Archives: October, 2015

On a Halloween weekend, here’s something really scary: An InformationWeek post advises that “Information is in high demand because it represents power and money. People and organizations are willing (to) pay handsomely for information, whether it’s a data feed, a trade secret, IP, credit card numbers, email addresses, passwords, or personal identities.” There may not […]

Facebook, notes the Safe & Savvy blog, is on the lookout for malware on your PC and, if any is found, “you’re directed to one of several free online scanners…to clean your PC before you can log in.” “What’s new about this warning,” Safe & Savvy adds, “is that it suggests a culprit – a […]

Bruce Schneier calls our attention to the remarkable fact that ravens, those black, forbidding birds from Edgar Allan Poe’s era, “can identify cheaters.” Schneier’s source? The IFL Science! site. “Ravens have shown complex cooperative abilities previously only seen in a handful of mammalian (and one fish) species,” says IFL. “However, collaborations only happen when two […]

Another way to think about security: as though it was a Formula One race car. What? Yes, Security Dreamer asks why we have brakes on a car. To stop, no, but to drive fast and still be able to stop. “Security is the brakes on the car,” says the Security Dreamer blogger. “It is also […]

The Library of Congress is demonstrating what it takes to have a comprehensive digital protection plan – “an advanced threat detection system.” Via Government Security News, scan the lists of what the national library sees as necessary to acknowledge the potential vulnerability of today’s Internet-connected computer systems. That’s if we’re not careful about protecting them.

David Ellis on the Security Metrics blog argues that businesses have ample time to determine their vulnerability to a cyber attack, but often don’t take advantage of it. “Research from SecurityMetrics,” Ellis writes, states that, on average, a merchant was vulnerable for 470 days before an attacker was able to compromise the system. After compromising […]

Philip J. Palin, a contributor to Homeland Security Watch, continues his reflections on FEMA’s newly released National Preparedness Goal by quoting a big city first responder who sat through an hour-long discussion with a President’s Homeland Security Adviser and responded, “With all due respect sir, just tell us what we have to say to get […]

For calm and collected weekend reading, In Homeland Security provides a post on “Should We Fear that Russian Nuclear Materials are Being Smuggled to Terrorists?” Whether we fear such a situation or not, it’s important to be advised on the nature of the materials in question – on the difference, say, between the makings of […]

October’s Terror Threat Snapshot, released by the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, “outlines the increasing threat to the United States and its Western allies from ISIS and other Islamist terror groups.” “First,” says the report, “efforts designed to prevent Americans and other nationals from leaving their home countries to join jihadist groups overseas have not […]

Bruce Schneier provides a rundown on the evolution of face recognition technology. It’s getting kind of scary, in that our faces are being matched with personal information about us by firms the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter, “and they know how valuable their archives are”. “Other companies,” Schneier adds, “will spring up whose business […]