The National Institute of Standards and Technology issued the draft document detailing its latest guidelines on how federal agencies could secure better networks against large-scale Distributed Denial of Service attacks. The NIST said in a notice that routing control plane anomalies such as Border Gateway Protocol, prefix hijacking and route leaks have been disrupting services and causing damage across the government in recent years.
Read More »Christopher Painter to Depart Role as State Dept Cyber Coordinator
Christopher Painter, coordinator for cyber issues at the State Department, will step down at the end of the month after six years in the job, Nextgov reported Monday. Painter was one of the officials who urged nations to comply with rules regarding the cyberspace such as agreements to not hack …
Read More »Senators Ask FBI for Investigation Updates on DDoS Attacks on FCC Public Comment Filing Portal
A group of five senators has asked the FBI for updates on its investigation into distributed denial-of-service attacks that targeted the Federal Communications Commission’s electronic comment filing platform. FCC reported on May 8 that external threat actors orchestrated the DDoS attacks to bombard the comment portal and prevented legitimate commenters to …
Read More »House Lawmakers Urge FTC to Address Consumer Concerns Over Internet of Things Security
Reps. Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) have called on the Federal Trade Commission to oversee manufacturers’ efforts to secure connected devices and protect consumers from cyber attacks. Pallone and Schakowsky told FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a joint letter published Thursday that FTC should urge manufacturers to patch vulnerabilities and require consumers to change default …
Read More »Jeh Johnson: Internet Service Company Dyn has Addressed Cyber Attack
Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has said U.S. officials think the distributed denial of service attack against internet performance management company Dyn has been addressed, Nextgov reported Monday. Johnson said DHS held a conference call with 18 communication services providers the day the cyber attack affected websites such …
Read More »Reports: US Authorities Examine Cyber Attack on DNS Provider Dyn
U.S. authorities are investigating a distributed-denial-of-service attack that hit internet performance management company Dyn‘s managed domain name system infrastructure, USA Today reported Friday. Eli Blumenthal and Elizabeth Weise write that Amazon, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix and PayPal were among the websites hobbled by the DDoS attack on the Dyn service Friday. The report said security experts believe the source of attack …
Read More »DOJ: 7 Iranians Indicted on US Financial System Hacking Charges
A federal grand jury has indicted seven Iranian people whom government investigators believe have orchestrated extensive denial-of-service attacks on U.S. financial services institutions between December 2012 and September 2013. The Justice Department said Thursday computer hacking charges have been filed against Ahmad Fathi, Hamid Firoozi, Amin Shokohi, Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, Omid Ghaffarinia, Sina Keissar and Nader Saedi. These …
Read More »DHS Awards DDoS-Focused Cyber Research Contracts to Universities of Delaware, Houston
The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate has selected the University of Delaware and University of Houston to conduct cybersecurity research focused on distributed-denial-of-service attacks under contracts worth $4.5 million combined. DHS said Thursday the $1.9 million “Ensuring Energy and Power Safety in Data Centers” contract with the University of Delaware …
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