The week started out kind of interesting with more information about the Department of Energy labs that had to be shut down. Though the hysteria surrounding the attack continues to refer to the “sophisticated” nature of the “cyber attack” it…
This week in cyber conflict: July 4th – July 8th
Coming out of the weekend the big news was the attacks on the various department of energy laboratory environments. At first blush it appeared and was reported as a significant advanced persistent threat event. Now I’m not exactly sure what…
This week in cyber conflict: June 27th – July 1st
The silliness of what has become a near catastrophic destruction of the term war has continued through out the weekend of June 25th/26th. The term cyber warfare was tossed around with abandon by the main stream media. The possible disbandment…
Commentary: RAND Counterinsurgency Scorecard
RAND recently released the Counterinsurgency Scorecard: Afghanistan in early 2011 relative to the insurgencies of the past 30 years. I read this with considerable interest as the topic (insurgency) and methodology (Delphi study) interest me greatly. The use of experts…
This week in cyber conflict: June 20th to June 24th
The week started off with a clean up of the previous weeks dustbin news. Not an unusual amount to hit on Monday, but the breadth was interesting. The continued mixing of cyber security issues with main stream media presentations of…
This week in cyber conflict: June 13th to June 17th
It appears that national governments have started rounding up hackers for prosecution. This is an interesting development but not unexpected. It will be interesting to see what kind of evidence is used. It is not lost upon the aware observer…
Hanging the head of advanced persistent threat on a pike
If I am a major corporation and I feel I may be a target, or know that I have been a target I want to have some idea about reducing my risk to attacks. The consistent hum and noise of…
Interesting shift in infosec
Early reports on LulzSec cyber attacks are interesting if not surprising. A continuous thread through the media reports if you are looking for the root cause analysis it is poor computing practices by the companies. Now, to be fair this…
This week in cyber conflict: June 6th to June 10th
A busy weekend opened on a busy week. It looks like the rhetoric continues to heat up between China and the United States as regards cyber warfare. The thread of the latest Google hacks has appeared to center around White…
From near earth orbit: How to analyze Usama Bin Laden’s Porn Collection
All right so the title is total link bait. The United States seized some number of computers and peripherals from the compound in Pakistan. Those materials will be evaluated and analyzed for intelligence purposes and perhaps used in planning future…
This week in cyber conflict: May 30th to June 3rd
The fact China has a cyber warfare unit really splashed heavily Monday in the news media. I am kind of surprised that we make such a big deal about this since we have an entire military organization called “cyber command”.…
Getting back to running
The last year has been pretty hard on my running career. In July while sparring a youngster in Tae Kwon Do I turned in to sweep (light to no contact) and he turned in and hit the side of my…
This week in cyber conflict: May 23rd to May 27th
An enormous amount of anti-China rhetoric in the press this week. From calls that governments are coddling China and allowing China to invade American systems to simply the American government is not capable of protecting citizens. The rhetoric is definitely…
This week in cyber conflict: May 16th to May 20th
An interesting trend is very visible this week as the words used by journalists is slowly changing. Since I started tracking the stories through google I haven not seen such a wild and quick swing. For the last few years…
The User #1 Initiative
Having read many cyber security initiatives and reports I thought I might throw a few ideas up against the wall listed in problem and solution format. Consider the following more from the ideologically free position and not looking to sell…