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Issa-Cos News ISSA-COS NEWS Information Systems Security Association The Global Voice of the Information Security Professional Colorado Springs Chapter Information Systems Security Association WWW.ISSA - COS.ORG Colorado Springs Chapter VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4 A P R I L 2 0 1 2 INSIDE THIS Notes from the Board of ISSA-COS ISSUE: n this installment of the ISSA-COS news- #2 ANYTHING you say in your resume U.S. Accelerating 2 Cyberweapon Re- letter we’ll cover some of the basics of: can and will be used against you by the HR search department. Do not inflate anything, do not I Getting your next job, Has the ‘Cyber Pearl 3 exaggerate or make any statements that can- Harbor’ already What you should do, not be verified. Believe in yourself and re- happened? What to look at when scanning member that your resume is an important your resume and why. reflection of who you are and what you stand Growing unease 3 over illegal cell for – also keep in mind that your next job de- phone jammers If you are - right now - looking at the job pends on it. market – and – you want to get feedback on News Ripped From 4 #3 DO Reconnect with former class- The Headlines your resume – please see the end of this article for that support from ISSA-COS. Yes, mates, mentors and co-workers. Part of the Failed Attack Leaves 9 we will help you with your job search. answer to your job search is networking. Do Clues to Anonymous not discount anyone – you need to cast a How hackers are 9 Let’s start off by wide net to find opportu- caught out by law looking at least 10 things nities. The world of work enforcers to consider when you are is a big place. Also – Anonymous mem- 9 getting yourself ready for know that at ISSA Colo- bers tricked into your next job search: rado Springs – you have giving up bank de- a built-in network of tails #1 Dust off your re- nearly 400 technical and China Has A Scary 10 sume. Look at it care- management profession- Plan fully. Look at the Job als who each know their Occupying the High 10 Description. Be precise share of other profes- Ground in the way you show the sionals. They are much Chapter Meetings 11 prospective employer more likely to hear about how YOU map yourself Training 11 a job opening than you and your skills directly to Upcoming ISSA 11 looking for one in a news- their needs. Make sure Events paper. Consider talking that you can specify in no GET A JOB! Article Submission 12 about your job search at uncertain terms EXACTLY the next luncheon, event, The Little White 12 how YOU are the BEST Part 1 or get together. Box That Can Hack MATCH for the position from among the com- Your Network petition. Make sure you stand out. #4 Become very humble. Ask for help. Also make sure that your name, email and Do not try to do the job search alone. Keep in phone number is on every page. Don’t expect mind that some folks are new to the game the pages will stay together – check and be and have only a basic understanding of your sure that these are there before you send value proposition. Learn to sell – not tell. Ex- your resume out. plain your value by letting others know how you solve problems, how you can help them – listen to their issues and challenges. In the (Continued on page 5) The ISSA Colorado Springs Newsletter incorporates open source news articles as a training method to educate readers on security matters in compliance with USC Title 17, section 107, Paragraph a. The views expressed in articles obtained from public sources within this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of ISSA, this Chapter or its leadership. P A G E 2 U.S. Accelerating Cyberweapon Research By Ellen Nakashima, Published: The agency also has launched new March 18, The Washington Post •cyber-development initiatives, including a “fast-track” program. The Pentagon is accelerating efforts to develop a new generation of cyber- “We need cyber options that can be weapons capable of disrupting enemy executed at the speed, scale and pace” of military networks even when other military weapons, Kaigham J. those networks are not con- •Gabriel, DARPA deputy director, said in nected to the Internet, according testimony last month to Congress. to current and former U.S. offi- Pentagon officials, meanwhile, are cials. developing a congressionally mandated The possibility of a confrontation strategy for the rapid acquisition of cyber- with Iran or Syria has highlighted weapons that can keep pace with threats for American military planners the and technology. value of cyberweapons that can Officials are researching cyberweap- be used against an enemy whose ons that can target “offline” military sys- most important targets, such as tems in part by harnessing emerging tech- air defense systems, do not rely nology that uses radio signals to insert on Internet-based networks. But computer coding into networks remotely. adapting such cyberweapons can take months or even years of arduous techni- “To affect a system, you have to have cal work. access to it, and we have not perfected the capability W h e n “A key aspect of reaching out U.S. military and accessing of both p l a n n e r s a system at will were looking Stuxnet and that is not con- for ways to nected to the Internet,” said Joel Harding, the Estonian disable Libya’s air defense system before an independent consultant who is a former NATO’s aerial attacks last year, they dis- cyberattacks is military officer and former director of the cussed using cybertechnology. But the Information Operations Institute. that the idea was quickly dismissed because no identity of the effective option was available, said cur- Even if an operator gains access, he rent and former U.S. officials. said, “unless you already have custom- perpetrators, written code for a system, chances are we They estimated that crafting a cyber- don’t have a weapon for that because though weapon would have taken about a year, each system has different software and including the time needed to assess the suspected, updates.” cannot be target system for vulnerabilities. In some cases, as with command- “We weren’t ready to do that in and-control systems, military assets rely known with Libya,” said a former U.S. official, who on Internet connections, making them certainty.” spoke on the condition of anonymity be- theoretically easier to target. cause of the sensitivity of the discussions. “We’re not ready to do that now, either.” Without that connectivity, an attacker would have to rely on other means — for Last year, to speed up the develop- instance, physically inserting into those ment of cyberweapons, as well as defen- systems portable devices such as thumb sive technology, then-Deputy Defense drives or computer components that have Secretary William J. Lynn III and Marine been altered. Corps Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Read More: placed $500 million over five years into http://www.washingtonpost.com/worl the budget of the Defense Advanced Re- d/national-security/us-accelerating- search Projects Agency, one of the De- fense -Department’s premier research cyberweapon- organizations. re- search/2012/03/13/gIQAMRGVLS_s tory.html?hpid=z1 ISSA - C O S N E W S VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4 P A G E 3 Has the ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor’ already happened? By Philip Ewing Monday, March 26th, 2012 10:54 am Posted in Cyber Security The Russians are picking our pockets, the Chinese are stealing our most vital secrets, and there’s nothing we can do about it – and it’s all going to get worse. That was the basic conclusion after Friday’s Air Force Association cyber-conference, where speaker after speaker drove home the utter futility and helplessness of today’s cy- ber climate, all the while warning that the problem will only grow. He described how a company had approached Mandi- Richard Bejtlich, chief security officer for the info- ant befuddled that someone would want to steal a certain security firm Mandiant, said 100 percent of the high-profile proprietary device, because it only worked in combination intrusions his company tracks were done with “valid creden- with a specific chemical formula owned by another com- tials” – meaning the cyber bad-guys had been able to steal a pany. Naturally, it wasn’t long before the second company real user’s login and password, obviating the need for more discovered it was compromised, and also befuddled be- complex attacks. cause its chemical formula would only be useful to someone who had information about the device manufactured by the The typical time between an intrusion and its discovery first. is 416 days, he said – down from two or three years – and the way most companies find out about them is when they Online miscreants are also becoming more sophisti- get a visit from the FBI. cated at a strategic level, Bejtlich said: He described how they might target small companies that were merging with The publicly available malware in the so-called “cyber larger ones, to avoid trying to attack the bigger firm’s online underground” is now so good that you can do a lot of dam- security. Instead, by compromising a small company’s com- age without a dedicated team of code-writers coming up with puter networks, the bad guys can then get into the new com- their own stuff, speakers said.
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