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Every day in the United States, professional cyber-spies are stealing tremendous amounts of information. Mainly from Russia and China, these spies target computer networks and increasingly seek entryways through mobile phones. Modern mobile phones -- Smartphones -- are powerful, networked computers, but they lack the firewalls and safeguards typically installed on PCs. What protection is commercially available is weak and unsatisfactory. America's cyber-systems are under attack because what they hold is extremely valuable. Everything from the design of a stealth fighter-bomber to the investment portfolio of a powerful entrepreneur is open to professional cyber-spies and, thus, to the governments that...

A campaign of cyber attacks has been targeting US natural gas pipeline operators, officials acknowledged, raising security concerns about vulnerabilities in key infrastructure.

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- A blackout of al-Qaida's main Web sites is in its 11th day, and officials think the forums may have been brought down in a cyberattack. While no one has claimed credit for disabling the sites..." SNIPPET: "The loss of information typically confuses and frustrates the readers of the Web sites. "It leaves the rank-and-file to guess which messages and which messengers are genuine al-Qaida, and provides undercover operators with new opportunities to disrupt the movement," said A. Aaron Weisburd, senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute."

Richard Clarke says evidence 'pretty strong' that China is stealing commercial secrets March 27, 2012, 12:18 PM — Former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke has made a career out of issuing security warnings. His most famous, of course, was his alert to Bush Administration officials in July 2001 -- 10 weeks before 9/11 -- that "something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Clarke was talking about an attack on U.S. soil by Al-Qaida, the terrorist group he had been warning the new administration about -- to virtually complete indifference -- since that...

Emergency powers for president dropped from cybersecurity billBy Gautham Nagesh - 02/14/12 01:55 PM ET A comprehensive cybersecurity bill introduced Tuesday abandons proposals that would give the president emergency powers over the nation's networks. “The nation responded after 9/11 to improve its security. Now we must respond to this challenge so that a cyber 9/11 attack on America never happens,” said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Public apprehension about the possibility of handing the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet has dogged the cybersecurity debate, fueled by a proposal that would have codified emergency powers...

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee unveiled legislation Thursday that would authorize the cybersecurity functions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and establish a quasi-governmental entity to coordinate cybersecurity information-sharing with the private sector. The bill, called the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act (PrECISE), would station a national clearinghouse for information relating to potential attacks on critical infrastructure, such as electric grid, water facilities, and financial service systems. ... Many civil liberties groups have expressed concern over cybersecurity legislation such as the PrECISE Act, as these policies could lead to severe privacy rights’ violations....

When the Conficker computer “worm” was unleashed on the world in November 2008, cyber-security experts didn’t know what to make of it. It infiltrated millions of computers around the globe. It constantly checks in with its unknown creators. It uses an encryption code so sophisticated that only a very few people could have deployed it. For the first time ever, the cyber-security elites of the world have joined forces in a high-tech game of cops and robbers, trying to find Conficker’s creators and defeat them. The cops are failing. And now the worm lies there, waiting … The first surprising...

An elite team of computer technicians assembled by the Obama administration to protect Pentagon networks from cyberattack shockingly includes a former Clinton official who "lost" thousands of archived emails under subpoena and who more recently left the Department of Homeland Security under an ethical cloud related to her qualifications, WND has learned. Read more: Look who Obama's hired for cybersecurity team http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=323373#ixzz1SZaXI9A7

WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen. John McCain has called for a Senate Select Committee on Cyber Security and Electronic Intelligence Leaks to address the problem of computer hackers. The Arizona Republican made the request Wednesday in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Cyber security proposals have been put forth by numerous Senate committees, the White House and various government agencies, McCain said, however, the Senate has yet embrace one comprehensive proposal that adequately addresses the government-wide threats we face. "With so many agencies and the White House moving forward with cyber security proposals,...

LulzSec the hacker group that has been a thorn in the side of major institutions ranging from Sony to the CIA, says it is going away -- but not quietly. The group said late Saturday it would disband. In what it says is its final act of mayhem, it publicly unloaded a trove of documents containing a significant amount of compressed data. "Our planned 50-day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance...our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011," LulzSec says in its final message. . The group says it chose to end its campaign...

