Publications

Major back-to-back breaches at federal agencies illustrate a vicious circle in cyberattacks: Personal information stolen in one breach is being reused to enable secondary breaches. Expect data stolen from OPM to be used elsewhere.  More bad news this week on the cyber front.…

Cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson pulled off a difficult feat in his techno-thriller “Snow Crash;” he created a future that does not seem dated 25 years after it was written. How close did he come in predicting the early 21st Century? I’ve been rereading…

The adoption of IPv6 is opening up new attack vectors for Denial of Service attacks as researchers probe the next generation of Internet Protocols for weaknesses, according to the most recent State of the Internet—Security report from Akamai. Distributed Denial of Service attacks…

Microsoft is ending support for its Windows Server 2003 in July, and millions of servers the still are running the OS. It already is too late for many to plan an orderly migration to a current OS, but some steps should be…

The latest entrant in the increasingly crowded field of proposed cybersecurity legislation appears to offer adequate protections on personal information as well as appropriate corporate shields. We’ll see. There is a new entrant in the increasingly crowded field of proposed cybersecurity legislation. The…

The latest Cyber Strategy, released this week by the Pentagon, refines the nation’s strategic goals in cyberspace and recognizes for the first time the DOD’s responsibility to protect private sector networks that are not necessarily critical infrastructure.  The Pentagon has released its latest…

Despite increased efforts by the IRS to catch fraudulent tax returns, the growth in electronic filing has produced a tidal wave of phony philings during the 2015 tax season. I had a number of unpleasant surprises while doing my taxes this year. (Has…

The marijuana industry still operates in a legal limbo but is beginning to emerge from the underground as a big business. InvestinCannabis.com wants to leverage IT to help the nascent industry grow, including helping medical marijuana dispensaries to comply with HIPAA. Pot has…

In the absence of congressional action on cybercrime, this week’s executive order is a significant new step in dealing with what the president called a national emergency. Former NSA director Keith B. Alexander said recently that the government has a responsibility to protect…

The National Checklist Program is a resource for configuring IT products to help ensure a baseline of security is being met. A revised set of guidelines for using checklists is available for review. Understanding and maintaining the configuration of IT systems and devices…