From: security curmudgeon (jerichoattrition.org)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2008 - 05:07:27 CDT

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: InfoSec News <alertsinfosecnews.org>

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-security26-2008aug26,0,2021258.story

By Joseph Menn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 26, 2008

Three very big and very different computer security breaches that have
dominated recent headlines did more than show how badly the Internet needs
major repairs. They also exposed the huge rift between corporate America
and the federal government over who should fix it, cyber-security experts
say.

In the last few months, law enforcement officials cracked an international
ring that tapped customer databases and trafficked in tens of millions of
credit card numbers; a researcher uncovered a major flaw that permits
hackers to steer some Web surfers to fake versions of popular websites
filled with malicious software; and computer assaults, which some
researchers said they had traced back to Russia's state-run
telecommunications firms, crippled websites belonging to the country of
Georgia.

Yet the episodes did little to boost cyber security higher on the agendas
of the federal government or the two major presidential candidates.

"Nothing is happening," said Jerry Dixon, the former director of the
National Cyber Security Division at the Department of Homeland Security.
"This has got to be in the top five national security priorities."

Dixon is just one of hundreds of technology executives and experts who
have been saying for years that Washington needs to do much more to
protect consumers, businesses and the government itself from attacks by
criminal hackers and those supported by rival nations.

[...]
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