Tag Archive for: journal

Shining a light against hackers » Albuquerque Journal

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Ray Newell, an atomic physicist at Los Alamos National Labs, will explain how his team is working on coding that might help prevent computer attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure, similar to the one that recently took out the Colonial Pipeline. (Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal

One of the issues Ray Newell thought he might face in describing his current project as a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory was to get people interested in it.

Then, hackers gained control of the Colonial Pipeline’s operating computers and, all of a sudden, Newell’s project gained very real-world emphasis.

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Newell will be speaking – and fielding questions – Wednesday at 6 p.m. during the labs’ quarterly Frontiers in Science program, presented by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows through the Bradbury Science Museum. This series includes presentations by scientists, engineers and others on the most innovative developments in science.

“When we first started planning this, almost two, three months ago, we were trying to set up how to get anybody to care about it,” Newell said. “Unfortunately, that piece of the talk has been largely cut out as it has been made very clear, nationwide, why it is important to secure our critical infrastructure.”

The shutdown in early May disrupted gas supplies along the East Coast and caused panic buying, 1970s-like gas lines and empty fuel stations.

“We have seen with the Colonial Pipeline attack, how impactful these issues can be on our daily lives,” Newell said.

Newell and his team have been concentrating on protecting electrical grids, with technology already in use at the lab and the connecting Los Alamos grid.

With the changing nature of electrical generation to incorporate more input from such green sources as solar and wind, it becomes ever more important to ensure control, Newell said, particularly when considering the greater…

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SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials » Albuquerque Journal

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Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned.

The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not publicly known, but the symbolism is stark. Their accounts were accessed as part of what’s known as the SolarWinds intrusion and it throws into question how the U.S. government can protect individuals, companies and institutions across the country if it can’t protect itself.

The short answer for many security experts and federal officials is that it can’t — at least not without some significant changes.

“The SolarWinds hack was a victory for our foreign adversaries, and a failure for DHS,” said Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, top Republican on the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We are talking about DHS’s crown jewels.”

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The Biden administration has tried to keep a tight lid on the scope of the SolarWinds attack as it weighs retaliatory measures against Russia. But an inquiry by the AP found new details about the breach at DHS and other agencies, including the Energy Department, where hackers accessed top officials’ private schedules.

The AP interviewed more than a dozen current and former U.S. government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the ongoing investigation into the hack.

The vulnerabilities at Homeland Security in particular intensify the worries following the SolarWinds attack and an even more widespread hack affecting Microsoft Exchange’s email program, especially because in both cases the hackers were detected not by the government but by a private company.

In December, officials discovered what they describe as a sprawling, monthslong…

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What can be done to halt to growth of ransomware? (Includes interview) – Digital Journal

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What can be done to halt to growth of ransomware? (Includes interview)  Digital Journal

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BILL CRAWFORD — Biloxi legislators push innovative learning in schools | MS Business Journal

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education




Incessant innovation is the key to economic growth suggested Martin Wolf in The Financial Times. “Historical experience confirms that growth is a race to the top,” he wrote. “It means exploiting new opportunities that generate enduring advantages in high-productivity sectors and so high wages.”

Could this have meaning for Mississippi? And what role, if any, should government play?

Yes. And government does have a role Wolf said, drawing from “Windows of Opportunity” by David Sainsbury.

“There are four possible strategies towards innovation: leave it to the market; support the supply of relevant factors of production (science and skilled people); support key industries and technologies; and pick specific firms/technologies/products.” According to Sainsbury Wolf said, “that governments should do the second and third, but not the last.”

They may not have read Wolf’s essay or Sainsbury’s book, but two Biloxi legislators have bought into the notions that Mississippi needs science and skilled people to spur innovative economic growth and that government has a role in providing that.

Sen. Scott Delano and Rep. Kevin Felsher introduced bills to require “the study of computers, algorithmic processes, coding and logical thinking, including computer principles, their hardware and software designs, their implementation and their impact on society” in all K-12 schools. The House and Senate both passed similar versions of the Mississippi Computer Science And Cyber Education Equality Act. Felsher said he expected the House to concur with a Senate technical amendment which would assure final passage. The bill would then go to the Governor for final approval.



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