An ounce of prevention

26 January 2015 By Richard Beales Follow @richardbeales1

The U.S. military knows it has a problem and wants to defend itself better. The World Economic Forum hopes to quantify the dangers for companies. But the White House, while right to talk up the issue, seems more focused on getting information than protecting it.

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Nearly every U.S. weapons program tested in fiscal year 2014 showed “significant vulnerabilities” to cyberattacks, including misconfigured, unpatched and outdated software, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester said in his annual report, released on Jan. 20.

Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation, said program managers had worked to resolve problems discovered in previous years and security was improving, but this year’s testing had revealed new vulnerabilities.

The World Economic Forum on Jan. 19 released a report outlining a framework for quantifying the threat from cyberattacks.

In the week beginning Jan. 12, U.S. President Barack Obama and his staff laid out steps his administration is taking to tackle the problem of cybersecurity, including legislative proposals to increase information sharing, force businesses to tell customers if personal data is compromised, and strengthen the powers of law enforcers to investigate and prosecute cybercrimes.

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