Cyber's new frontier: Small and medium

Large enterprises may be under cyberattack, but at least they have the resources, in theory at any rate, to defend themselves. Both outside and inside government, it's a different story for smaller organizations, an audience at George Washington University heard this week.

Large enterprises may be under cyberattack, but at least they have the resources, in theory at any rate, to defend themselves.

Both outside and inside government, it’s a different story for smaller organizations, an audience at George Washington University heard this week.

‘With the mid tier, forget about it,’ said veteran cybersecurity executive Scott Kaine, addressing the network security posture of most small and medium-sized critical infrastructure owners and operators.

He said many lacked the resources to properly defend their own infrastructure. ‘That’s where, whether it’s DHS or the National Guard, we need the cavalry,’ he told the GWU Center for Cyber and Homeland Security annual conference Tuesday.

Other panelists agreed. Kristen Todt, recently named executive director of President Barack Obama’s new Commision on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, said the panel would be taking an approach to critical infrastructure that encompassed ‘the small, the medium and the large.’

‘If you look at where the risk resides,’ she added, ‘It’s not always with the top tier.’

Kaine, CEO of penetration testing and security services firm Delta Risk, added that the problem wasn’t confined to the private sector. ‘In the public sector, we see the smaller agencies and departments … also need help.’

In part for that reason, noted Eric Goldstein, advisor to Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Andy Ozment, the government was moving to an approach where the focus was the systems, the data, the other assets ‘where the consequences of a breach are greatest.’

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure