Friday, December 6, 2013

Still No Clues In The Million Dollar Bitcoin Heist

Late November 2013, thieves stole more than US $1 million in Bitcoins from Danish Bitcoin exchange and online wallet service BIPS. The company was first attacked on 15 and 17 November through a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that appears to have laid the groundwork for a subsequent attack that disabled BIPS security systems. According to the company, the initial DDoS attacks were "found to originate from Russia and neighboring countries." This facilitated the theft of the Bitcoins. Two other significant Bitcoin thefts have occurred recently, an Australian online wallet service lost US $1.4 million in Bitcoins, and a Chinese exchange lost more than $4 million. The US Senate is now attmpting to legislate Bitcoin.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Government Must Improve its Cybersecurity, Technology Council Report Says

According to a report from a presidential technology council, the US government is not setting a good example in cybersecurity.  The report comes from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  According to the report, "the Federal Government rarely follows accepted best practices."   The report further states that "Cybersecurity will not be achieved by a collection of static precautions, it requires a set of processes that continuously couple information about an evolving threat to defensive reactions and  responses."

You may read a complete copy of the report at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/pcast_cybersecurity_nov-2013.pdf