumination technology.

“We are going to build a demonstrator system able to operate both at close range and at long distance, and will test it in realistic outdoor environments during night and daytime.

“The 3D information is extracted using novel black silicon sensor technology by analyzing multiple images artificially illuminated from different directions. The resulting 3D representation can be relit or rotated so it can be examined from different angles, even if the original detail was saturated with light.”

A UWE release reports that there are many potential applications for this technology, but CCTV is an obvious one.

Glynn Wright, CEO of Aralia Systems Ltd., said, “This new approach combines novel detector technology and image processing techniques and would be an important advance for the CCTV market. The device could be built into existing security networks.

“There is a need to be able to observe and monitor sites such as ports, airports, shopping centers, embassies, government offices, and energy companies under all natural lighting conditions including bright sunlight or total darkness, or where there is smoke or fog. Using an enhanced remote system like this would reduce the need for a physical security presence.”

The research forms a continuation of the link-up between UWE Bristol’sCenter for Machine Vision, part of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, andAralia Systems Ltd., and is funded by the U.K.’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board.

The researchers say they expect that these improvements would lead to cost savings due to fewer false alarms and a reduction in fraudulent insurance claims, as well as increasing safety for citizens and the deterrence of criminal or terrorist activity.

www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com 

Social Networks : Social networks aim to curb terror posts

Published 28 August 2014

Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram have all become a staple of everyday Western lifestyles – and these avenues have also become more interesting for terrorists to exploit to advance their goals. These companies admit, however, that curbing free speech and screening violent and hateful content does involve walking a fine line.

Following the posting of the beheading of American journalist James Foley by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), analysts are pointing to the emerging role of social media in the tactics and response to terrorism.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, as social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram have all become a staple of everyday Western lifestyles – and these avenues have also become more interesting for terrorists to exploit to advance their goals.

“Social media is at the heart of their jihad,” said Steve Stalinsky, the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

As was the case with the Foley execution video, the use of posting on these platforms is meant to instill fear, attract the eyes of those who might be recruited, and raise money through awareness.

Now, however, three of those large social media companies — YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook — are choosing to remove extreme examples of violence and terror. Users, too, are incorporating campaigns to filter and not give terrorists the upper hand with digital coverage.

Once the Foley video began to circulate, YouTube blocked the video, arguing the company prevents the posting of videos on many subjects, such as weapons construction and violence.

“YouTube has clear policies that prohibit content like gratuitous violence, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts,” said a company spokesperson, “We also terminate any account registered by a member of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and used in an official capacity to further its interests.”

Twitter and Facebook users also aimed to curb the sharing of the video out of respect for the victims and prevent ISIS from gaining notoriety. The hashtag “#ISISMediaBlackout

quickly began to trend on both services.

Facebook reports that it has “teams around the world” that are reviewing content related to the Foley beheading, and in certain cases leading to the company is removing the posts.

These companies admit, however, that curbing free speech and screening violent and hateful content does involve walking a fine line.

“The problem is that the boundary is hard to define,” said Marvin Ammori, a First Amendment scholar and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com 

Terrorism : Most of 2013 terrorist attacks took place in only a few countries

Published 28 August 2014

The majority of terrorist attacks occurring in 2013 remained isolated in just a few countries, according to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which is generated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). In 2013, 11,952 terrorist attacks resulted in 22,178 fatalities (including perpetrator deaths) and 37,529 injuries across 91 countries. More than half of all attacks (54 percent), fatalities (61 percent), and injuries (69 percent) occurred in just three countries: Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The majority of terrorist attacks occurring in 2013 remained isolated in just a few countries, according to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which is generated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) based at the University of Maryland. With the addition of nearly 12,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, the database now includes more than 125,000 events dating back to 1970 and, according to START, it remains the most comprehensive unclassified database of terrorist attacks around the world.

2013 terrorist attacks
START says that in 2013, 11,952 terrorist attacks resulted in 22,178 fatalities (including perpetrator deaths) and 37,529 injuries across 91 countries. More than half of all attacks (54 percent), fatalities (61 percent), and injuries (69 percent) occurred in just three countries: Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

By wide margins, the highest number of fatalities (7,046), attacks (2,852) and injuries (15,736) took place in Iraq. The average lethality of attacks in Iraq was 34 percent higher than the global average and 30 percent higher than the 2012 average in Iraq.

“It is important to note that increases in terrorism in 2013 were geographically concentrated in many of the same places which saw high levels of political violence in 2012,” said Gary LaFree, START director and professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. “The list of countries that experienced the most attacks remained virtually unchanged over the past two years-terrorism is generally getting worse in the places where it has been bad for several years.”

