7/14 defcon: murdoch's watergate, military meltdown & more

hacking scandal could be murdoch's watergate*

video: rupert murdoch's son could be prosecuted by US*
video: murdoch papers could have hacked US phones as well*
update: news corp uk newspaper ceo brooks resigns*
washington post website jobs section hacked*
anonymous hacks monsanto computers; posts employee info*
hackers claim they exposed booz allen hamilton data*
'military meltdown monday' - 90k military usernames, hashes released*
how digital detectives deciphered stuxnet, the most menacing malware in history*
stuxnet timeline shows correlation among events*
wi-fi–hacking neighbor from hell sentenced to 18yrs*
smart meters deconstructed*
zuckerberg & google elite hit google+ privacy button*
google turning us into forgetful morons*
cbs faked 4th of july fireworks display*

defense firms see opportunity in cyber attacks

from baltimore sun: A spate of high-profile online break-ins has given defense firms at the Paris Air Show a new sales pitch: cyber security. Targeted by hackers looking to steal source codes, R&D information and trade secrets, aerospace and defense firms are turning the tables on the pirates and are making security a key sales argument. "We see huge potential to do deals this week because interest in cyber security has soared given recent events," Paul MacGregor, general manager of Finmeccanica's UK security arm, Vega Consulting Services, told Reuters. He added that cyber security was now an "arms race," with defense firms battling to stay one step ahead of the hackers. "Information is now used as a weapon and companies need to defend it at all costs or they themselves could lose out on contracts if they are seen as having weak defenses," he said.

US preparing a 'world' for cyber war games

from inewp.com: With the help of several organizations including Lockheed Martin Corporation, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency and nearly 500 million U.S. dollars, the United States government is currently constructing a virtual platform in which the government can simulate cyber wars and its own offensive capabilities in the cyber world without touching the actual Internet. The progress of the project, called the National Cyber Range, will be mainly overseen by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense which had a hand in the creation of the Internet. True to its mission statement, DARPA intends to “prevent technological surprise to the U.S., but also to create technological surprise for its enemies” with the construction of the National Cyber Range. The Pentagon has put forth proposals to label cyber-attacks on the government to be acts of war. In recent years, cyber scares such as Stuxnet, Agent.Btz, Anonymous and the hack into the International Monetary Fund has prompted the Obama administration to reconsider policies regarding cyber space. A Cyber Pilot system is also being developed to classify and monitor cyber threats ranging from “destructive” to “government cyberwarfare”.

cyberattack targets lockheed martin

from usa today: Hackers launched a "significant and tenacious" cyberattack on Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor holding highly sensitive information, but its secrets remained safe, the company said Saturday. Lockheed Martin, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon confirmed that the contractor's information systems had come under attack. Lt. Col. April Cunningham, speaking for the Defense Department, said the impact on the Pentagon "is minimal and we don't expect any adverse effect." Still, the concerted attempt to breach the contractor's systems underscored the risk to the nation's critical defense data. Chris Ortman, Homeland Security spokesman, said his agency and the Pentagon were working with the company to determine the breadth of the attack and "provide recommendations to mitigate further risk." Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it detected the May 21 attack "almost immediately" and took countermeasures. As a result, "our systems remain secure; no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised." The company's security team is still working to restore employee access to the targeted network. Neither Lockheed Martin nor the federal agencies revealed specifics of the attack.