Security Archives

The Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department are aiding Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. on an investigation into a cyber attack that reportedly infiltrated the firm's security networks, federal officials said Saturday night.

"DoD is aware of a cyber incident impacting Lockheed Martin and, together with the Department of Homeland Security, is working with the company in determining the extent of the incident," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham said. "Impact to DoD is minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect."

In the past, the Defense' Cyber Crime Center has been responsible for heading probes into intrusions on .mil networks and systems in the defense industrial base, which includes Lockheed. Homeland Security has focused on helping civilian agencies and commercial companies assess cyber events, such as the recent Sony PlayStation network breach.

But, increasingly, the Pentagon and Homeland Security have been sharing cyber experts, tools and privacy officers, to respond to cyberattacks against government contractors, including one disclosed in March that hit security firm RSA. In that incident, perpetrators compromised a system containing information on RSA-manufactured "SecurID" digital credentials used by many federal employees and contractors.

According to Reuters, which first reported the Lockheed incident on Friday, unidentified hackers "breached [Lockheed] security systems designed to keep out intruders by creating duplicates to SecurID electronic keys," according to one person who was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. The offenders learned how to copy the security keys with data stolen during the RSA attack, the Reuters story said.

At the time, RSA Executive Chairman Art Coviello announced through a message on the company's website that the data stolen could potentially be used to weaken the security of SecurID devices "as part of a broader attack."

As a matter of policy, Homeland Security and military officials declined to comment on the operations underway to stem damage at Lockheed.

DHS and Defense officials have "been in contact with the company to offer assistance in determining the extent of the incident, performing analysis of available data in order to provide recommendations to mitigate further risk," Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said.

Lockheed officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Obama's European trip this week began in the United Kingdom and while there, he focused some attention on science and technology issues of global interest.

In a joint press conference, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron and Obama both spoke on a key collaboration initiative between the two nations: Science education. Obama spoke in generalities, but called science education "critical to our future prosperity" and said that the U.S. and U.K could continue to emphasize "investments in education, science, technology, infrastructure -- things that help our economies grow"

Interestingly, Obama was asked about the extradition case of Gary McKinnon. McKinnon, a Scottish hacker accused of breaking into 97 NASA and Defense networks, is alleged to have deleted several critical files from government operating systems. Obama said McKinnon "is now in the hands of the British legal system," though Cameron said the U.K must follow "the proper processes and make sure this case is dealt with in the proper way."

During an historic speech to Parliament, Obama also mentioned the changing landscape of the 21st Century, including business and scientific innovation and discovery.

That gives nations like the United States and the United Kingdom an inherent advantage. For from Newton and Darwin to Edison and Einstein, from Alan Turing to Steve Jobs, we have led the world in our commitment to science and cutting-edge research, the discovery of new medicines and technologies. We educate our citizens and train our workers in the best colleges and universities on Earth. But to maintain this advantage in a world that's more competitive than ever, we will have to redouble our investments in science and engineering, and renew our national commitments to educating our workforces.

Obama also emphasized the importance of free thought and rights in a digital age, with the caveat that security from cybercrime is a shared responsibility for developed nations like those in the NATO alliance.

Indeed, our efforts in this young century have led us to a new concept for NATO that will give us the capabilities needed to meet new threats -- threats like terrorism and piracy, cyber attacks and ballistic missiles. But a revitalized NATO will continue to hew to that original vision of its founders, allowing us to rally collective action for the defense of our people, while building upon the broader belief of Roosevelt and Churchill that all nations have both rights and responsibilities, and all nations share a common interest in an international architecture that maintains the peace.

Besides emphasizing broad cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States, Obama also appears to be promoting greater collaboration on science and technology issues.

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller has postponed a computer security hearing to attend the funeral of Judge M. Blane Michael, a proponent of digital privacy who served as Rockefeller's special counsel during his first term as governor of West Virginia, aides for the senator said on Monday.

Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has not yet announced a new date for the hearing, previously scheduled for Wednesday, which was to examine the economic ramifications of cyber threats in the private sector.

Last year, Michael, who sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, lectured to students at his alma mater New York University School of Law that the Internet may undermine the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure protections: "The digital age is placing our privacy in jeopardy. Technological advances in the way we communicate and store information make us increasingly vulnerable to intrusive searches and seizures."

