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America's civil engineers think the nation's aging and rusty infrastructure is just not making the grade. The American Society of Civil Engineers issued an infrastructure report card Wednesday giving a bleak cumulative ranking of D. "We've been talking about this for many many years," Patrick Natale, the group's executive director, told CNN. "We really haven't had the leadership or will to take action on it. The bottom line is that a failing infrastructure cannot support a thriving economy." Video Watch what the report had to say » The ranking -- which grades the condition of 15 infrastructure entities such as roads, bridges and dams -- is the same as the the last time such a report was issued, in 2005. In 2001, the grade was D+, slightly better but still poor. Roads got a D-, with Americans spending more than $4.2 billion a year stuck in traffic. "Poor conditions cost motorists $67 billion a year in repairs and operating costs. One-third of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition and 45 percent of major urban highways are congested," the engineers' report said. Drinking water, D-. "America's drinking water systems face an annual shortfall of at least $11 billion to replace aging facilities," the report said. "Leaking pipes lose an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water a day." Inland waterways, D-. "The average age of all federally owned or operated locks is nearly 60 years, well past their planned design life of 50 years. The cost to replace the present system of locks is estimated at more than $125 billion." Wastewater systems, D-. "Aging systems discharge billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into U.S. surface waters each year." Don't Miss * Congress looks to boot zoos, golf from infrastructure list Levees, D-. Many levees are locally owned and maintained, but they are aging and their "reliability" is not known. "With an increase in development behind these levees, the risk to public health and safety from f

US senators have drafted legislation that would give the federal government unprecedented authority over the nation's critical infrastructure, including the power to shut down or limit traffic on private networks during emergencies. The bill would also establish a broad set of cybersecurity standards that would be imposed on the government and the private sector, including companies that provide software, IT work or other services to networks that are deemed to be critical infrastructure. It would also mandate licenses for all individuals administering to strategically important networks. The bill, which is being co-sponsored by Senate Commerce Committee chairman John Rockefeller IV and Senator Olympia Snowe, was expected to be referred to a senate committee on Wednesday. Shortly after a working draft of the legislation began circulating, some industry groups lined up to criticize it for giving the government too much control over the internet and the private companies that make it possible. "This gives the president too much power and there's too little oversight, if there's any at all," said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It gives him the power to act in the interest of national security, a vague term that has been broadly defined." Nojeim was pointing to language in the bill that permits the president to "order the limitation or shutdown of internet traffic to and from any compromised federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network" after first declaring a national cybersecurity emergency. A separate provision allows the executive in chief to "order the disconnection of any federal government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security." "It applies to any critical infrastructure," Nojeim added. "Surely, the internet is one." The bill would also require NIST, or the National Institute of Standards and Techn

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials. The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its website. "The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," a senior intelligence official told the Journal. "So have the Russians." The espionage appeared pervasive across the United States and does not target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official told the paper, referring to electrical systems. "There were a lot last year." The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was not immediately available for comment on the newspaper report. Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on." Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

The key points of the plan closely mirror recommendations offered late last year by a bipartisan commission of computer security experts, which urged then president-elect Obama to set up a high-level post to tackle cyber security, consider new regulations to combat cyber crime and shore up the security of the nation's most sensitive computer networks. The strategy, as outlined in a broader policy document on homeland security priorities posted on the Whitehouse.gov Web site Wednesday, states the following goals: * Strengthen Federal Leadership on Cyber Security: Declare the cyber infrastructure a strategic asset and establish the position of national cyber advisor who will report directly to the president and will be responsible for coordinating federal agency efforts and development of national cyber policy. * Initiate a Safe Computing R&D Effort and Harden our Nation's Cyber Infrastructure: Support an initiative to develop next-generation secure computers and networking for national security applications. Work with industry and academia to develop and deploy a new generation of secure hardware and software for our critical cyber infrastructure. * Protect the IT Infrastructure That Keeps America's Economy Safe: Work with the private sector to establish tough new standards for cyber security and physical resilience. * Prevent Corporate Cyber-Espionage: Work with industry to develop the systems necessary to protect our nation's trade secrets and our research and development. Innovations in software, engineering, pharmaceuticals and other fields are being stolen online from U.S. businesses at an alarming rate. * Develop a Cyber Crime Strategy to Minimize the Opportunities for Criminal Profit: Shut down the mechanisms used to transmit criminal profits by shutting down untraceable Internet payment schemes. Initiate a grant and training program to provide federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies the tools they need to detect and prosecute cyber crime. *

