WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (UPI) — The head of the House Intelligence Committee says cyber espionage is one of the greatest challenges facing U.S. intelligence agencies today.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told retired U.S. intelligence officers in a speech Friday in Washington that Russia and China appear to be the major players in state-sponsored espionage, the Los Angeles Times reported. He said cyber spying is the biggest threat aside from al-Qaida and said intelligence agencies need the resources to combat it.
Rogers warned against making large cuts in the funding for U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Nation states are investing huge amounts of time, personnel and money to steal our data,” Rogers said. “We are not as prepared as we need to be.”
Rogers said reports on cyber espionage suggest Russian and Chinese military and intelligence agencies are involved.
While U.S. government agencies are generally quiet about cyber espionage, attacks have been reported by private security companies, Google and academic researchers.
Stealthy, sometime long-term cyber-espionage attacks to steal sensitive proprietary information – what some now call “advanced persistent threats” (APT) – have become a top worry for businesses.
Last week the Security for Business Innovation Council, a group of 16 security leaders from companies that include eBay, Coca-Cola Company, SAP, FedEx Corp., Johnson Johnson and Northrop Grumman, summed up their thoughts on APT in a report, saying this type of attack is forcing IT to rethink network security. “Tackling advanced persistent threats means giving up the idea it’s possible to protect everything. This is no longer realistic.”
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BERLIN (Reuters) – A Berlin security firm has cracked the encryption code for some mobile phones using the Internet, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday, citing the company’s chief.
The discovery of a way to eavesdrop so-called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology allows a user to read emails and observe the Internet use of a person whose phone is hacked, said Karsten Nohl, head of Security Research Labs.
“With our technology we can capture GPRS data communications in a radius of 5 km,” he told the paper before heading to a meeting of the Chaos Computer Club, a group that describes itself as Europe’s largest hacker coalition.
Phones using the newer UMTS standard are safer, Nohl said, but the crack effects industrial equipment, toll systems and anything using GPRS — including newer devices like Apple Inc’s iPhone or iPad which switch to the older GPRS in remote areas.
(Writing by Brian Rohan; Editing by Richard Chang)
Ever since reinventing himself as one of the top sluggers in baseball last season, Jose Bautista(notes) has faced questions over whether his power surge received any special help.
Now, he and his fellow Toronto Blue Jays hitters are being confronted with new accusations regarding their collective success at Rogers Centre.
An ESPN The Magazine and Outside the Lines report talked to several players from an opposing team who believe that Blue Jays batters have benefited from someone — a mysterious “man in white” — who relayed signs to them from center field, signaling what opposing pitchers are about to throw.
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Other targets included the networks of the International Olympic Committee, the United Nations secretariat, a U.S. Energy Department lab, and a dozen U.S. defense firms, according to a report released Wednesday by McAfee, a security firm that monitors network intrusions around the world.
McAfee said hundreds of other servers have been used by the same adversary, which the company did not identify.
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