The disconnect between analogue-era privacy and communications laws and the evolving, online nature of criminal activity has been the subject of several congressional hearings during the past year. Lawmakers are considering updating civil liberties legislation, such as the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as well as establishing new computer crime rules as part of comprehensive cyber legislation.

During his speech, Michael noted that people store their digital files, including love letters, diaries and financial records, on an Internet service provider's remote server, so that they can access their documents from any computer.

"But online storage also raises questions about whether we retain any Fourth Amendment privacy interest in files once we store them remotely because they are then technically accessible to the Internet service provider," he said.

Michael cited a case that involved the government's seizure of Google's email servers, which house millions of people's personal data, just to look for just a few incriminating messages.

"In evaluating whether there is a privacy interest in personal files stored online, the current framework leaves room for considering other sources of interpretation, including the Fourth Amendment's formative history and contemporary norms and circumstances," he said.

On Friday, Rockefeller said in a statement that Michael was unvarnished in his honesty, uncanny in his humor and unequaled in his humility. He called him "a brilliant judge who never took for granted the power and the responsibility of deciding the cases that impacted people's lives or righted serious wrongs.

"I will be forever fortunate to call him my dearest friend and confidant - the kind you just trust to his very core and whose deep, easy companionship abides with you for a lifetime," he said.

The Defense Department organization charged with cyber combat is reinforcing military networks by moving much of DoD's computing to a space many civilian agencies view as insecure - the cloud. Cloud computing is the practice of storing and accessing applications in a shared online environment, instead of on in-house servers.

U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander told lawmakers on Wednesday the following:

"The idea is to reduce vulnerabilities inherent in the current architecture and to exploit the advantages of cloud computing and thin-client networks, moving the programs and the data that users need away from the thousands of desktops we now use--up to a centralized configuration that will give us wider availability of applications and data combined with tighter control over accesses and vulnerabilities and more timely mitigation of the latter."

The White House has been pressing agencies to outsource information technology services to the Web as a way of phasing out the federal government's more than 2,000 expensive, energy-sucking data centers. But many federal managers are fearful of losing their data in the cloud. What happens in the event of an online outage or if the communal, off-site servers storing their programs are hacked?

Alexander's explanation as to why the cloud will offer Defense good defense:

"This architecture would seem at first glance to be vulnerable to insider threats -- indeed, no system that human beings use can be made immune to abuse -- but we are convinced the controls and tools that will be built into the cloud will ensure that people cannot see any data beyond what they need for their jobs and will be swiftly identified if they make unauthorized attempts to access data."

The need for public safety agencies to have interoperable radios is well-documented. In January the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved an order that would establish interoperability standards for a nationwide public safety communications network.

First responders rely heavily on scarce and shrinking VHF spectrum as well as complex radios, said John Santo, executive director of Customs and Border Protection's wireless systems program office. One of the biggest challenges, he said, is that his agents cannot see what they are responding to.

New technologies necessary for interoperable systems are sometimes called "bleeding edge," since there is a risk in using them. But for public safety, that includes real blood, because first responders usually respond to life-threatening situations, said John Powell, interoperability chair of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council, during an all-day FCC forum on Friday that addressed various interoperability issues.

The need for public safety agencies to have interoperable radios is well-documented. But for Customs and Border Protection, their legacy communications infrastructure is so antiquated that in some cases they are buying parts through the online auction site eBay.

That's according to John Santo, executive director of the CBP's wireless systems program office, part of the Homeland Security Department. Santo was discussing interoperability at a forum sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission Friday.

Nonetheless, he said having been in law enforcement for more than 30 years, he is "really encouraged by the momentum that's growing around" have interoperability standards.

The feds are getting tough with online crime. On Thursday, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested one Texan for pirating broadcasts of live sporting events and announced the sentencing of another in a software piracy conspiracy.

Bryan McCarthy, 32, of Deer Park, Texas, allegedly operated channelsurfing.net, which he used to streamline live, copyrighted sporting events over the Internet. The site was seized by federal authorities on Feb. 1. According to the criminal complaint the site was an online portal for pirated sports events from the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and National Hockey League, among others. The website also contained links to various live television channels.

