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President Obama has identified cybersecurity as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter. Shortly after taking office, the President therefore ordered a thorough review of federal efforts to defend the U.S. information and communications infrastructure and the development of a comprehensive approach to securing America's digital infrastructure. In May 2009, the President accepted the recommendations of the resulting Cyberspace Policy Review, including the selection of an Executive Branch Cybersecurity Coordinator who will have regular access to the President. The Executive Branch was also directed to work closely with all key players in U.S. cybersecurity, including state and local governments and the private sector, to ensure an organized and unified response to future cyber incidents; strengthen public/private partnerships to find technology solutions that ensure U.S. security and prosperity; invest in the cutting-edge research and development necessary for the innovation and discovery to meet the digital challenges of our time; and begin a campaign to promote cybersecurity awareness and digital literacy from our boardrooms to our classrooms and begin to build the digital workforce of the 21st century. Finally, the President directed that these activities be conducted in a way that is consistent with ensuring the privacy rights and civil liberties guaranteed in the Constitution and cherished by all Americans.

A coalition of security experts from more than 30 organizations is urging enterprises to exert more pressure on software vendors to ensure that they use secure code development practices. The group, led by the SANS Institute and Mitre Corp., offered enterprises recent hacks of Google draft contract language that would require vendors to adhere to a strict set of security standards for software development. In essence, the terms would make vendors liable for software defects that lead to security breaches. "Nearly every attack is enabled by [programming] mistakes that provide a handhold for attackers," said Alan Paller, director of research at SANS, a security training and certification group.

Of course, a more general way to address this and other "business" generated problems / abuses (like expensive required "arbitration" by companies owned and in bed with the companies requiring the arbitration!), is to FORBID contract elements that effectively strip any party of certain "rights" (like the right to sue for defectives; the right to freedom of speech; the right to warranty protections; the right to hold either party to public or published promises / representations, etc.). Basically, by making LYING and DECEIT and NEGLIGENCE liability and culpability unrestricted. Or will we hear / be told that being honest and producing a quality product is "anti-business"? What!? Is this like, if I can't lie and cheat being in business isn't worth it!? If that is true, then those parties and businesses could just as well "go away"! Just as "conservatives" say other criminals like that should. One may have argued that the software industry would never have "gotten off the ground" (at least, as fast as it did) if such strict liability had been enforced (as say, was eventually and is more often applied to physical building and their defects / collapses). That is, that the EULAs and contracts typically accompanying software ("not represented as fit for any purpose" more or less!) had been restricted. On the other hand, we might have gotten software somewhat slower but BETTER - NOT being associated with or causing the BILLIONS of dollars in losses due to bugs, security holes, etc. Others will rail that this will merely "make lawyers richer". So what if it will? As long as government isn't primarily "on the side" of the majority of the people (you know, like a "democracy" should be), then being able to get a individual "hired gun" is one of the only ways for the "little guy" to effectively defend themselves from corporate criminals and other "special interest" elites.

Based out of Sydney, Australia, Exigo Tech is in the business of helping companies create robust IT infrastructure, develop intuitive applications, automate business processes and add value to their clients with digital transformation and business consulting. As a solution provider, Exigo Tech enables businesses to achieve high operational efficiency and enhanced productivity with their range of services in project management, cognitive solutions, Microsoft Dynamics and more. Exigo Tech is also recognised as one of the leading cloud service providers offering private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud solutions. Exigo Tech offers added agility to their customers via perfectly tailored disaster recovery solutions which is inclusive of managed services, backup, recovery and other security services. Exigo Tech provides app or application development services which augments the digital transformation journey for many of their clients.

This white paper will discuss in detail why application security throughout the entire software development lifecycle is necessary for businesses of all shapes and sizes to prevent web security breaches and how it helps cut down business cost and increase the level of organizational information security.

"This article was written with several goals: to hurry along the process of getting Applied Cryptography off the go-to stack of developer references, to point out the right book to replace it with, and to spell out what you else you need to know even after reading that replacement. Finally, I wrote this as a sort of open letter to Schneier and his co-authors."

Since they were enacted in 1998, the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), codified in section 1201 of the Copyright Act, have not been used as Congress envisioned. Congress meant to stop copyright infringers from defeating anti-piracy protections added to copyrighted works and to ban the "black box" devices intended for that purpose.1 In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright infringement. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to several important public policy priorities: