Wikileaks DNC Email Dump Sparks Malware Fears

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FOX NEWS | July 29, 2016

The trove of leaked Democratic National Committee emails posted to Wikileaks on July 22 has sparked concerns about malware as users access the vast trove of documents.

WikiLeaks posted close to 20,000 emails and 8,000 attachments that were sent or received from top Democratic officials, appearing to suggest that the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and others favored Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders during the party’s primary. The release forced the resignation of Wasserman Schultz.

On the day of the leak, Google’s Transparency Report warned users of dangerous downloads from Wikileaks.org.

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Cybersecurity is Becoming an Unsustainable Tax on Business

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ZDNET | July 28, 2016

The cost of cybersecurity has become a burdensome tax on business and with 1.5 million IT security jobs unfilled, US corporations are losing to sophisticated criminal gangs, said security experts at a recent event in San Francisco.

“Cyber is a tax on business. Jamie Dimon [JP Morgan Chase CEO] has had to double his cybersecurity budget to $500 million. Things can’t continue this way forever, we have to get ahead of the problem,” said Ray Rothrock (photo), a veteran VC, now chairman and CEO of RedSeal, a startup that measures the effectiveness of enterprise security.

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2016 GOP Platform Endorsing Strike-Back Against Hackers

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CNBC | July 27, 2016

The 2016 Republican Party platform contains a proposal that’s making many people in the tech sector and elsewhere uneasy, if not downright nervous.

Under a section titled “Facing 21st Century Threats: Cybersecurity in an Insecure World,” it suggests how the United States should retaliate against cyberattacks from China, Russia and other hostile actors.
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DNC Email Scandal Shows What Must Be Done to Prevent Breaches, Leaks

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eWEEK | July 25, 2016

As this is written, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, has resigned under pressure and effectively been forced off the stage of her party’s convention.

But the release of thousands of emails from the DNC showing how the party leadership conspired to keep Sen. Bernie Sanders from winning the presidential nomination is not all bad, because it revealed the fact that the breach took place.

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Digital Defense: Cybersecurity and the Wendy’s Hack

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FOODABLE WEBTV NETWORK | July 9, 2016

Fast food chain Wendy’s is the industry’s latest cyberattack victim. In fact, more than 1,000 of Wendy’s 6,500 locations across the United States were hit in a widespread credit/debit card hack.

It’s not an uncommon scenario: malware infects network; over a long period of time, said malware morphs, and spreads broadly and deeply throughout the network. It’s almost unavoidable these days, but a good digital defense can help.

“Cyberattacks are so advanced these days that if a hacker sets his sights on your network, you can bet he’ll get in,” said Ray Rothrock, CEO of RedSeal, a cybersecurity company. “Being prepared when they get in is the essence of resilience.”

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EU Parliament Approves New Cybersecurity Rules

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POWER | July 8, 2016

The European Union (EU) parliament on July 6 approved the first community-wide rules designed to bolster cybersecurity throughout the EU.

According to the official statement, the new law “lays down security and reporting obligations for ‘operators of essential services’ in sectors such as energy, transport, health, banking and drinking water supply. EU member states will have to identify entities in these fields using specific criteria, e.g. whether the service is critical for society and the economy and whether an incident would have significant disruptive effects on the provision of that service.”

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Let Legacy IT Systems Just Die

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SIGNAL | July 8, 2016

Upgrading the federal IT infrastructure is urgent, but invest in next-generation networks.

Federal agencies need to address their aging legacy systems and need to do it now. The situation is so dire that some systems are more than 50 years old and running on 8-inch floppy disks, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

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Cybersecurity Skill Shortage Increases Risk

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SECURITY INFOWATCH | July 8, 2016

It was not a good day for the SOC.
Warnings had been emerging over the past few days, but none of them had resulted in crisp defensive action. The team was scrambling, and activity was extreme.
But nothing was happening. No one had seen anything like this before. It was pretty likely that this was a new, active attack, but what exactly was happening? What was the attack vector? What was the target?
No one had seen anything like this before.

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Liberal Arts Supporter Ray Rothrock Named Distinguished Alumnus

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TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY | July 6, 2016

One of the marks of a great leader is humility—a trait manifested by Ray Rothrock ’77, one of the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award recipients. Given jointly by Texas A&M University and The Association of Former Students, this award recognizes Aggies for their professional excellence as well as their service to Texas A&M and their local communities.

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Why 334M People Should Care About Friday, July 1

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INFORMATION SECURITY BUZZ | July 1, 2016

Utility companies nationwide are angst-ing about Friday. Not because it’s a long weekend, but because July 1 marks the end of the extended deadline for compliance – imposed by the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) –  with NERC’s(N. American Electric Reliability Corp.) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) V5 standards.

Why is this important?

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