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NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post

June 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say.

The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation’s largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets.

“We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.

via NSA allies with Internet carriers to thwart cyber attacks against defense firms – The Washington Post.

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Datacenter for the paranoid | ZDNet

January 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It looks like it’s time to start prepping the tinfoil hats and preparing for the black helicopters. Not to mention adding 512-bit encryption to all your tweets and Facebook posts. The NSA will soon be ready to come after everyone electronically with the groundbreaking of their new 1,000,000 square foot datacenter in Utah.

The disinformation has already started with various news articles reporting the cost of the project as either $1.2 or $1.5 billion dollars, and civilian contractors (the project is being overseen by the US Army Corp of Engineers) being quoted as saying “we can’t talk about it.”  Fortunately US Senator Orrin Hatch, who represents the state of Utah, where the project is being constructed on a 240 acre site within the Camp Williams training facility, isn’t quite so reticent saying “This country defends itself against cyber-attacks every day. It’s an arena where we need to defend ourselves” going on with “This center will support the effort to better understand that threat.”

As to why the facility is being built in Utah, there was apparently a detailed selection process using over 130 criteria that determined this was the best location, though US Army Corp of Engineers Brigadier General Peter Deluca was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune as saying there are “at least 50 perfect states to build a data center.”

I’m really hoping that was a tongue-in-check comment. Sort of like my lead paragraph.

The datacenter itself will utilize 100,000 sq. ft. within the facility, with the rest of the space housing other NSA and civilian employees presumably focused on cyber warfare issues, though some sources have stated that this is strictly a technical facility with no plans for analysts on-site.  Harvey Davis, associate director of installations for the NSA, described the hardware going into the datacenter component of the facility as being the essence of the NSA’s work. The datacenter is considered part of the Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative.

via Datacenter for the paranoid | ZDNet.

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Privacy group sues to get records about Google-National Security Agency relationship – latimes.com

September 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has tangled with Google in the past over the security of its Gmail e-mail system, filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents related to any agreement between Google and the NSA. The NSA denied the request, and on Monday the privacy group took the agency to court, seeking to force it to hand over records.

“As of 2009, Gmail had roughly 146 million monthly users, all of whom would be affected by any relationship between the NSA and Google,” the privacy group’s request said. “In order for the public to make meaningful decisions regarding their personal data and e-mail, it must be aware of the details of that relationship. Neither Google nor the NSA has provided information regarding their relationship.”

There probably isn’t a significant privacy concern in the NSA’s dealings with Google, said Richard Clarke, a top national security official in the Clinton and Bush administrations and author of “Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It.”

“But the easy way for Google and NSA to prove that is by letting an outside group come in and find out,” Clarke said.

Lewis said the NSA still must overcome a lack of trust among consumers after it enlisted telecom companies to help with surveillance it conducted without warrants in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Beyond the privacy issue, the Google-NSA alliance shows that no single U.S. government agency is responsible for defending the country’s private computer infrastructure from the daily onslaught of foreign-based cyber attacks, Clarke and Lewis said. NSA gets involved only in select cases.

via Privacy group sues to get records about Google-National Security Agency relationship – latimes.com.

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Report: NSA initiating program to detect cyberattacks | Security – CNET News

July 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The National Security Agency is reportedly launching a program to monitor for cyberattacks against government agencies and private companies responsible for key services such as electricity, nuclear power, and transportation, according to a story in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal.

The program, known as “Perfect Citizen,” is already triggering mixed reactions, says the Journal. Some in industry and government see it as an attempt by the NSA to intrude into domestic matters, while others believe it’s a much-needed step in fighting the threat of cyberattacks.

via Report: NSA initiating program to detect cyberattacks | Security – CNET News.

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Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks – washingtonpost.com

February 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans' online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’s; searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a “wake-up call.” Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a “collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners.”

via Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks – washingtonpost.com.

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