Iran as Latest Cyberthreat. Payback's a Bitch.

This article quotes  the head of the Air Force cyber command on Iran's growing cyberthreat.

Well, the Air Force has its cyberwarriors, and wants more, so it stands to reason all our enemies and frenemies want the same. Iran's already hit the financial sector.  Only 17 critical infrastructure sectors  left to go.

Researchers Expose New Vulnerabilities in the Security of Personal Genetic Information

The NY Times covered this story today, too. Basically, using public information, they we able to match people to their DNA.

Here's an interesting demonstration on how this can be done.

This is scary for a lot of reasons, not least of which is health insurance and employment. Forget HIPAA. Your life is an open book. Be worried. Be very worried.

We have two books publishing soon that address this.
The Complete Book of Data Anonymization: From Planning to Implementation by Balaji Raghunathan publishing on February 25, 2013 and Guide to the De-Identification of Personal Health Information by Khaled El Emam publishing on April 29, 2013.

Georgia Tech's Cyber Threat Predictions for 2013: Ho hum, Yawn

I don't know if George Tech is first to 'market' with 2013 cyber threat predictions, but this is getting like political polling. New York Magazine ran an interesting piece about polling, and the fact that anyone with a computer can now create a 'poll' and a voracious media will publish the results. Not to slam Georgia Tech, but first, how many predictions can we digest, and why do predictors think we need so many? I guess it likely doesn't matter because so many of the predictions are similar. In fact, if one is reasonably well read, the predictions are obvious.

Battle for information security 'is being won'

... according to  The Global State of Information Security Survey 2013 published by PwC in conjunction with CIO and CSO magazines.

Cautious optimism or delusional optimism?

Huawei too dangerous to do business with?

Here's more on the supply chain security thing from John Dix, editor of Network World.

Last week, three US service providers came out in support of the Chinese companies. (Sorry, I can't find or recall the reference for this.)

In March, the GAO found that defense agencies claimed to have no supply chain security issues, and discovered that DOD had suspect components.

Is this just New Cold War posturing?

Volunteering Falls Short on Threat Information Sharing

This is strange, really. I'm surprised that companies don't share information with each other. Many participte in the MITRE progams, such as CVE.

I can understand why they don't want to share with government agencies whose attitude toward sharing is all one-way: you give to us and we'll horde it all.

For more on this, read Threat Intelligence: What to Share?

Half of U.S. adults said Internet service is the most important utility in their homes

A Harris Interactive survey for Verizon found that more than half of about 2,300 U.S. adults said Internet service is the most important utility in their homes.

So, neither fresh water, electricity, sewer systems, nor even television is important. Amazing. How's this set back Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Then, there is the earlier report that Internet access is more important than sex. Are these people all lreading candidates for a Darwin Award? I think we have to worry for the survival of the species.