Archive for January, 2008
CIA Says Hackers Have Cut Power Grid
Posted by Administrator in Cyber Security on January 27th, 2008
Hopefully if they are reporting this it means that we have fixed all the potential problems in this area. Just another reminded that as our society becomes more and more dependent upon technology, we also become more vulnerable to problems – be it intentional maliciousness or just breaking down.
Story found via PcWorld:
CIA Says Hackers Have Cut Power Grid
Several cities outside the U.S. have sustained attacks on utility systems and extortion demands.
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:00 AM PSTCriminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst said this week.
Speaking at a conference of security professionals on Wednesday, CIA analyst Tom Donahue disclosed the recently declassified attacks while offering few specifics on what actually went wrong.
Criminals have launched online attacks that disrupted power equipment in several regions outside of the U.S., he said, without identifying the countries affected. The goal of the attacks was extortion, he said.
“We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands,” he said in a statement posted to the Web on Friday by the conference’s organizers, the SANS Institute. “In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.”
“According to Mr. Donahue, the CIA actively and thoroughly considered the benefits and risks of making this information public, and came down on the side of disclosure,” SANS said in the statement.
One conference attendee said the disclosure came as news to many of the government and industry security professionals in attendance. “It appeared that there were a lot of people who didn’t know this already,” said the attendee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak with the press.
He confirmed SANS’ report of the talk. “There were apparently a couple of incidents where extortionists cut off power to several cities using some sort of attack on the power grid, and it does not appear to be a physical attack,” he said.
Hacking the power grid made front-page headlines in September when CNN aired a video showing an Idaho National Laboratory demonstration of a software attack on the computer system used to control a power generator. In the demonstration, the smoking generator was rendered inoperable.
The U.S. is taking steps to lock down the computers that manage its power systems, however.
On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved new mandatory standards designed to improve cybersecurity.
CIA representatives could not be reached immediately for comment.
Americans more wired, new-media survey finds
Posted by Administrator in Internet Users on January 1st, 2008
Americans more wired, new-media survey finds
From yahoo news / Reuters
By Gail SchillerNEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – About 38 percent of U.S. consumers are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their cell phones as entertainment devices and 45 percent are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs for others, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche.
The findings of the online survey of 2,081 Americans, conducted October 25-31, were provided to The Hollywood Reporter before their official release next month.
The “State of the Media Democracy” notes that in Deloitte’s first edition of the survey just eight months earlier, 24 percent of consumers used their cell phones as entertainment devices, meaning that usage has soared 50 percent.
About 62 percent of “millennials” (consumers 13-to-24-years-old) are using their cell phones as entertainment devices, up from 46 percent in the previous study conducted February 23-March 6, 2007. And among Generation X consumers (25-to-41-year-olds), the number grew to 47 percent from 29 percent in the earlier survey.
About 20 percent of consumers said they are viewing video content on their cell phones daily or almost daily.
The percentage of consumers watching TV online jumped from the 23 percent figure reported in the previous study. Roughly 54 percent of those surveyed said they are making their own entertainment content through editing photos, videos or music, 45 percent said they are producing that content for others to see, and 32 percent said they consider themselves to be “broadcasters” of their own media.
“I think for advertisers one of the conclusions is you don’t make decisions to advertise either on television or the Internet when you want to hit all the demographics, but rather you need to have a multiplatform strategy,” said Ken August, vice chairman and national sector leader for Deloitte & Touche’s media and entertainment practice, which commissioned the study. “It shouldn’t be an either or proposition.”
Among the study’s other findings:
– 54 percent of consumers said they socialize via social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards, and 45 percent said they maintain a profile on a social networking site.
– 85 percent of consumers still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying habits, but online ads are second best, with 65 percent of consumers saying they have the most impact, beating out magazines at 63 percent.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
More and more Americans getting hooked on electronics. There are many good and bad things I see with this news. We can share information and entertainment quicker, and I enjoy this new era of information sharing. I believe we will see more problems with technology compatibility in several areas as well. We already have competing formats with everything from software and operating systems, to different cell phone companies having various accepted formats for multimedia messages and such. There will certainly be much more confusion among people as to what works with what, but lets hope the barriers come down in those areas in the future as well. More on this in another post later.
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