Is the price to safeguard America's information systems and networks on a collision course with efforts to rescue the economy? One would hope not, but the $789 billion stimulus package that contains nearly $10 billions for IT-related projects offered very little for cybersecurity. Still, the president sees protecting government and private-sector information systems as crucial to the economic vitality of the country. So, when Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace Melissa Hathaway hands the President her recommendations on securing the nation's information infrastructure later this month, a sharper picture should emerge on how much money the government will need to spend to do just that. What Price Security? The government isn't a spendthrift in protecting its IT networks; it earmarked $6.8 billion a year on cybersecurity this fiscal year, up from $4.2 billion five years ago, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. But is that enough? Appropriating money to find new and innovative ways to protect our critical information infrastructure doesn't seem to be a government priority, at least not yet. Of the $147 billion the government planned to spend on all types of research and development this fiscal year, only $300 million or 0.2 percent was slated for cybersecurity, according to the Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. By comparison, the budget contained five times as much money $1.5 billion for nanotechnology R&D.

Obama administration cybersecurity advisor Melissa Hathaway, in her much anticipated speech before the RSA Conference on Wednesday, suggested that the findings of a study she submitted Friday to President Obama calls for cybersecurity policy to be run from the White House. "The White House must lead the way forward with leadership that draws upon the strength, advice and ideas of the entire nation," said Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils. Scant on details, Hathaway in her 2,400-word speech did not explain how federal cybersecurity should be governed, even if it's based in the White House. Two months ago, President Obama charged Hathaway to head up a team to review current cybersecurity policies and processes. "It can be said that the federal government is not organized appropriately to address this growing problem because responsibilities for cyberspace are distributed across a wide array of federal departments and agencies, many with overlapping authorities and none with sufficient decision authority to direct actions that can address the problem completely," Hathaway said. "We need an agreed way forward based on common understanding and acceptance of the problem." Hathaway said the team she assembled addressed all missions and activities associated with the information and communications infrastructure, including the missions of computer network defense, law enforcement investigations, military and intelligence activities and the intersection of information assurance, counter intelligence, counter terrorism, telecommunications policies and general critical infrastructure protection. Task force members held more than 40 meetings with different stakeholder groups during the 60 days and received and read more than 100 papers that provided specific recommendations and goals, she said. "We identified over 250 needs, tasks, and recommendations," Hathaway said. "We also solicited input from gov

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is ineffective and major payment processing infrastructure improvements are needed to secure credit and debit card transactions, lawmakers said Tuesday. The House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science, and Technology, part of the House Committee on Homeland Security, held a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to examine the effectiveness of PCI DSS. "The bottom line is that if we care about keeping money out of the hands of terrorists and organized criminals, we have to do more, and we have to do it now," said U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), who chairs the subcommittee. "The payment card industry and issuing banks need to commit to investing in infrastructure upgrades here in the United States." Clarke called on the industry to implement encryption on its credit and debit card processing networks and said the deployment of chip and PIN technology could significantly reduce the amount of stolen payment data. Chip and PIN technology is used in Asia and Europe. The technology replaces the magnetic strip on the back of a card and adds a four-digit personal identification number (PIN) to confirm a payment.

eBook: Compliance 2.0: Comprehensive, Scalable and Sustainable Systems http://go.techtarget.com/r/6705298/226727/1 Enterprises are moving towards a top-down approach to compliance that starts with risk assessment and prioritization, experts agree. In this expert e-book gain insight from senior IT and security officers who are taking a holistic approach to compliance for long-term sustainability and cost reduction. Learn which quantitative tools you can use to prioritize your efforts, maximize your investments and get key business executives to support your next project. Learn how to: ** Bring your data into governance ** Understand and manage your risk exposure ** Get the right people on board to support your strategy and policies Start building your true compliance infrastructure: http://go.techtarget.com/r/6705299/226727/2

In a move that could reshape the federal government's cybersecurity efforts, President Obama on Monday said a former Booz Allen consultant would conduct an immediate two-month review of all related agency activities. The announcement indicates that the White House's National Security Council may wrest significant authority away from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which weathered withering criticism last fall for its lackluster efforts. Obama selected Melissa Hathaway, who worked for the director of national intelligence in the Bush administration and was director of an multi-agency "Cyber Task Force," to conduct the review with an eye to ensuring that cybersecurity efforts are well-integrated and competently managed. "The president is confident that we can protect our nation's critical cyber infrastructure while at the same time adhering to the rule of law and safeguarding privacy rights and civil liberties," said John Brennan, the president's homeland security adviser. Hathaway's appointment comes as Obama plans to overhaul the National Security Council, expanding its membership and effectively centralizing more decision-making in the White House staff. That would vest more authority in a staff run by James L. Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant who warned at a speech in Munich over the weekend that terrorists could use "cyber-technologies" to cause catastrophic damage. During a panel discussion that CNET News wrote about last fall, Hathaway defended Homeland Security's efforts to develop what it called a National Cyber Security Initiative, saying there was "unprecedented bipartisan support" for it. "Over the past year cyber exploitation has grown more sophisticated, more targeted, and we expect these trends to continue," she added. "Our cybersecurity approach to date has not kept up with the threats we've seen."

