For the first time since 2005, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has revised the federal cybersecurity standards. Since the last update, flash memory, Wi-Fi, smartphones, microchips, and social media have burst onto the scene. Why has NIST not updated the federal cybersecurity standards much sooner? Because …
Cybersecurity is a hot issue, and with the House of Representatives’s approval of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) this week it is likely to get hotter. As of last night, groups opposing the bill had collected over 100,000 signatures asking the President to make good on …
This week, the largest cyber attack to date hit the Internet. Spamhaus, an anti-spam company, placed Cyberbunker on their black-list of spam generating companies. Cyberbunker quickly retaliated with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which essentially overwhelms a system with requests. The initial attack failed to overwhelm Spamhaus and …
Last night, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (CSA) failed to pass the U.S. Senate. The vote is already being portrayed as Republican obstructionism, even though five Democrats voted against the bill and four Republicans voted for it. Such rhetoric is being used to justify a cybersecurity executive order that mimics …
The lame-duck session begins today, with retiring and defeated Members of Congress coming back to Washington to make their last legislative decisions. Because of the lack of accountability to voters, the lame-duck period brings heightened scrutiny. Congress has 16 working days scheduled between now and the end of the year, …
As if the flood of regulations coming after the election weren’t bad enough, a draft of the newest cybersecurity executive order obtained by Heritage reveals that even more regulations are coming. This draft executive order is similar to the failed Cybersecurity Act of 2012 in that it proposes additional regulations …
A recent investigation into the Department of Labor’s (DOL) secure information systems revealed “very serious” cybersecurity flaws. Together with many other cybersecurity breaches and failures in the federal government, it is clear the government should not be put in charge of cybersecurity regulation of the private sector. The DOL failures …
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) recently promised to bring cybersecurity legislation back to the Senate floor during the lame-duck session of Congress. He also praised President Obama’s draft of a cybersecurity executive order while blaming “Republicans engaging in Tea Party-motivated obstruction” for the Senate’s failure to pass the Cybersecurity …
The nation does not deserve a cybersecurity solution that is rushed through by executive order. The current draft cyber executive order is being seen by some as a long-awaited panacea for the “lack” of motivation of critical industry to secure itself. This is ridiculous. Presently, the reason for businesses not …