(Reuters) - The public website of the Central Intelligence Agency went down on Wednesday evening as the hacker group Lulz Security said it had launched an attack. Lulz Security has claimed responsibility for recent attacks on the Senate, Sony Corp, News Corp and the U.S. Public Broadcasting System television network. The CIA site initially could not be accessed from New York to San Francisco, and Bangalore to London. Later in the evening service was sporadic. "We are looking into these reports," a CIA spokeswoman said. ... Security analysts have downplayed the significance of these attacks, saying the hackers are just...

Rep. Anthony Weiner, New York Democrat, has been embroiled in a scandal since a close-up photo of a man’s crotch was sent from his Twitter account... [Snip] Mr. Weiner has been careful to point out that his Twitter account is private, but his spokesman did not respond to questions from The Washington Times about whether the congressman was on his government-issued BlackBerry when the photo was sent via Twitter. [Snip] If he was using his work BlackBerry, the normal protocol for a security breach would be to report it immediately to the House Information Resources (HIR) division for an investigation....

So the man who would be mayor "can't say with certitude" whether or not the world's most famous Twitter crotch shot is of him? Could Tony Weiner's contempt for the people of New York City be any more, well, certain? Actually, it looks like this wiener is fully cooked. Which is fine, because it's now clear that Rep. Anthony Weiner isn't remotely up to the ethical demands of the office he now holds -- let alone those of the New York City mayoralty. The embattled Brooklyn Democrat wasn't in a deep enough hole yesterday; he had to keep digging --...

WASHINGTON — Publicly silent, fellow Democrats privately seethed Thursday over the distraction and furor surrounding the lewd photo sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account, even as he declared he was finished talking about it and wanted to move on. Weiner’s one-day, pun-laden media blitz a day earlier had only raised more questions about the embarrassing flap when he conceded he wasn’t sure whether the waist-down photo of a man’s bulging underpants was of him or not. His refusal to involve law enforcement because he said as a member of Congress he shouldn’t get special treatment — instead turning the...

Does the Anthony Weiner affair mean anything? Some married congressman may or may not have sent a Twitter crouch shot of himself to a college girl on the other side of the country. Snore. So what else is new? We all know that our male politicians – left, right, gay, straight, or whatever – suffer from overdoses of testosterone. It’s almost the sole distinguishing characteristic of a profession that otherwise has no specific qualifications. Weiner himself had the reputation of being quite the playboy before he married the half-Indian, half-Pakistani Huma Abedin in 2008. So what if it hasn’t really...

MANHATTAN — Rep. Anthony Weiner continues to insist that it must have been a hacker who sent a lewd crotch shot of a bulge in boxer shorts from the congressman's Twitter account. "Anthony's accounts were obviously hacked," the Queens and Brooklyn congressman's spokesman told the Associated Press. "He doesn't know the person named by the hacker, and we will be consulting on what steps to take next." The photo went viral after being posted on Saturday night by BigGovernment.com, a site run by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, which said the image was tweeted to a Seattle woman. The college student...

<p>Florida Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns is demanding an investigation into cybersecurity issues raised by #Weinergate, saying it is vital to "ensure our national security."</p>

[Snip] By now, you’ve heard about the Tweet picture sent from Weiner’s account to a young lady named Gennette Nicole Cordova. [Snip] ... those on the left trying to paint this as a conspiracy must deal with an array of odd elements that an increasingly tech-savvy public may find suspicious: * Not just the offending picture but most of the congressman’s pictures were removed from the site. * Not only did the young lady’s Facebook and Twitter accounts disappear from the ’Net (she’s apparently since started a new Twitter account, and may go back on Facebook), but also her bylines...

Florida Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns is demanding an investigation into cybersecurity issues raised by #Weinergate, saying it is vital to "ensure our national security." Though New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner remains silent on whether or not he'll be seeking an investigation into his claims that his Twitter and Facebook accounts were hacked, leading to his Twitter account's posting of a picture of a man's erect penis underneath gray boxer-briefs, Stearns told The Daily Caller that the imbroglio raises troubling questions that should be looked into by Congress. Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/31/congressman-wants-weiner-probe#ixzz1Nyk3nlwH

The White House on Thursday is expected to unveil its proposal to enhance the nation's cybersecurity, laying out plans to require industry to better protect systems that run critical infrastructure like the electrical grid, financial systems and nuclear power plants. The Obama administration also is insisting that companies tell consumers when their personal information has been compromised. According to cybersecurity experts familiar with the plan, the administration's proposed legislation also would instruct federal agencies to more closely monitor their computer networks. Several House and Senate committees have been working on cybersecurity legislation for the past two years, while waiting for...