Category Archives: Dana Deasy

Secret Service Investigates Breach at U.S. Govt IT Contractor

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The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a breach at a Virginia-based government technology contractor that saw access to several of its systems put up for sale in the cybercrime underground, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The contractor claims the access being auctioned off was to old test systems that do not have direct connections to its government partner networks.

In mid-August, a member of a popular Russian-language cybercrime forum offered to sell access to the internal network of a U.S. government IT contractor that does business with more than 20 federal agencies, including several branches of the military. The seller bragged that he had access to email correspondence and credentials needed to view databases of the client agencies, and set the opening price at six bitcoins (~USD $60,000). Continue reading Secret Service Investigates Breach at U.S. Govt IT Contractor→

Pentagon lays out plan to secure websites in response to lawmaker inquiry

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The Department of Defense says it has a plan to make sure that all of its public-facing websites are configured in a way that doesn’t put the security of their visitors at risk. In a letter responding to a lawmaker dated July 20, DOD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy wrote that the department plans by the end of 2018 to fix issues with trust certificates and encryption that are present across many websites affiliated with it. Certain issues will take longer, he said, will at least have a definitive plan by the end of the year. “The Department is working hard to ensure DoD inspires trust among citizens and partners in its digital interactions across our missions, business, and entitlements roles,” Deasy wrote. Deasy laid out the plan in response to a May letter from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that raised questions about the issue of insecure websites. Wyden initially […]

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Pentagon’s websites need better security, Wyden says

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If you try visiting certain Department of Defense websites, like the one for Strategic Operations Command or the Navy’s Blue Angels, you might be met with a browser message telling you that your connection is not secure and that malicious actors could be trying to steal your information. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wants the Pentagon to fix this issue. In a letter written to DOD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy on Tuesday, Wyden calls for the department to implement proper encryption and protection on all of its public-facing websites. Wyden writes that a “small number” of DOD websites, such as the Army, Air Force and NSA homepages by default use trusted certificates and HTTPS encryption, the web protocol that ensures secure connections and prevents man-in-the-middle attacks. But many others, Wyden says, like the CIO’s own website, either don’t employ HTTPS or issue basic certificates. “Many mainstream web browsers do not consider these […]

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