FBI assesses al Qaeda's cyberthreat

The FBI explained how its anti-cyber crime task force works at a Congressional hearing this week, and outlined the Bureau's latest accomplishments. They include catching the masterminds of a coordinated raid on over 1,000 ATM machines. Neither the FBI nor the White House thinks the United States is prepared to stop a really bad attack through cyberspace on our financial or physical networks. Steven R. Chabinsky, one of the FBI's Cyber Division directors told a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that terrorists do not require long term, persistent network access to accomplish their goals. And that limited windows of opportunity could destroy portions of our networked infrastructure. The FBI's first line of defense against cyber crime is its Cyber Division. About 2,000 special agents with instruction in the field, and another 1,000 with more advanced training.

More than half of the nation's hospitals and health care providers surveyed intend to buy more cybersecurity tools to safeguard against breaches of electronic medical records. This is in response to requirements in the economic stimulus law and reported in FCW. A new survey of 186 health care providers and associates show that More than 90 percent of the survey respondents said their organizations have either changed, or plan to change, their policies and procedures to prevent and detect data breaches. Over 75 percent plan to do additional staff training against breaches, and 75 percent are revising their organization's security policies and procedures.

The Social Security Administration receives passing grades on computer safety. In a new audit, the agency's inspector general says Social Security is meeting requirements under the Federal Information Security Management Act (or FISMA). The report praises internal security controls, including intrusion detection, closed circuit television and automated system checks. But there is room for improvement: The IG found significant deficiencies in the agency's financial system controls.

Hoping to bolster cyber security for the federal government, the intelligence community has made an investment in a California company specializing in the detection of malware. WashingtonTechnology reports, the venture capital arm of the intelligence community, In-Q-Tel, made the investment in the cyber security company FireEye. Terms were not disclosed. In a statement, FireEye and In-Q-Tel said the investment will speed up the company's product development. FireEye makes an appliance that monitors inbound network traffic. The appliance contains software tools that analyze the traffic and route suspicious messages to an offline computer for further examination. If the suspicious messages are found to be malware, the appliance alerts systems administrators.