One of the more interesting panel discussions at the IDC Cloud Computing Forum on Feb 18th in San Francisco was about managing the complexities of security, privacy and compliance in the Cloud. The simple answer according to panelists Carolyn Lawson, CIO of California Public Utilities Commission, and Michael Mucha, CISO of Stanford Hospital and Clinics is "it ain't easy!" "Both of us, in government and in health, are on the front-lines," Lawson proclaimed. "Article 1 of the California Constitution guarantees an individual's right to privacy and if I violate that I've violated a public trust. That's a level of responsibility that most computer security people don't have to face. If I violate that trust I can end up in jail or hauled before the legislature," she said. "Of course, these days with the turmoil in the legislature, she joked, "the former may be preferable to the later." Stanford's Mucha said that his security infrastructure was built on a two-tiered approach using identity management and enterprise access control. Mucha said that the movement to computerize heath records nationwide was moving along in fits and starts, as shown by proposed systems likeMicrosoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s Health Vault and Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s Personal Health Record. "The key problem is who is going to pay for the computerized of health records. It's not as much of a problem at Stanford as it is at a lot of smaller hospitals, but it's still a huge problem." Mucha said that from his perspective security service providers in the cloud and elsewhere are dealing with a shrinking security parameter or fence, which is progressing from filing cabinets, to devices, to files, and finally to the individual, who under the latest Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules has certain rights, including rights to access and amend their health information and to obtain a record of when and why their Protected Health Information (PHI) record has bee

In the paradises of broadband - Japan, South Korea and Sweden - nearly everyone can surf far faster and far cheaper than anyone in the United States. What is their secret sauce and how can we get some? The short answer is that broadband deployment in those countries was spurred by a combination of heavy government involvement, subsidies and lower corporate profits that may be tough for the economic and political system in the United States to accept. Those countries have also tried to encourage demand for broadband by paying schools, hospitals and other institutions to use high-speed Internet services. Sweden has built one of the fastest and most widely deployed broadband networks in Europe because its government granted tax breaks for infrastructure investments, directly subsidized rural deployment, and, perhaps most significantly, required state-owned municipal utilities to create local backbone networks, reducing the cost for the local telephone company to provide service. Japan let telecommunications companies write down about one-third of their investment in broadband the first year, rather than the usual policy, which requires them to spread the deductions over 22 years. The Japanese government also subsidized low-cost loans for broadband construction and paid for part of the wiring of rural areas.

The Heartland data breach is an opportunity for the US government to standardise data breach notification laws. Bill Conner, chairman, president and CEO of Entrust, claimed that following the revelation that more than 100 million credit cards could have been compromised, the government needs to continue to move quickly to standardise data breach notification laws and call for technology, such as encryption and stronger authentication, that truly protects consumer information. Conner said: "Cybercrime continues to grow and is increasingly affecting more and more of this country's citizens. To slow the upward trend of cybercrime in this country, all organisations - enterprise, consumer and even governments - need to carefully review current security approaches and identify key gaps within their infrastructures." He further called for Congress to pass a data breach notification law that better protects consumer identities through stronger data security standards with strong encryption. "This is an opportunity to do something about a security issue that impacts all Americans", said Conner.

Data Privacy Trends: Randy Sabett, Information Security Attorney March 26, 2009 Activity at the State Level Points Toward a Federal Data Breach Notification Law Data privacy legislation -- the trend started in California and is being discussed heatedly in Massachusetts today. Data breach notification and privacy laws have now been enacted in 40 separate states, and government observers think we're close to seeing federal legislation proposed. In an exclusive interview, Randy Sabett, a noted privacy/information security attorney, discusses: Trends in state data privacy legislation; What these laws mean to businesses; The Obama Administration's approach to data privacy; Trends to keep an eye on throughout 2009. Randy V. Sabett, CISSP, is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, where he is a member of the Internet, Communications & Data Protection Practice. He counsels clients on information security, privacy, IT licensing, and patents, dealing with such issues as Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), digital and electronic signatures, federated identity, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Sarbanes-Oxley, state and federal information security and privacy laws, identity theft and security breaches. He served as a Commissioner for the Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency.

