Federal Drive

Global cybersecurity threats at record levels

NSF awards million dollar cyber grants

Federal News Network Staff

August 26, 2010 8:30 am

1 min read

Cybersecurity Update – Tune in weekdays at 30 minutes past the hour for the latest cybersecurity news on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Amy Morris (6-10 a.m.) and the DorobekINSIDER with Chris Dorobek (3-7 p.m.). IBM’s X-Force says that’s a record level. Their 2010 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report shows that more than 4,000 new vulnerabilities were documented in the first half of the year. Of those, 55 percent had no vendor-supplied patch. The leading threat – web application vulnerabilities. Cloud computing and virtualization were also key security issues.

The National Science Foundation issues grant money for research into increasing security of cyber information used for intelligence and counterterrorism. The research will look into cross-matching datasets, and the information provided to them, to support intelligence, forensics and disease control efforts. The funding will be used to develop a more secure system, and to maintain privacy, the New New Internet reports. The University of Texas at Dallas and Purdue University received one-million dollars of funding for the research.

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