DISC InfoSec blog

Secretary of Defense William S Cohen on the 3 Main Threats Facing the United States, secretary Cohen emphasis cyber threat is the most dangerous out of three. Click the link above to watch his video on three main threats.

Famous quotes from Secretary Cohen:
While we are not and cannot become the world’s policeman, neither can we become a prisoner of world events, isolated and tucked safely away in a continental cocoon.

There is no foolproof security that we can provide. But to say that we can’t protect against everything doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t protect against those that can cause us catastrophic harm.

For while the threat of nuclear holocaust has been significantly reduced, the world remains a very unsettled and dangerous place.

Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection.

We will not win the war on terror through military action. The sharing of information and intelligence will be vital to protecting our country.

The more reliant we become upon computers and information systems, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-terrorists who will conceive unlimited ways to cripple our infrastructure, our power grids, our banking systems, our financial markets, our space based communications systems.

Related books by Secretary of Defense William S Cohen

Presentation Abstract:by Anthony M. Freed

“The explosive growth of Internet and IP-enabled devices is reshaping communication, collaboration and commerce opportunities for individuals and organizations around the world. At the same time, miscreants are abusing the Internet’s open and any-to-any communication architecture for malicious purposes, leaving many users at risk and the future of a secure Internet as an aspiration rather than a reality.”

“The current cybersecurity model is reactive, disconnected and unable to keep pace with the seismic explosion in malware. Providing protection to a heterogeneous world of connected devices requires a new approach to security.”

“McAfee CTO George Kurtz will show that incremental improvements can’t bridge the opportunity gap and explain the required paradigm shift of driving security down the stack.”

Hacker Halted: McAfee’s George Kurtz Discusses the War on Security

Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets and Solutions, Sixth Edition by George Kurtz

Richard Clarke the former Cybersecurity Czar for President George W. Bush and a noted expert on cyber war and counter-terrorism, in which Clarke identifies China’s government and its industries as a major source of the cyber security hacking and espionage that is taking place in 2011. In addition to discussing China’s cyber activity on the video, Clarke outlines four main buckets of cyber attacks today, and why many people consider 2011 the “Year of the Hack.”

The Clarke video was put together and released in October 2011 to coincide with the Eighth Annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month, which is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC).

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It

Per Greg Wilshusen (GOA Information Security Director) vulnerabilities exist in all 24 federal agencies and 11 out of 24 federal agencies have significant deficiencies. There has been a 650% increase in the incidents. Take a listen to the video to know more about the details of these vulnerabilities and more importantly the plans to mitigate these risks especially 11 agencies that have significant risks.

On The Communicators, Greg Wilshusen, director of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) Information Security department, will discuss a report the GAO released this month that said 24 federal agencies’ computer systems are at risk of security breaches.

UK Foreign Secretary Hague: Britain willing to strike 1st to defend itself against a cyberattack from enemy state

@FoxNews
LONDON – Britain is prepared to strike first to defend itself against a cyber attack from an enemy state, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday.

His warning was the first clear signal that the UK has developed new weapons for the online battlefield.

Hague told The Sun that the globe was in the grip of a new and financially-crippling “arms race in cyberspace.”

He said he could not guarantee that Britain would be able to repel a major cyber assault on the nation’s essential infrastructure — including water works, power plants and the air traffic control system.

But he said, “We will defend ourselves in every way we can, not only to deflect but to prevent attacks that we know are taking place.”

Hague gave no clues on the makeup of Britain’s new electronic arsenal, saying, “The rest of the world will have to guess.”

The British government is pouring an extra £650 million ($1 billion) into developing deterrents to hostile viruses, which are being produced almost constantly.

“We are trying to prevent an arms race in cyber space,” Hague said. “Given that the Internet changes every day, and billions more people will have access to it over the coming years, the potential for that arms race to grow and go out of control is enormous.”

He added, “There is no 100 percent defense against this, just as there isn’t against any other form of attack. We have to defend critical national infrastructure. We have to defend national security. We have to defend our entire commercial and economic system.”

Hague spoke ahead of a cyberspace conference. Senior officials from more than 60 nations and bosses of online giants will meet in London next month to discuss the cyber menace and draw up an “international rule book” on how best to fight it.

Our assessment is that cyberattacks will be a significant component of future conflicts. Over thirty countries are creating cyber units in their militaries. It is unrealistic to believe that each one will limit its capabilities to defense. Moreover, the centrality of information technology to the U.S. military and society virtually guarantees that future adversaries will target it.

to read more on The Pentagon’s cyberstrategy, one year later

Cyber-Conflict and Global Politics

Cyberpower and National Security (National Defense University)

Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing, and Surviving Terrorism

The Cyber Security Evaluation Tool (CSET) is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) product that assists organizations in protecting their key national cyber assets. It was developed under the direction of the DHS National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) by cybersecurity experts and with assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This tool provides users with a systematic and repeatable approach for assessing the security posture of their cyber systems and networks. It includes both high-level and detailed questions related to all industrial control and IT systems. The tool is available for download, and the program also offers training and support at no cost to organizations engaged in administering networks that control facilities identified as being crucial to both the nation’s economy and national security.

