Defense Industrial Base Archives

Defense Industrial Base

IoT Set To Transform Manufacturing, Security is Obstacle| IDG Connect

September 15, 2014 Paul Roberts

The folks over at IDG Connect have a good overview of what the German Government calls “Industry 4.0” but many of us just think of as a branch of the Internet of Things. The blog post by Andy Roxburgh, the Vice-President of Systems and Service in Schneider Electric’s Industry Business, predicts that automation and intelligent machinery will lead to a transition from human-intensive low wage manufacturing to machine centric “smart” manufacturing that lowers costs by taking humans out of the equation and using automation to create faster, more effective and nimble manufacturing processes. “Manufacturers need to prepare for a world where value is re-defined,” Roxburgh says. “Winning companies will be those who automate their operations and use data to create the smartest processes.” No surprise: security is one major obstacle on the road to Industry 4.0 (as we’ve written before). “Universally connected devices, more data, and a boom of cloud-based technology means manufacturers and users have more […]

IEEE Issues Standard For Sensors, Tiny Machines

September 10, 2014 Paul Roberts

A new standard published by the IEEE may accelerate the spread and use of the Internet of Things: providing a common reference to govern the performance of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS. The standard, IEEE 2700-2014, was recently approved by the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Standards Board. It will provide a common methodology for specifying the performance of tiny sensors that are becoming more and more common in consumer electronics and other industries. That should make it easier for vendors , including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to begin integrating two or more sensors without having to worry about integration challenges. The standards apply to a wide range of small sensors that currently populate everything from mobile phones to wearable devices like Apple’s newly announced smart watch. These include accelerometers, magnetometers, gyrometers and gyroscopes, barometers and other pressure sensors, humidity sensors, temperature sensors, ambient light sensors and proximity sensors, IEEE said. “The industry has been struggling […]

Update: Cyber Spies Digging For Clues On Iraq?

July 8, 2014 Paul Roberts

The folks over at CrowdStrike have dug deep into a campaign of targeted cyber attacks targeting Washington D.C. think tanks and say they have evidence that whomever is behind the attacks has taken a sudden interest in U.S. policy towards Iraq. Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include comments from Adam Meyers, Vice President of Security Intelligence at CrowdStrike. – PFR July 8, 2014 14:30 Writing on Tuesday, CrowdStrike CTO Dmitri Alperovitch described a new campaign by a group they dubbed “DEEP PANDA” that was targeting think tanks specializing on U.S. foreign policy and national security. Alperovitch said CrowdStrike observed a pronounced shift in targets from think tank experts on Asia to experts on Iraq and the Middle East in recent weeks. The shift corresponded with the rapid escalation of violence in Iraq as the Islamic extremist group ISIS took control of large parts of the country. “This actor, who was engaged in […]

DARPA Competition Seeks Autonomous Systems for Cyber Defense

June 4, 2014 Paul Roberts

We all know that ‘layer 8’ – humans – are the biggest attack surface in any IT environment. Companies can invest millions to harden their networks and endpoints. But all attackers have to do is convince one user to open a fake credit card bill for $20,000 or click a “You won’t believe this video!” link on Facebook and its game over. Our human failings came into the spotlight, most recently, with the breach at Target. According to news reports, the retailer had advanced threat detection software by FireEye deployed that actually alerted staff to some of the malicious activity that signaled the start of that (epic) hack. Alas, Target’s IT staff in the U.S. dismissed the alerts, which were reported by a team working out of Bangalore, India. The result: 40 million credit card numbers were pilfered from Target’s network. That may be why the U.S. Department of Defense’s advanced […]

Big GOV Shift To Secure Cloud?

June 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

For those of us covering the cyber security beat, there haven’t been many feel-good stories coming out of the federal government in – well – forever. Even before the advent of nation state sponsored hacking, the news was mostly of the federal government’s bloated and unwieldy IT infrastructure, byzantine procurement systems and the difficulty of attracting top talent away from private sector employers who could offer more pay, more autonomy and a better working environment. Then came the gut wrenching display of offensive prowess by the U.S.’s main enemies – nations like China, Russia and Iran. Those stories started, in earnest, with news about operations like Titan Rain (in 2003) and continue to the present day. The problem has gotten so bad that the military’s preferred euphemism for Chinese hackers – “advanced persistent threat,” or “APT” has become part of the nomenclature of the IT security world far beyond […]