Here are five interesting factoids regarding information security culled from documents and statements accompanying President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget: The current number of positions filled in the federal IT workforce totals 17,785, with 8,407 of them - or 47 percent - deemed IT security. The Department of Homeland Security seeks $75.1 million more in the coming year to develop and deploy cybersecurity technologies for the entire government to counter continuing, real-world national cyber threats and apply effective analysis and risk mitigation strategies to detect and deter threats. Homeland Security also seeks $37.2 million, a $6.6 million increase, to address critical capability gaps identified in the government's Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Specifically, says DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, this effort would seek and/or develop technologies to secure the nation's critical information infrastructure and networks. Nearly half of the federal workforce - 2.7 million individuals - have been issued credentials that provide for digital signature, encryption, archiving of documents, multi-factor authentication and reduced sign-on to improve security and facilitate information sharing. The total federal IT budget for 2010, including funds earmarked to secure data and systems, tops $75.8 billion, up $5.1 billion or 7.2 percent from the current fiscal year.

Data classification is a cornerstone of good privacy & security management. If you can measure it, you can manage it, right? First you have to know where it is.

Why classify data? Classifying data can help make data more accessible (or less accessible) to the users in your environment who need it. For example, suppose the Human Resources department created a folder on the file server within their department called Litigation. In this folder they place files that are needed for any litigation the company is associated with. The permissions on the folder are configured so that HR employees can edit the contents of the folder and add documents. Senior management can read the documents in the litigation folder, and the HR manager can remove documents that are no longer needed. The question is, how is it determined that a document is no longer needed and how do we apply these criteria to existing files in such a way that minimizes user interaction with them? The new classification feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 makes it possible to automatically assign classification information to files on file servers and apply policy to them based on that information. Classification in Windows Server 2008 R2 consists of several elements: properties, rules, and a policy segment including reporting and file management. Properties are the fields that you wish to assign a value for, and the rules are the criteria that set these values. There are other methods of classification available as well, including applications and scripts. More detailed examination of the methods of configuring the File Classification Infrastructure will follow in a future post. For the above example, a rule would be used to label a set of files in the Litigation folder. Adding a label such as Litigation-Case Number X (where X is the number of the case) can allow easy organization of files for each litigation case. When the classification rule is run against the specified folder, all files meeting the rule conditions would be classified with an appropriate label. You could use an expiration date here, but doing that might require reclassification of files if the ex

President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul U.S. infrastructure includes constructing a nationwide "smart grid" that promises to help address many of our current energy challenges. The smart grid plan offers the hope that it "will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation." While these are noble societal goals, smart grid technologies and systems as envisioned also raise concerns about individual privacy rights. Part of what makes the smart grid "smart" is its ability to know a lot about the energy-consuming devices in our homes and to monitor activity for those devices to help determine when power should be used or limited. Such knowledge is useful in regulating power consumption to use energy more efficiently. In addition to reaching into homes to regulate devices, information about usage and activities could be extracted from homes. Home energy consumption patterns could be gathered and analyzed on a room-by-room and device-by-device basis to determine which devices are used and at what time of day. Although this sort of information may not be considered terribly invasive for some, for others anything that violates the sanctity of "home" may cause tremendous concern.

Both panels that advise the national coordinator for health IT plan to focus on privacy and security standards needed to support meaningful use of electronic health records when they meet later this month, according to notices in today's Federal Register. The Health IT Policy Committee, led by Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health IT, will direct more of its discussion at its upcoming Sept. 18 meeting on health information privacy and security as it makes progress in defining meaningful use under the stimulus law, according to the notice. Likewise, the companion Health IT Standards Committee, which meets Sept. 15, will concentrate on refining standards recommendations made by its privacy and security work group. At the Standards Committee's previous meeting Aug. 20, its privacy and security workgroup presented standards for authentication, authorization, auditing and secure data transmission of health information in EHR products as well as the infrastructure that hosts them. The work of the panel includes protecting data inside an enterprise as well as data exchange between enterprises, "because security is an end to end process," noted Dr. John Halamka, the committee's chairman in a post on his blog, "Life as a Healthcare CIO."

Online crime is increasingly hitting small and mid-size companies in the U.S., draining those entities' bank accounts through fraudulent transfers. The problem has gotten so bad that a financial services group recently sent out a warning about the trend, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued an alert today. "In the past six months, financial institutions, security companies, the media and law enforcement agencies are all reporting a significant increase in funds transfer fraud involving the exploitation of valid banking credentials belonging to small and medium sized businesses," says a bulletin sent on Aug. 21 to member financial institutions by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, (FS-ISAC). The FS-ISAC is part of the government-private industry umbrella working with the Department of Homeland Security and Treasury Department to share information about critical threats to the country's infrastructure. The member-only alert described the problem and told its members to implement many of the precautions and monitoring currently used to detect consumer bank and credit card fraud.

"Rep. Loretta Sanchez, Chair, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities With many committees and subcommittees having oversight over government cybersecurity, Rep. Loretta Sanchez thinks it would be a good idea to gather them together to map out steps Congress can take to help secure government IT."

US Government agencies collaborate to help secure information assets & protect our infrastructure and citizens? What an idea!