CSET is a desktop software tool that guides users through a step-by-step process to assess their control system and information technology network security practices against recognized industry standards. The output from CSET is a prioritized list of recommendations for improving the cybersecurity posture of the organization’s enterprise and industrial control cyber systems. The tool derives the recommendations from a database of cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and practices. Each recommendation is linked to a set of actions that can be applied to enhance cybersecurity controls.

CSET has been designed for easy installation and use on a stand-alone laptop or workstation. It incorporates a variety of available standards from organizations such as National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and others. When the tool user selects one or more of the standards, CSET will open a set of questions to be answered. The answers to these questions will be compared against a selected security assurance level, and a detailed report will be generated to show areas for potential improvement. CSET provides an excellent means to perform a self-assessment of the security posture of your control system environment.

Key Benefits

•CSET contributes to an organization’s risk management and decision-making process
•Raises awareness and facilitates discussion on cybersecurity within the organization
•Highlights vulnerabilities in the organization’s systems and provides recommendations on ways to address the vulnerability
•Identifies areas of strength and best practices being followed in the organization
•Provides a method to systematically compare and monitor improvement in the cyber systems
•Provides a common industry-wide tool for assessing cyber systems

Download CSET
[Source]

By Ellen Messmer

Network World – The biggest business challenge today, in the minds of many information security officers, is the stealthy online infiltration by attackers to steal valuable proprietary information. The reality, they say, is that these so-called “advanced persistent threats” are so rampant and unrelenting they are forcing IT to rethink network security.

“Tackling advanced persistent threats means giving up the idea that it’s possible to protect everything. This is no longer realistic,” states the Security for Business Innovation Council, the group of 16 security leaders from companies that include eBay, Coca-Cola Company, SAP, FedEx Corp., Johnson & Johnson and Northrop Grumman. The council today published a report — “When Advanced Persistent Threats Go Mainstream” — outlining the problems and challenges facing large organizations.

These advanced persistent threat (APT) infiltrations can emanate from nation-states and their hired-hand attackers as well as industrial competitors, or organized crime and “hactivists” like Anonymous. The term APT is thought to have originated within the U.S. military, primarily the Air Force, which used the phrase as shorthand to describe cyberattacks that seemed to originate from somewhere in mainland China.

The overall sense, according to the report, is that an APT is a “cyberattack that is highly targeted, thoroughly researched, amply funded, and tailored to a particular organization — employing multiple vectors and using ‘low and slow’ techniques to evade detection.”

This stealthy attack infiltration to steal important data has become widespread, with several companies and government agencies disclosing they’ve been targets, including Google, EMC’s security division RSA, Epsilon, Citigroup, The Washington Post and the Department of Energy research labs Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Lab.

Timothy McKnight, chief information security officer at Northrop Grumman, who is a member of Security for Business Innovation Council, recently discussed how the aerospace and defense firm virtually every day has to defend itself against what it believes are a dozen separate groups of attackers trying to get into its network to steal sensitive data.

In the council report the 16 information security officers are advising security teams to work closely with their business managers to identity the “crown jewels” of the organization and protect these “core assets,” while “also moving away from a perimeter-centric view.”

“Focusing on fortifying the perimeter is a losing battle,” their report bluntly states. “Today’s organizations are inherently porous. Change the perspective to protecting data throughout the lifecycle across the enterprise and the entire supply chain.” And the report adds: “The definition of successful defense has to change from ‘keeping attacks out’ to ‘sometimes attackers are going to get in; detect them as early as possible and minimize the damage.’ Assume that your organization might already be compromised and go from there.”

To read the remaining article Advanced persistent threats force IT to rethink security priorities

President Barack Obama has developed guidelines for how the U.S. should respond to–and initiate–cyberattacks, the Associated Press is reporting.

Citing anonymous defense officials, the news service claims the guidelines include a wide range of cyberwar efforts to be employed by the U.S. during both peacetime and when conflicts are underway, including installing viruses on international computers and taking down a country’s electrical grid.

According to the Associated Press, the guidelines also allow for defense officials to transmit code through another country’s network to ensure the connection can be made. Though it wouldn’t necessarily carry a dangerous payload at the time, that connection could be used in the future if an attack was authorized on the specific country.

The Associated Press’ report on the president’s cyberwar guidelines comes just a week after the Chinese military called on its government to invest in more defense against the U.S.

“The U.S. military is hastening to seize the commanding military heights on the Internet, and another Internet war is being pushed to a stormy peak,” the Chinese military wrote in its official newspaper, Liberation Army Daily. “Their actions remind us that to protect the nation’s Internet security, we must accelerate Internet defense development and accelerate steps to make a strong Internet army.”

Read remaining post @ The Digital Home: