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For the first time the Obama administration has explicitly accused China’s military of hacking into computer systems of the U.S. government and its defense contractors. "The accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness," writes David Sanger of The New York Times.

Associated Press says its Twitter account has been hacked, as the Twitter feed falsely said that there had been two explosions at the White House.

The controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) just passed the U.S. House, and will now head to the upper Senate chamber for further deliberation. Rinse and repeat. This isn't the first time this has happened, but it still poses a major threat to Fourth Amendment rights, according to civil liberties campaigners. The bill was passed 288-127 in favor of the bill after two days of debate and discussion on the House floor. Only 18 members of the House abstained from the vote. CISPA will allow private sector firms to search personal and sensitive user data of ordinary U.S....

Summary: Dubbed as one of the most privacy infringing pieces of legislation ever to have hit the Capitol, what exactly is CISPA, and how does it affect you?Described as "misguided" and "fatally flawed" by the two largest U.S. privacy groups, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) threatens the online privacy of ordinary U.S. residents more so than any other bill since Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008. A lot of confusion still surrounds what CISPA can do, who it affects, and what it will practically achieve. Here's what you need to know. What is CISPA?CISPA,...

The Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community that will have a major focus on cyber security. Asked if the Data Center would hold the data of American citizens,  Alexander said, "No...we don't hold data on U.S. citizens," adding that the NSA staff "take protecting your civil liberties and privacy as the most important thing that they do, " Thomas Drake who worked at the NSA says Americans should be concerned about letting the government go too far in the name of security. The only way you can have perfect security is have a perfect surveillance state....

(snip) Considering this deluge of aggressive and costly security breaches, it’s no wonder that some people are getting frustrated enough to contemplate striking back directly against our attackers. While giving cyber criminals a taste of their own medicine certainly sounds appealing, most forms of so-called "Strikeback" have no place in private business. ...... What’s Wrong With Strikeback?Unfortunately, direct strikeback measures have huge inherent risks:. Targeting: The biggest problem with strikeback is that the Internet provides anonymity, making it very hard to know who’s really behind an attack. It's all too likely that strikebacks could impact innocent victims. For example, attackers...

Pause and reflect on this hypocrisy: The Department of Justice prosecutes young hackers who use computers to promote free speech while highly educated adults within the DOJ threaten to use lethal drone force against American citizens without due process. Which is worse? Certainly, I do not condone hacking. However, you and I need to start talking about the best way to handle cyber-attacks while also recognizing that the same government officials we trust to protect us are assaulting our constitutional freedoms. Last month, cyber security firm Mandiant released an explosive, 76-page report indicating that the Chinese government is most likely...

The U.S. Government has decided to expand a program that scans Internet traffic in and out of defense contractors to include more private, civilian-run operations. Now more private sector employees will have their emails and Internet activities scanned. Those affected include big banks, utilities and transportation companies. Under last month's White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks...

Devastating cellphone hacks that hijack your most personal gadget and rob you of privacy and money have long been forecast. But even as smartphone users in Asia are beginning to suffer exploding bills and emptied bank accounts at the hands of hackers, U.S. users largely remain safe and blissfully unaware of the gathering threat. Criminals have been probing the systems that protect U.S. smartphone users for years, searching for the right combination of programming tricks and social engineering that would allow them to sneak onto users' phones. They took a year-old mobile virus named NotCompatible, which allows hackers to take...

In e-mail blasts this weekend, “Guccifer” sent documents stolen from the e-mail account of a former White House aide to congressional aides, political figures, and journalists. Armed with confidential memos to Hillary Clinton that were stolen from the e-mail account of a former White House aide, a hacker has distributed some of the documents to a wide array of congressional aides, political figures, and journalists worldwide. In a series of weekend e-mail blasts, the hacker known as “Guccifer” disseminated four recent memos to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant of the former Secretary of State.

Under pressure from American industry to curb Chinese cyber attacks, White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon warned China on Monday that the United States will defend its computer networks from the attacks. Donilon said U.S. businesses share serious concerns “about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information, and proprietary technologies through cyber intrusions emanating from China on an unprecedented scale,” in a speech on Asia. “The international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country,” he told a meeting of the Asia Society in New York. “As the president said in the state of the union, we...

Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox all fell to the mercy of the hackers Thursday. That is, in a controlled environment. Security firms Vupen and MWR Labs were able to crack the browsers during a condoned bug-hunt, with one company winning $100,000 for finding a huge hole. The Pwn2Own competition is an event at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. The competition was created by HP’s DVLabs as part of its Zero Day Initiative: an attempt to get more people to find and report bugs as opposed to exploiting them for personal gains.

President Obama two years ago rejected a series of tough actions against China, including counter-cyber attacks and economic sanctions, for Beijing’s aggressive campaign of cyber espionage against the U.S. government and private businesses networks, according to administration officials. Meanwhile, China recently issued a veiled threat to the United States about U.S. accusations of Chinese military cyber espionage. China told U.S. officials that continued U.S. public accusations of cyber espionage would render future bilateral discussions unproductive during recent U.S.-China talks following the release of a security firm’s report linking the Chinese military to cyber spying. On plans to deter Chinese cyber...

The explosion in smartphone use is leaving businesses vulnerable to cyberattacks since almost half of their employees’ mobile phones can become a target, according to new research. The 2012 Cyber Security Risk Report—published by Hewlett-Packard at the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco—found that mobile phone vulnerabilities rose significantly (68%) from 2011 to 2012, mirroring the growth of mobile applications and the use of smartphones. Of the mobile applications tested by HP, 48% of them were found to be vulnerable to unauthorized access. The European Council and Parliament are to consider a Commission-proposed cybersecurity strategy in the coming months....

Comments The Homeland Security Department has launched a new online resource that makes cybersecurity career and training information more readily available to federal employees and the public. The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies website is part of an effort to elevate cybersecurity awareness as well as educate the government and public about education, careers and workforce development opportunities available in the cybersecurity field. “DHS is committed to working with our partners in academia and throughout the private sector to develop the next generation of cyber professionals to protect against evolving cyber threats,” said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. “NICCS...

WASHINGTON—Today, senior Administration officials provided an update on the Administration’s Priorities for Cybersecurity Policy at the Department of Commerce. Yesterday, the President signed an Executive Order (EO) on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity and a Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. These actions will strengthen the security and resilience of critical infrastructure against evolving threats through an updated and overarching national framework that acknowledges the increased role of cybersecurity in securing physical assets. "DHS actively collaborates with public and private sector partners every day to help prevent and respond to attempted disruptions to the Nation’s critical cyber...

According to a threat posted on Anonymous information website Anon Relations.net, the loosely banded hacker collective will attempt to disrupt the State of the Union address Tuesday by preventing it from being broadcast online. **SNIP** The AnonRelations.net post cites a litany of offenses as motive for the threatened attack, from "tyrannical" legislation to the treatment of Internet heroes like Aaron Swartz and Bradley Manning. It goes on to state that hackers will "form a virtual blockade between Capitol Hill and the Internet," although onlookers may be skeptical of the group's ability to do this. A recent campaign against Israel during...

The White House is poised to release an executive order aimed at thwarting cyberattacks against critical infrastructure on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told The Hill. The highly anticipated directive from President Obama is expected to be released at a briefing Wednesday morning at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where senior administration officials will provide an update about cybersecurity policy. The executive order would establish a voluntary program in which companies operating critical infrastructure would elect to meet cybersecurity best practices and standards crafted, in part, by the government. Observers are expecting the president to briefly mention the...

On Thursday afternoon, less than a day after the Times' story was posted online, its ideological rival the Wall Street Journal revealed that it, too, had been attacked by Chinese hackers. On Friday, the Washington Post, following a scoop by a former staffer, was forced to admit that its networks had been penetrated for years. The Journal provided fewer details than the Times, but said that "in the most recent incident," hackers had managed to break into computers in the Journal's Beijing bureau in mid-2012. From there, the Journal said, the intruders were able to access the Journal's worldwide computer...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned internet users at the Wilson Center this morning that cyberspace was becoming more dangerous as more and more Americans go online. “Every individual on the net is vulner – is a potential, uh, opening,” Napolitano stated, adding that the internet was a “great thing.” “We just want to make sure that everyone remains safe and free,” she continued. “So that requires everyone to take some responsibility, have good cyber-habits, make sure we use the phrase ‘Stop, think, connect.’”