McCarthy, who has been charged with one count of criminal infringement of a copyright, made $90,000 in profits from online merchants advertising on the site, according to an ICE press release. The site had 1.3 million hits since being shut down. If convicted, McCarthy faces a maximum of five years in prison.

"Brian McCarthy allegedly sought to profit by intercepting and then streaming live sporting events, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet to make a quick buck through what is little more than high-tech thievery," said Preet Bhara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a prepared statement. "This arrest sends a clear message that this office, working with its partners at HSI, will vigorously protect valuable intellectual property rights through arrests and domain name seizures."

Also Thursday, David Fein, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, said 46-year-old Michael Uszakow, who went by the alias "iced," was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a fine of $2,000 for his involvement in an underground online community that used the Internet to engage in large-scale distribution of copyrighted software, video games, movies, music files and other protected material.

Participants in the "warez scene" worked as "crackers" to break the digital copyright protections of material while others distributed the software to file storage sites on the Internet. According to Fein, Uszakow uploaded and downloaded thousands of files from the warez server known as Nite Ranger Hideout.

The website of U.S.-funded broadcaster Voice of America Persian was attacked by an Iranian pro-government group, according to a correspondent for sister station Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. The main VOA site also appeared to have been hacked, as of 9:04 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.

"Website of VOA Persian Service was Hacked today by #Iran 's Cyber army #Iranelection," Golnaz Esfandiari wrote at around 5:30 p.m. Eastern on the social media tool Twitter.

One VOA story now states that the incident may have been prompted by the U.S. State Department's recent Arabic- and Persian-language Twitter campaigns in support of pro-democracy opposition groups overseas.

The hackers posted a message referring to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that read:

"We have proven that we can.
Mrs. Clinton Do you want to hear the voice of oppressed nations will from heart of USA? Islamic world doesn't believe USA trickery.
We call on you to stop interfering in Islamic countries."

Hours before a number of web pages the Voice of America, was hacked. In one of the Voice of America Farsi domain being attacked, the group that his "army of cyber" is introduced, responsibility for the attack has been charged.
Army of cyber hackers on this page have put a picture on it in Persian and English is written: "We've proven that we can."
Army of cyber hackers also addressed on this page are written to the Secretary of State America: "Mrs. Clinton, you want the voice of oppressed nations to hear the heart of America? Muslim world does not believe America's craft. You say that interference in Muslim countries to stop. "
It seems that this action in response to remarks on Sunday (20 February) that Hillary Clinton in a television interview with BBC America, while talking about opening accounts in Arabic and Persian Tweeter by America's Foreign Ministry, had said : "We want young people like the young Americans who seek to express their rights are believed to be associated."

The U.S. Cyber Challenge, a division of the non-profit Center for Internet Security, launched an online competition Monday to identify 10,000 "cyber warriors" among high school students with the skills to pursue advanced education and job opportunities in cybersecurity.

The nationwide competition was chartered to identify young Americans with the aptitude to become cyber leaders in government, the military and the private sector. Those who do well may receive scholarships, internships and other opportunities.

The competition combines tutorials with a series of timed quizzes in three critical areas: networking, operating systems and system administration. The curriculum and contest were developed by The SANS Institute, a computer security training company.

"We must act now to develop a competent workforce that can support the needs of securing our cyber networks, which is quickly becoming a national priority," said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., co-chair of the House Cyber Security Caucus. "I hope this challenge will grow into a national model for inspiring and harnessing our young cyber talent."

The Office of Management and Budget has given agency chief information officers new guidance on installing software to continuously monitor the security of their networks by the end of fiscal 2012, Federal News Radio reported Wednesday.

As part of the administration's annual IT budget passback guidance, which was obtained by FNR, agencies are also instructed to use the CyberScope reporting tool to submit standard data on the health of their IT systems by Sept. 30. Homeland Security is supposed to issue guidance for exporting data to CyberScope later this year.

Continuous monitoring, which requires security evaluations on an ongoing basis in real time or near real time, presents a major challenge for agencies, the report noted. Many agencies now conduct such monitoring only a few times a year.