While terrorism remained heavily concentrated in the same parts of the world, the countries within those regions experienced some notable changes. In 2013, total attacks increased for Iraq, Pakistan, the Philippines, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Lebanon; and decreased for Nigeria and Turkey. The most lethal single attack in 2013 took place in September in Nigeria when members of Boko Haram set up illegal checkpoints and killed 142 civilians.

10 countries with the most terrorist attacks in 2013

Country	Attacks	Fatalities
Iraq	2852	7,046
Pakistan	2212	2,891
Afghanistan	1443	3,697
India	690	464
Philippines	652	432
Thailand	477	253
Yemen	424	622
Nigeria	341	2003
Somalia	331	641
Egypt	315	243

Despite the devastating attack at the Boston Marathon on 15 April 2013, which killed three and wounded more than 200, U.S. citizens remained comparatively safe from terrorism. Worldwide, seventeen U.S. civilians were killed by terrorist attacks in 2013 (including contractors), which is .07 percent of all terrorism fatalities in 2013.

According to LaFree, “these results confirm long-term regional trends that show rising numbers of attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and diminishing numbers of attacks in North America and Western Europe.”

Perpetrator groups
Information about the perpetrator group responsible was reported for 33 percent of terrorist attacks in 2013.

Although al-Qaeda central has only been responsible for two known attacks since 2008 (both in 2011), seven of the ten deadliest terrorist groups in the world are affiliated to some extent with the organization. These include the Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq, and the Levant/al-Qaeda in Iraq, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, al-Nusrah Front, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

10 most lethal terrorist organizations in 2013 by number of fatalities

• Taliban* — 2,718
• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant/Al-Qaida in Iraq* — 1,868
• Boko Haram* — 1,731
• Al-Shabaab* — 735
• Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)* — 710
• Al-Nusrah Front* — 707
• Lashkar-e-Jhangvi — 404
• Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)* — 368
• David Yau Yau Militia — 194
• New People’s Army (NPA) — 156

* Al-Qaeda-affiliated

GTD improvements
START notes that with the addition of the 2013 data, the GTD team also updated the database to include:

• Completed geocoding for historical attacks in ten countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, dating back to 1970.
• Improved classification of multiple attacks that are coordinated in a single event. This includes identifying pre-1998 attacks as part of coordinated events and linking related attacks by Event ID number throughout the entire dataset.
• Identification of cases that lack clarity about whether the GTDinclusion criteria are satisfied (“doubt terrorism proper” and “alternative designation” variables) for pre-1998 attacks.
• Updated information for thousands of historical cases to improve consistency and accuracy, including reviewing the inclusion criteria for all historical events, and adding more detailed information on casualty data for the 9/11 attacks.

More information about the new variables can be found in the GTDCodebook.

Interpreting the data
GTD data files and documentation are available for download from theSTART Web site for users who would like to conduct custom analysis of the data.

Beginning with 2012 data collection, START made several important changes to the Global Terrorism Database collection methodology, improving the efficiency and comprehensiveness of the process and access to source materials. In general, comparisons of aggregate statistics over time and between locations — and their implications for the state of international security and global counterterrorism efforts — should be interpreted with caution due to considerable variation in the availability of source materials.

The GTD is compiled and maintained by START through research grants awarded to the University of Maryland by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate’s Office of University Programs, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate’s Resilient Systems Division.

www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com 

It Does Matter That The White House Cybersecurity Czar Lacks Technical Chops

POST WRITTEN BYRobert M. Lee

Robert Lee is an active-duty Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer and a cofounder of Dragos Security.

Michael Daniel, the White House cyber security coordinator or “cyber czar”, made comments recently that being a coder or “being too down in the weeds at the technical level could actually be a little bit of a distraction.” This statement raised concerns in the cybersecurity community. A quick examination of his background elevated those concerns. Mr. Daniel has never been involved with cyber security before; he has a strong background in policy and budgeting but nothing in even the basics of cyber security. This seems to be a problem just for the government cyber security community, but it has farther reaching impacts.

Is Technical Understanding Required?

People do not often become exposed to concerns outside of their own communities. When people are introduced to issues in the modern world we generally see hashtag campaigns on Twitter or some temporary coverage in the news before moving on. It’s understood that issues in one community are not necessarily priority issues in another. But people generally take solace in knowing that there are people in charge in each community who have the experience and understanding to cover the issues. You may not care how a plane works but when you board a flight you sure hope the pilot does. Likewise, the airline safety manager might not be a pilot but you would demand that person knows how planes work. It is reasonable to want the nation’s cyber security coordinator to have experience in cyber security. It is also understandable that technical fields should require technical leaders. I would be a hypocrite to pretend that I speak for the entirety of the cyber security community in critiquing Mr. Daniel’s comments. However, I want to share my perspectives from my experience on why his statement is so damaging and why he is not the actual problem.

