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Demand keeps growing for cyber-security workers

"It may be hard to imagine a job posting for a program analyst that lists preserving the nation's freedoms and securing the homeland as the position's chief responsibilities. But as cyber-security has climbed up the list of national priorities, the federal government is poised to change that. For instance, at last month's RSA Conference, an annual gathering of thousands of cyber-security professionals held in San Francisco, both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made sure to use a few seconds of their keynote speeches to make their pitch. 'We might be trying to recruit some of you right now,' she said. 'We need it. It's a huge (matter of) public interest for our country. We need the best minds to meet the challenge." (Source: Demand keeps growing fo ›

U.S. Pinpoints Coder Behind Google Attack

"U.S. government analysts believe a Chinese man with government links wrote the key part of a spyware program used in hacker attacks on Google last year, the Financial Times reported on Monday. The man, a security consultant in his 30s, posted sections of the program to a hacking forum where he described it as something he was ‘working on,’ the paper sa ›

China Heralds Bust of Major Hacker Ring

"China heralded a major bust of computer hackers to underscore its pledge to help enhance global online security, with state media saying officials had shut what they called the country's largest distributor of tools used in malicious Internet attacks. Three people were arrested on suspicion of making hacking tools available online, the state-run Xinhua news agency said o ›

Report: Google, NSA talk defense partnership

"Google is finalizing an agreement with the National Security Agency to help the search giant ward off cyberattacks, according to the Washington Post. The electronic surveillance organization is expected to help analyze a cyberattack on Google that the company said originated in China and defend it from future attacks, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The ›

Intelligence chief: attacks on Google wake-up call

"Recent cyber attacks on Google are a 'wake-up call' and neither the U.S. government nor the private sector can fully protect the American cyber infrastructure, the director of U.S. national intelligence said on Tuesday. 'Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication,' Dennis Blair said in prepared testimo ›

After Google's Loud Stance on China, US Treads Lightly

"Last month, when Google engineers at their sprawling campus in Silicon Valley began to suspect that Chinese intruders were breaking into private Gmail accounts, the company began a secret counteroffensive. It managed to gain access to a computer in Taiwan that it suspected of being the source of the attacks. Peering inside that machine, company engineers a ›

Baidu hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'

"China's most popular search engine, Baidu, has been targeted by the same hackers that took Twitter offline in December, according to reports. A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message. The site was down for at least four hours on Tuesday, Chinese media said. Last year's attack on micro-b ›

Chinese cyberattacks target media ahead of anniversary

"Foreign media in China have been targeted by emails laden with malicious computer software in attacks that appear to be tied to the run-up to the National Day military parade on October 1. While spam and viral attacks are not uncommon, the latest wave is part of a pattern of increasingly sophisticated emails tailored to tempt foreign reporters, rights acti ›

Cybersecurity Official Resigns

A top operational official in charge of protecting civilian government computer networks has resigned, dealing another blow to the federal effort to enhance cybersecurity. Mischel Kwon, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, submitted her resignation letter this week. "Moving on is a hard step for me, but one I must t ›

'Hacker' threatens to expose health data, demands $10M

Days after a hacker claimed to have broken into a database and encrypted millions of prescription records at the Virginia Department of Health Professions, it remains unclear what happened. Whistleblower Web site Wikileaks.org last Sunday carried a report from an anonymous poster who said that the secure site for the Virginia DHP Prescription Monitoring Pro ›