–UK’s Ministry of Defence Plans to Recruit Hundreds for Joint Cyber Reserve Unit

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said that the UK’s Ministry of Defence

(MoD) is aiming to recruit hundreds of IT experts to serve as cyber reservists. Last year, UK cyber defense workers blocked 400,000 sophisticated cyber threats against government systems. The reservists will work along with regular IT specialists in the Joint Cyber Reserve Unit, which will have the task of protecting critical networks and data.

MoD has budgeted GBP 500 million (US $810 million) for the program. (más…)

  –Shortage of Cyber Security Professionals Felt Worldwide (October 14, 2013) Countries around the world, including the US, the UK, Brazil, and Indonesia, are establishing cyber forces to help defend critical networks from attacks. However, there are not nearly as many qualified specialists as are needed. The governments are also facing competition from private industry for the scarce resources; private industry offers higher salaries. Most universities are not graduating high numbers of students with necessary skills, and the coursework is more theoretical than practical. Hacking contests around the country are designed to identify people who have a talent in the area, and to raise awareness of the need for talented specialists. (más…)

 –NSA Attempts to Crack Tor Are (Mostly) Unsuccessful (October 7, 2013) According to leaked documents, the NSA attempted to monitor targets using Tor by exploiting vulnerabilities in Firefox. NSA and its UK counterpart, GCHQ, have been trying for some time to crack Tor. Short for The Onion Router, Tor is an online anonymization service that helps users hide their identities and their online activity by routing encrypted traffic through other computers, which are volunteered by those machines’ owners. One of the attempts to break Tor involved infecting the computers of Tor users. The report indicated that the NSA has been unsuccessful in decrypting Tor communications but had managed to “de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users.” (más…)

 –FBI Seizes Silk Road Underground Black Market Website (October 2 & 3, 2013) US law enforcement officials have taken down Silk Road, an underground black market forum known for distributing illegal drugs and offering hacking services for hire and hacking products for sale. Silk Road, which was reachable only through the Tor network, conducted transactions exclusively in Bitcoins. The operation included the arrest of Silk Road’s operator Ross William Ulbricht. Ulbricht is being charged with narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. (más…)