Michael Daniel, White House cybersecurity policy coordinator

U.S. Military

I am an active-duty United States Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer. It’s a long title to state that I care about cyberspace. I especially care about its defense and denying adversaries its use. It would be illegal and immoral for me to pretend that my comments speak for the US government or military in any way, they are mine alone. However, my perspective from the cyber security community in the military is one of a struggling group trying to retain talent and tackle complex issues. It is well documented and a prime concern for our military leaders that we are losing talent fast. Especially in the technical fields. Military members can often make significantly more money in the private sector than leveraging their skills in defense of the nation. Yet, most military members would forgo the money for a sense of service. The problem is that job satisfaction and career growth generally aren’t there as the military struggles with the concept of cyberspace. So when my fellow officers and my enlisted troops strive to fight the system and consider staying in for upwards of 30 years to reach the top to impact change – it is demotivating to see national level leaders charged with this domain that have zero experience in it. We quickly realize that even if we rise to the top as military leaders we will likely not be able to get a seat at the bureaucratic table to address the real issues. We will spend more time defining and arguing over terms on PowerPoint slides than defending anything. So why bother?

U.S. Intelligence Community

In my previous job I was a U.S. Intelligence Community cyberspace intelligence analyst where I led two national level teams. There’s not much I wish to say here about the job itself except that I am proud of my work and was privileged to be on those teams. And that’s hard to say publicly these days as the Intelligence Community gets a lot of bad press in the post-Snowden era. Non-technical leaders interpret technical information and sometimes focus on the wrong issues. But most people fail to realize that even organizations like the National Security Agency (NSA) do not come up with requirements themselves. National level intelligence agencies are operated at the command of national level leaders. When non-technical leaders make demands on the Intelligence Community those demands are met, even the “collect it all” approach, which non-technical leaders often incorrectly justify under the veil of cyber security. Security and privacy can complement each other and not necessarily conflict, but the non-technical leaders do not understand the technical details and thus the consequences of their requests. Regardless of your opinion of the intelligence community I would hope we could all agree that less experienced and less knowledgeable leaders are not what we want.

Academia, Education, and Training

I am also a PhD student at Kings College London researching cyber conflict, an adjunct lecturer teaching in a masters in Cyber security program at a college in the Northeast, and an instructor at the world’s largest and most respected cyber security training company. When I hear Michael Daniel’s comments they bother me. Part of my job is trying to keep students motivated during the rigors of cyber security training. Technical fields can be challenging and frustrating. It makes my job researching, educating, and training much harder when I have to convince people that gaining these skills is important in the first place. I have had more than a handful of students ask me why it even matters when people in charge do not possess these skills. Students often see it as more beneficial to earn a business degree and try to impact change from that route. The background experience and comments from Michael Daniel and other leaders provides an argument that’s hard to counter. It ensures that people without the right skills are making decisions and despite their best intents we are often forced to reinvent the security wheel. Our next generation of leaders needs to be able to look at current leaders and feel inspired with a duty to do better. It is difficult to do that when people from the community are not given the opportunity to lead. Cyber security cannot be a job that we allow just anyone to do. Technical fields demand technical understanding even if the solution sometimes does exist in economics, policy, and strategy.

It’s Not About Michael Daniel

Michael Daniel’s comment is particularly worrisome. However, overall he makes good points when he discusses how technical discussions can sometimes distract from strategic visions. He likely has his own daily challenges trying to impact change in a job where he has a lot of responsibility but not a lot of authority. The people that placed him in his job likely did so with good reasons. He shouldn’t be vilified but instead be used to recognize the larger issue here. The ability to have technical discussions, the experience of having been in the weeds, and the knowledge of how to abstract those discussions to meet the audience in attendance are skills that cannot be substituted. There have been defenses of Mr. Daniel’s comments from outside the cyber security community. Comments from the National Security Council praised Michael Daniel for his technical knowledge and expertise he provides senior policy makers.  And that’s part of the problem. It does not matter if people without experience in a field believe someone else is an expert. Policy makers outside of cyber security are not good judges of cyber security expertise. The cyber security community is. Experience, education, and knowledge in those fields provide validation to that expertise. The level of lip service that is paid to cyber security makes it feel like the field is a joke to the government and thus hard to convince people to care. Whether Michael Daniel has earned his accolades is not the point. The lack of expertise and background leaders have in the technical fields creates a culture and environment that is discouraging at best and destructive at worst. Whether or not you care about cyber security you should care about its impacts on issues such as personal data, banking systems, net neutrality, privacy issues, critical infrastructure protection and more. Answers to cyber security issues must be rooted in education and backed by experience. The cyber security community deserves people that have actual experience in cyber security. The nation deserves the same.

Robert M. Lee can be found on Twitter at @RobertMLee. His views and opinions do not represent or constitute an opinion held by the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or Air Force. They are his alone.

http://www.forbes.com/

Cybersecurity : Deterring cyberattacks requires building a public-private partnership

Published 27 August 2014

Cyber attacks loom as an increasingly dire threat to privacy, national security, and the global economy, and the best way to blunt their impact may be a public-private partnership between government and business, researchers say. The time to act is now, however, rather than in the wake of a crisis, says an expert in law and technology. The expert says that an information-sharing framework is necessary to combat cyber security threats.

Cyber attacks loom as an increasingly dire threat to privacy, national security, and the global economy, and the best way to blunt their impact may be a public-private partnership between government and business, researchers say. The time to act is now, however, rather than in the wake of a crisis, says a University of Illinois expert in law and technology.

According to a study by Jay Kesan, the H. Ross and Helen Workman Research Scholar at the College of Law, an information-sharing framework is necessary to combat cybersecurity threats.

“Cyber security is a big deal, and the protection of critical network infrastructure is a matter of national security,” said Kesan, who directs the Program in Intellectual Property and Technology Law at Illinois. “If nothing else, cyberattacks are very expensive, costing the global economy almost a half-trillion dollars per year, according to some estimates. For either of those reasons alone it should be given more attention.”

Meaningfully improving cybersecurity and ensuring the resilience of systems will require cooperation between members of the private sector and the government, according to the paper.

A U. of I. release reports that to that end, Kesan and co-author Carol M. Hayes, a research associate with U. of I. College of Law, propose a framework for the sharing of information about threats and solutions that they believe reconciles the competing concerns of privacy and cybersecurity, Kesan said.

“Privacy and cybersecurity are not mutually exclusive, but balancing the two interests may require cooperation and the occasional compromise,” Kesan said. “We believe that cybersecurity can be enhanced without creating an Orwellian, Big Brother world, and encourage the development of what we call a ‘Circle of Trust’ that brings the public and private sectors together to resolve cybersecurity threats more effectively.”

The goal is to foster trust between the private and public sectors, he said.

“When the public sector shares information with the private sector, that encourages the private sector to trust the public sector, and vice versa,” Kesan said. “Our proposed framework advances this notion of trust even further by allowing both sides to preserve a degree of secrecy — for example, government secrecy for classified military activities and geopolitical information, and private-market secrecy for consumer information, including information about consumers’ online activities. It functions to assure participants that overreach by either side will be limited.”

www.homelandsecuritynews.com 

Homeland Security and Public Safety : Social Networks Crack Down on Terror Posts

Social media’s widespread appeal has captured the attention of terrorists who are increasingly exploiting the networks to disseminate graphic videos, images and messages.

By Andrea Chang and Paresh Dave, Los Angeles Times | August 21, 2014

Twin Design / Shutterstock.com

(MCT) — The dark side of social media — and human nature — was on display this week when the gruesome beheading of an American journalist and its fallout played out across the world's most popular networks.

As social media has become a staple of everyday Western life, its widespread appeal has captured the attention of terrorists who are increasingly exploiting the networks to disseminate graphic videos, images and messages from around the world.

"Social media is at the heart of their jihad," said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The posts are intended to instill fear, attract new recruits and raise money on a global scale — and have forced tech giants into the difficult position of weighing the public's freedom to communicate against the need to censor troubling material. Three of the largest platforms — YouTube, Facebook and Twitter — all chose to police posts on the beheading, removing the most extreme examples.

"Terrorist organizations have moved their online presence to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media outlets," Gabriel Weimann, a University of Haifa professor, said in a recent report on terrorism and social media. "They have turned to the new media not only because counterterrorism agencies have disrupted their traditional online presence but also because the new media offers huge audiences and ease of use."

On Tuesday, a video released by the militant group Islamic State displayed the beheading of James Foley, a freelance American journalist who disappeared in Syria nearly two years ago. Islamic State is the radical military group behind the latest violent insurgency in Iraq.

In the four-minute, 40-second video, posted on YouTube, Foley kneels in the desert in an orange uniform as a masked man cloaked in black stands beside him. Foley recites a statement calling the U.S. government his "real killers" and disavowing his American citizenship before he is beheaded.

