Category Archives: NCCIC

DHS vulnerability scanning program offline after Virginia office loses power

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Two cybersecurity programs the Department of Homeland Security offers both states and the private sector have been temporarily knocked offline due to a power outage, while other services have been shifted to backup locations, multiple sources tell CyberScoop. The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), the 24/7 hub for monitoring cyberthreats across the government and critical infrastructure, has shifted operations to a backup location in Florida. The move was made after the Arlington, Virginia, building that houses NCCIC lost power last week due to heavy rains. Additionally, two other programs under NCCIC’s National Cybersecurity Assessments and Technical Services (NCATS) — Cyber Hygiene vulnerability scans and Phishing Campaign Assessment — have been offline since July 26. The Cyber Hygiene program remotely detects known vulnerabilities on internet-facing services. The Phishing Campaign Assessment program is part of a remote penetration testing service. Both programs are used by hundreds of customers across the country. Thirty-four states have received vulnerability scans through the Cyber Hygiene program, according to a DHS presentation given at […]

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US legislators put industrial control system security on the map

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After a spate of attacks on industrial control systems (ICS), the US this week officially recognized the need to secure them with a new bill. Continue reading US legislators put industrial control system security on the map→

Lawmakers advance bill to codify DHS cyber center for industrial plants

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The House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation that would establish a Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity center as the lead agency for handling threats to industrial control systems, like those underpinning the energy sector. The bill would make clear that DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) is the hub for mitigating ICS vulnerabilities and provide the private sector with a “permanent place for assistance to address cybersecurity risk,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-N.E., who introduced the bill, said at a markup. “We know we are vulnerable…to these cyberattacks on our energy grid, and the time is now to start building that resiliency in our energy grid,” Bacon stated. With DHS and the Department of Energy both concerning themselves with ICS, “there’s some ambiguity [on] who does what” on the issue, Bacon told CyberScoop after the hearing. “The NCCIC has been doing a lot of this,” he explained. […]

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Cisco Warns of Three Critical Bugs in Digital Network Architecture Platform

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The company urges customers to patch three vulnerabilities that received the highest severity rating of 10. Continue reading Cisco Warns of Three Critical Bugs in Digital Network Architecture Platform→

DHS cyber incident response teams closer to becoming permanently codified

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The House approved a bill on Monday that would make the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber incident response teams a permanent fixture within the agency. The DHS Cyber Incident Response Teams Act would codify the agency’s “cyber hunt and incident response teams,” which provide support to organizations running critical infrastructure. The teams often respond to cyber incidents and help organizations mitigate cybersecurity risks. “Everyone is a target,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the bill’s sponsor, on the House floor. “Our enemies don’t just attack individuals and their devices. They also put America’s critical infrastructure sectors in their crosshairs, endangering all aspects of civilian life.” The teams referenced by the bill currently operate in DHS’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). The bill also would authorize the secretary of Homeland Security to include cybersecurity specialists from the private sector in those response teams. “By fostering this new collaboration between government and private sector, […]

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Russian Embassy spokesperson confronts FBI, DHS officials in public event

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A Russian Embassy spokesperson challenged two senior U.S. officials Wednesday during a public event in D.C. about why the Trump administration refuses to collaborate with Russia to fight cybercrime.  The exchange happened at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) focused on a new report published Wednesday by the think tank and cybersecurity company McAfee. The report speaks to the economic impact of cybercrime.  Along with other countries, Russia was specifically named multiple times in both the report and panel discussion as a “state sanctuary” of cybercrime due to the “close relationship between the Russian state and Russian organized crime.” That accusation didn’t sit right with one Russian government employee in the crowd. “Once again without any proof, Russia was called a bad actor in cyberspace,” said Petr Svirin, the Russian Embassy’s first secretary during a question and answer session. “If you are so concerned, why the government […]

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Trisis has the security world spooked, stumped and searching for answers

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At first, technicians at multinational energy giant Schneider Electric thought they were looking at the everyday software used to manage equipment inside nuclear and petroleum plants around the world. They had no idea that the code carried the most dangerous industrial malware on the planet. More than four months have passed since a novel, highly sophisticated piece of malware forced an important oil and gas facility in the Middle East to suddenly shut down, but cybersecurity analysts still don’t know who wrote the code. Since last August, multiple teams of researchers in the public and private sectors have been examining what the perpetrators planted inside a nondescript Saudi computer network. It’s a rare case involving a computer virus specially engineered to sabotage industrial control systems (ICS) — the gear that keeps factories and refineries running. Manipulating these systems can have a destructive impact far beyond the network. Today, the incident’s magnitude and implications are […]

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House committee dings DHS’s cyber intelligence for fusion centers

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Fewer than one-in-four Homeland Security fusion centers across the country receive cyberthreat reporting or other intelligence products from DHS’ National Protection and Programs Directorate, hampering their nascent efforts to help defend the country against online attacks, a congressional report said Tuesday. Those efforts are further hampered because fusion center representatives do not sit on the floor of NPPD’s 24 hour watch center, the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee found. The report includes material from dozens of interviews and a long survey completed by 68 major fusion centers across the country. The centers were set up to integrate state and local law enforcement agencies into DHS’ homeland protection mission by providing them with threat warnings they could use to inform their local priorities and by vacuuming up local intelligence reporting in the hope that it could cast light on national trends or geographically dispersed terrorist […]

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Cyber companies urged to share — and not sell — threat info

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Companies who manage and distribute threat intelligence need to stop thinking of their curated feeds as a competitive advantage and instead share them as widely as possible, officials and executives from the power and telecoms sector urged last week. “”The information that can help everybody … better defend their networks is important to everybody, so it shouldn’t be a competitive advantage, it should be part of what we regularly share,”  senior Department of Homeland Security official John Felker told the Intelligence and National Security Summit Thursday. “When you do that, we all get better at it [cyberdefense].” DHS runs several programs that provide free threat intelligence to the private sector, noted former Homeland Security Undersecretary Suzanne Spaulding. Additionally, Congress passed a cyberthreat sharing law in December 2015, creating liability protections and other legal safe harbors for companies that shared information with DHS. AT&T Vice President of Global Public Policy Chris Boyer noted that the cutting edge of the […]

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