Shuyuan Mary Ho Metcalfe

“And even a breach such as the one at the NSA could have been detected by Aorato. “Snowden reportedly used colleagues’ passwords to access sensitive docs,” Aorato’s co-founder and CEO, Idan Plotnik, notes to me. “Even if the user activity seems legitimate, the same account would actually present suspicious or abnormal behavior behind the scenes which Aorato would detect.”

“Plotnik says that this kind of behavioral detection — constantly shifting parameters — is part of a new trend in threat detection and online security: it prevents the problems of flagging non-malicious activity as malicious, and second, it detects the threats in real-time, as they actually change themselves.”

More from Techcrunch.com by clicking here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/21/aorato/

Ted Schlein of KPCB: “We are in midst of cybersecurity technology being completely re-made –  moving from a signature-based protection environment to a more behavioral anomaly-based protection environment.”

Video interview by clicking here: ted-schlein-cybersecurity-vs-privacy-517928975

A Cisco security report released on January 16th 2014 shows that hacker threats reached “startling levels” last year and that the world is suffering from a shortage of skilled computer defenders.

Cracks in defenses and weapons for attacks rose to the highest levels since tracking began in 2000, while there was a worldwide shortage of nearly a million skilled security professionals to protect networks and machines, according to the annual Cisco report.

“To truly protect against all of these possible attacks, defenders must understand the attackers, their motivations and their methods before, during and after an attack,” said Cisco Threat Response Intelligence chief security officer John Stewart.

“Although the Cisco Annual Security Report paints a grim picture of the current state of cyber security, there is hope for restoring trust in people, institutions and technologies – and that starts with empowering defenders with real-world kn ..

Call it the attack of the zombie refrigerators.

Computer security researchers said this week they discovered a large “botnet” which infected Internet-connected home appliances and then delivered more than 750,000 malicious emails.

The California security firm Proofpoint, Inc., said hackers managed to penetrate home-networking routers, connected multi-media centers, televisions and at least one refrigerator to create a botnet or platform to deliver malicious spam or phishing emails from a device, usually without the owner’s knowledge.

Proofpoint said the case “has significant security implications for device owners and enterprise targets” because of massive growth expected in the use of smart and connected devices, from clothing to appliances.

“Proofpoint’s findings reveal that cyber criminals have begun to commandeer home routers, smart appliances and other components of the Internet of Things and transform them into ‘thingbots,'” to carry out the same kinds of attacks normally associated with personal computers.

More from NDTV Gadgets by clicking here

“Ninety-seven percent of Fortune 500 companies have been hacked,” says Peter W. Singer, “and likely the other 3% have too, they just don’t know it.” Such is the less-than-rosy picture painted by Singer — director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at D.C. think tank Brookings Institution

“This is now a very real problem, one that we have to recognize, that we have to manage,” Singer says in a conversation with Fortune. “Stop looking for others to solve it for you, stop looking for silver bullet solutions, and stop ignoring it.”

I would argue that there’s no issue that’s become more important that’s less understood than cyber. You can see this gap in all sorts of areas, including on the business side. For example, 70% of business executives have made a cybersecurity decision for their company. Not 70% of CTOs or CSOs, but 70% of executives in general. Yet no major MBA program teaches on it.

More from CNN.com by clicking here: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/01/06/cybersecurity-and-cyberwar/

The top  cybersecurity threats in 2013 reportedly included hacktivists targeting users’ privacy at the top spot, followed by cyberespionage campaigns – along with the newest craze of stealing bitcoins.

More from the Times of India by clicking here

A cybersecurity framework for critical infrastructure owners will soon become a national standard for litigators and regulators. The framework is now in its final comment stage and will be released mid-February.  The National Institute of Standards and Testing (NIST) will establish this comprehensive set of cybersecurity practices – which will be voluntary but legally binding in a court of law.

Download this doc directly from the National Institute of Standards and Testing

If you’re an Android user — or want to be — you’ve likely heard about all the security risks of Google’s mobile operating system. But how real are these threats, and how much damage can they do? Despite the fears, are Android devices actually a safe bet for an enterprise mobility strategy?

These are key questions for any organization thinking about a broad Android rollout or even simple acceptance of Android devices in a BYOD context. The answers may not be what you expect.

More available from InfoWorld by clicking here

By harnessing the unpredictable nature of matter at the quantum level, physicists have figured out a way to exchange information on secret keys.

Check it out at HowStuffWorks.com by clicking here.

Revelations show a transatlantic intelligence pact that started during the second world war is expanding beyond states’ ability to control it.

There haven’t been too many moments of levity over the past four months for those intimately involved in the story of Edward Snowden. It hasn’t been a laughing matter for the man himself, who is now stuck in Russia, the intelligence agencies whose secrets he has disclosed, or the governments that have had to deal with the consequences.

But the impasse between the opposing forces in this unprecedented and complex saga has been broken on occasion. One of these moments came at the Guardian’s London headquarters, near King’s Cross station, on Wednesday 17 July.

Continue by   here – from The Guardian