News of the beheading spread like wildfire across social media, with users viewing the video and sharing the link on other sites. "James Foley" almost immediately became a trending topic on Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook users soon began posting impassioned pleas to not watch the content, calling it horrific, sickening and shameful. "#ISISMediaBlackout" became a popular hashtag. The White House reached out to social media networks asking them not to allow the posting of the video.

After it was flagged by users, YouTube quickly replaced the video with a message that said it violated the company's policy on violence. The Google-owned video network has been clear that while it defends "everyone's right to express unpopular points of view," it draws the line on several subjects, including pornography and bomb making.

"YouTube has clear policies that prohibit content like gratuitous violence, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts," a company spokesperson said. "We also terminate any account registered by a member of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and used in an official capacity to further its interests."

Still, the footage was reposted around the Internet and is easy enough to find. Screen grabs showing the beheading made their way onto Twitter, along with tweets from users who praised the killing.

Many of those tweets began disappearing and Chief Executive Dick Costolo took to his own account early Wednesday to address the issue. "We have been and are actively suspending accounts as we discover them related to this graphic imagery. Thank you," Costolo tweeted.

Terrorists' use of the Internet to spread fear is not new. After 9/11, terrorist groups established thousands of websites to promote their messages and activities. Governments launched online attacks to shut down password-protected forums where terrorists once mingled online.

That pushed the groups to social media websites, which have presented an even more attractive medium.

With millions of connected users, these sites have the benefit of reach, interactivity and frequency of use. Users don't need to seek information, it's often blasted directly on their news feeds, making it easy to view and share.

Much of the content posted by terrorist networks is now well edited and comes in English, lending a level of sophisticated polish that has led to increased efficacy. Videos generally are far better produced than those released just a few years ago.

Islamic State, in particular, has been releasing videos and photos that feature punishment based on radical Islamic tenets, Stalinsky said.

He and a team of about 15 researchers have seen executions, beheadings, the cutting off of hands, people set on fire and women stoned to death. The images and videos get posted to social media websites and then are immediately saved on Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library.

Even when accounts are shut down or content removed, they quickly resurface elsewhere in what can often feel like a futile game of whack-a-mole, Stalinsky said.

Islamic State has sharpened years of social media trials to become the most aggressive and successful terrorist organization on the Web, analysts said.

"We're seeing the full-fledged blossoming of all the lessons they've learned, and it's disturbing," said Evan Kohlmann, chief information officer at Flashpoint Global Partners, a research firm that has worked with Google Inc. on how to root out cyber-jihadism on YouTube.

Terrorists are also using social media to spread propaganda images of beautiful landscapes and happy camaraderie designed to lure Westerners to join Islamic State, he said.

"The real dramatic shift is not a technological shift, it's a shift in content and it's smart," Kohlmann said.

The terrorists are even adept at search-engine trickery. J.M. Berger, an analyst who tracks extremists on social media, said Islamic State supporters mentioned "Ferguson" in their posts so Americans searching for news about the chaos in Ferguson, Mo., would see the beheading video.

But Kohlmann warned that "there's a cost" to such methods and noted that in recent years, Al Qaeda began moving away from execution videos because they were alienating viewers, such as potential recruits.

"If you're fighting for human rights, how can you glorify spilling the blood of people like animals?" Kohlmann said. "It doesn't scream trustworthiness. It projects an image of chaos, and one that Al Qaeda didn't want to cultivate."

Although the negative attention surrounding such videos has forced social media companies to step up their efforts at combating misuse of their sites, Stalinsky said many just aren't acting swiftly or effectively enough.

"Why aren't they taking this more seriously? It's a national security issue," he said.

Facebook faced a rash of beheading videos late last year and deals with each on a case-by-case basis, spokeswoman Debbie Frost said.

"Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they're connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events," Frost said. "Our goal has always been to strike an appropriate balance."

Facebook has teams around the world who are reviewing activity related to Foley's beheading, and the company is removing posts in some cases. But in other situations -- such as when a user posts a condemnation of the act alongside an edited snippet of Foley's statement that omits the killing itself -- Facebook has allowed the posts to remain.

Marvin Ammori, a 1st Amendment scholar and a fellow at the New America Foundation, said social media networks have to grapple with being the modern town square. Because it's possible that the companies eventually could come under legal scrutiny for materially supporting terrorist organizations, he said, it's imperative that they find a way to restrict expression.

"If the speech there is not what we consider core to democracy, then they have to make a judgment based on the core values of their platform: free expression with some boundaries," he said. "The problem is the boundary is hard to define."

©2014 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services

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