http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=38817 <http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=38817&dcn=e_gvet> &dcn=e_gvet Fewer connections could limit cyber attacks, agency official says By Aliya Sternstein Technology <http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/techdaily/> Daily December 12, 2007
A Justice Department cyber-security official on Wednesday touted the government's strategy of reducing its number of Internet connections to 50 by June in order to reduce cyber vulnerabilities. The government's "Trusted Internet Connections" initiative, which was announced last month, will help protect information by shrinking the attack surface area -- or the number of access gateways that must be monitored, Mischel Kwon, the department's chief information technology security specialist, told a group of federal government IT professionals. "This is an absolutely great, great program," Kwon said. She said the effort cuts to the core of today's cyber-security problem: The basic threats are the same as they were in 2001, but the maneuvers are easier and more widespread. Kwon told the Association for Federal Information Resources Management that the threats are still hackers, "hacktivists," industrial spies, organized crime groups, terrorists and national governments. But now, the fraudsters can easily create Internet viruses by reading how-to lessons on the Internet itself, said Kwon, who runs Justice's cyber-defense operation. The most popular attack right now, she said, is "in by e-mail, out by Web." The culprits send a message embedded with a link, and then dupe the victim into clicking on the link to go to a separate Web page where they enter sensitive information or download malevolent software. Once the exercise is complete, the intruder can enter the victims' networks, and "we're all in business," Kwon said. She warned the audience not to assume that all such "phishing" e-mail messages have a misspelling "because it will fool everyone." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
