October 31, 2003
Volume 1, Number 6

New Intelligence Alliances Not So Secret

By Robert Green

You know it’s not your grandfather’s federal government when the conference speaker tells his audience, “It’s only been the last two years now that I’ve been able to tell people where I work.”

Or, another conference speaker happily hands out his email address with the caveat, “This isn’t my real name but…”

Such was part of the fare at last week’s Federal Information Assurance Conference in College Park, Md., a gathering of U.S. intelligence and computer experts who are beginning to actively broach the brave new world of homeland security and “information sharing” that followed the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.(more)

Expert Views From FIAC 2003
NSA’s Wolf Touts Innovation and “Need to Share”

 
Daniel G. Wolf, information assurance director at the National Security Agency urged both defense and homeland security officials to exploit emerging “market convergence” as they shed “need to know” security practices in favor of today’s “need to share” imperative. Wolf called convergence a process whereby commercial industry merges its products and services to equally meet the needs of traditional defense issues and emerging homeland security. (more)

   Expert Views from CERT's Hale
   “Live Wire” Puts New Cyber Security Processes to Test

The recently formed DHS National Cyber Security Division recently ran its Live Wire test to determine where “gaps” might be in the ability of the government and critical infrastructure to respond to serious cyber events like the Blaster or Cisco IOS attacks the Internet experienced earlier this year. Lawrence Hale, acting director of US CERT, said Live Wire is being conducted. (more)

Expanding Digital Signatures
HHS Will Deal ACES Agencywide

 The Health and Human Services department will be the first agency to adopt the 5-year old ACES digital certificate authentication solution “on an enterprisewide scale. ACES (Access Certificates for Electronic Services ) is the General Services Administration’s flagship public key infrastructure program through which computer users both inside and outside government can conduct secure transactions with federal agencies on the Internet. (more) 

Dees Stallings on 
"The Safe Side of the Send Button"

Securing Your E-Mail

 
E-mail provides great benefits, but can also jeopardize the security of   individuals, organizations and   nations. Although excellent products to increase e-mail security are available, none are a substitute for human safeguards against negligence or carelessness.  As Michael Tucker, editor of SC, a leading US computer security magazine, stated in 1999, "The greatest threat you face is not the viruses or the hackers or whatever, but rather complacency."  This is still true in our post 9/11 e-mail environment.  (more)