-----Original Message----- From: InfraGard [mailto:infragard@private] Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 9:22 AM To: Information Technology Subject: [Information_technology] Daily News 07/09/03 July 08, Washington Post Dissertation could be security threat. When George Mason University graduate student Sean Gorman began work on a master's degree in geography five years ago, his original intention was to map the physical infrastructure of the Internet, to see who was connected, who was not, and to measure its economic impact. Using unclassified, publicly available material found on the Internet, Gorman has now mapped every business and industrial sector in the American economy, layering on top the fiber-optic network that connects them. In the fiber-optic network, every fiber carries the impulses responsible for Internet traffic, telephones, cell phones, military communications, bank transfers, air traffic control, signals to the power grids and water systems, among other things. Using mathematical formulas, Gorman probes for critical links, trying to answer the question: "If I were Osama bin Laden, where would I want to attack?" Some argue that the critical targets should be publicized because it would force the government and industry to protect them. However, Michael Vatis, founder and first director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, noted the dangerous time gap between exposing the weaknesses and patching them. John McCarthy, who oversees Gorman's project at GMU's National Center for Technology and Law, hopes that by identifying vulnerabilities, the research will help solve a risk management problem: "We know we can't have a policeman at every bank and switching facility, so what things do you secure?" Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23689-2003Jul 7.html July 03, Associated Press Illinois supercomputer center to head military cybersecurity effort. Hoping to thwart hackers, the military is launching a new research effort at the University of Illinois to improve the security of battlefield computers and communications systems. Officials at the school's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on Thursday announced an initial $5.7 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to establish a new research center to develop technology against enemy hackers, NCSA director Dan Reed said. Other research projects will include developing remotely programmed radios and refining ways for monitoring battlefield environments. The NCSA is a high-performance computing center that develops and deploys computing, networking and information technology for government and industry. Software developers will try to determine the best way to share information among military forces without fear of interception. The government also is seeking a framework for determining quickly when and how a computer network is under attack, Reed said. Source: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6288 Virus: #1 Virus in USA: WORM_KLEZ.H Source: http://wtc.trendmicro.com/wtc/wmap.html, Trend World Micro Virus Tracking Center [Infected Computers, North America, Past 24 hours, #1 in United States] Top 10 Target Ports: 137 (netbios-ns), 445 (microsoft-ds), 80 (www), 1434 (ms-sql-m), 113 (ident), 139 (netbios-ssn), 4662 (eDonkey2000), 0 (---), 2234 (directplay), 25 (smtp) Source: http://isc.incidents.org/top10.html; Internet Storm Center _______________________________________________ Information_technology mailing list Information_technology@listserv
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