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Snowden leaks prompt firms to focus cyber security on insider threats

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At this weeks Def Con hacker gathering in Las Vegas, Tess Schrodinger sounded almost annoyed.

The whole insider-threat phenomenon, they act like its this new thing, the cyber security expert told the crowd.

Schrodinger then spent an hour ticking off a long string of insider threats long before Edward Snowden's famous leaks, from Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up Britain's House of Lords, to Brian Patrick Regan, an American Air Force sergeant convicted of trying to sell secrets to Saddam Hussein.

Suddenly we have to worry about this, Schrodinger told the Def Con crowd, even citing Judas to make her case. If you know your history, insider threat has been an issue before the beginning of time.

But even if insider threats can be traced back to the biblical era, the recent focus on them has had an impact on the business of cybersecurity. Pre-Snowden, much of the attention was devoted to protecting against cybercriminals and foreign hackers. Now companies are increasingly protecting themselves from their own employees. Cracking down too hard can stifle workplace creativity, but potentially losing millions from a single breach of intellectual property can be even more worrisome.

After private companies witnessed the damage a contractor in Hawaii could inflict on the nation's largest spy agency, theyre lining up to avoid a similar fate. And firms that specialize in protecting corporate data say thats been a boon.

Verizons 2014 threat report, which chronicles breaches in the last year, noted an uptick in internal espionage incidents, not because more necessarily occurred but because an emphasis on insider-focused security resulted in more getting detected.

The Snowden news, the report said, illustrates the risk that exists when an organization must place trust in individuals...Most insider misuse occurs within the boundaries of trust necessary to perform normal duties. Thats what makes it so difficult to prevent.

Even the former second-in-command at the National Security Agency has benefited.

Chris Inglis, who helps corporations guard against threats as an advisor for data security firm Securonix, said in an interview with The Times that the Snowden leaks have been good for business.

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Snowden leaks prompt firms to focus cyber security on insider threats

Agencies train librarians in software application

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The Librarians Registration Council of Nigeria on Friday said that it was making efforts to bridge the skills gap in information and communication technologies among librarians.

Its effort, it said, was in collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency.

To this end, the two organisations stated that they had organised a workshop on application of Free and Open Source Software in library operations.

According to them, the workshop was aimed to arm librarians with skills to become key players in the Information and Communication Technology sector, able to deploy and apply the ICTs to improve the lot of all information seekers.

The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of LRCN, Dr. Victoria Okojie, said the council was committed to ensuring that information professionals in Nigeria were at par with their counterparts in developed countries of the world.

It is in line with this wider picture that the council considered it appropriate to partner with the foremost public IT organisation, NITDA, in seeking to equip Information professionals and managers with competencies and skills that would enable them to choose and work with free and open source software in their libraries, Okojie said.

She said that financial resources available to libraries were not sufficient, hence only very few could afford to provide proprietary software to users.

The LRCN registrar stated that free and open source software is free, accessible and easy to maintain, but stated that most librarians were not informed of their availability and lacked requisite skills to deploy the facilities.

This skills-gap is what the workshop seeks to fill. Our desire is to train the over 4000 certified librarians in Nigeria if the resources are available, she said.

Our correspondent gathered that the workshop organised by the two bodies explored the possibilities FOSS offers for modernising Nigerian libraries and to facilitate information sharing and also strengthen technical capacity in deploying FOSS tools such as DSpace, Greenstone, Koha and CDS/ISIS.

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Agencies train librarians in software application

Julian Assange Urges Edward Snowden to be Careful if He Leaves Russia

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Anti-secrecy activist and Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange speaks during a live video-conference in Mexico city, on August 7, 2014.

Snowden, a former US intelligence operative who is wanted by the United States on espionage charges, was granted three-year residency by Moscow, allowing him to travel abroad, his lawyer said.

"Of course our advice is that he be extremely cautious in doing so for his physical security," Assange, a Snowden supporter, said in a videoconference held at a freedom of speech forum in Mexico City.

Appearing with a beard and long white hair, Assange has been holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London for more than two years as he fights a Swedish arrest warrant over sexual assault allegations.

The 43-year-old Australian fears that if he goes to Sweden he will be sent to the United States to face charges for publishing classified material.

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Julian Assange Urges Edward Snowden to be Careful if He Leaves Russia


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