Reposted from CNBC

The digital economy is set to unlock tremendous economic value for countries over time. But a common setback for the use of various new technologies is their vulnerability to hackers.

That's because companies and individuals are not taking cybersecurity seriously, according to Erik Brynjolfsson, director at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a professor at MIT Sloan School.

The threat of cyber attacks "can be addressed much more effectively than it has been," he told CNBC's "Street Signs" at the annual Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore. "I think we're just not taking it seriously enough."

Brynjolfsson was commenting on the news that a Google bug exposed the account information of 500,000 users, spurring the tech giant to make a slew of privacy changes and shut down the Google Plus service for consumers.

"The story here isn't really about Google, it's about our atrocious cybersecurity — not just in social networks, but in banking or voting systems," he said. "Whenever I talk to the real cyber experts, they tell me the lights are blinking red, that we're so vulnerable, and we need to do a lot more to make our information system secure."

There have been numerous incidents in recent years where technology companies suffered breaches that resulted in user data getting compromised: Uber was fined for a 2016 data breach, Facebook recently discovered a security issue that allowed hackers to access information that could have let them take over around 50 million accounts, and the personal information of millions of Americans was affected in a data breach at credit reporting firm Equifax last year.

Combating cyber threats "boils down to prioritizing at a higher level," Brynjolfsson said. Some of the fixes are straightforward: For example, he said, two-factor authentication might prevent unauthorized logins and machine-readable paper ballots could make voting systems more secure.

"These small additional steps, they may slow down some of the processes incrementally, add a little bit of cost, a few percent here and there, but they'll make us tremendously more secure," he said.

In cybersecurity, he explained, using publicly available cryptography is usually more secure than proprietary systems that are built for specific companies — that's because the former is extensively tested by the cryptography community.

Digital economies are set to grow as companies spend more money to transform their businesses using technology. International Data Corporation said that in 2018, worldwide spending on digital transformation will shoot past $1 trillion.

Cybersecurity challenges aside, there are plenty of benefits in a digital economy, according to Brynjolfsson.

Artificial intelligence, for example, can make the world more interconnected and specific developments in areas of vision systems, speech recognition, decision-making about credit or hiring are creating plenty of opportunities, he said. Still, it will be a challenge for society to help workers who lose their jobs to automation transition into new roles, Brynjolfsson added.

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Reposted from BBC News

A man who threatened to kill his ex-partner with a World War One replica gun he stole from a museum has been jailed for four years.

Lee Rousseau, 48, took the replica Luger pistol after ripping the arm from a mannequin on display at the Museum of Lincolnshire Life.

He then took it to his former partner's home, Lincoln Crown Court heard.

Rousseau admitted possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

The court heard Rousseau, of Turner Avenue, Lincoln, removed the pistol from the mannequin's arm in the toilets of the museum in Lincoln on 14 March.

Prosecutor Gurdial Singh told the court Rousseau claimed "he shook the mannequin's hand and the arm fell off".

Mr Singh said after taking the gun Rousseau - who the court was told was obsessed with guns and was a regular visitor to the museum - went to the home of his ex-partner Cheryl Smith.

The court heard he was told to leave but started "kicking the front door and threatening to kill her" when she told him she was seeing somebody else.

"He appeared to make off and thrust a gun through the letter box," Mr Singh said.

"She was in the kitchen with her child. She saw the tip of the barrel."

The court heard Rousseau had 26 previous convictions for a total of 49 offenses.

In addition to the charge of possession of an imitation firearm, he admitted theft and criminal damage.

Rousseau also pleaded guilty to three charges of possession of a knife from an incident 10 days earlier.

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Reposted from the New York Times

The Trump administration vowed to fight “radical Islamist” militants, as well as Iran, as part of a multifront campaign to eliminate the terrorist threat to the United States, according a long-delayed counterterrorism strategy released on Thursday by the White House.

Administration officials promoted the strategy, the first released since 2011, as a new approach to fighting terrorism in a “landscape more fluid and complex than ever.” It embraced, however, many of the principles adopted and refined by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The 25-page document noted that extremist groups, armed with encrypted communications and savvy social media skills, are dispersed globally more than ever before. After 17 years of armed conflict, the document said, the United States has had only “mixed success” in preventing attacks against American interests.

“While we have succeeded in disrupting large-scale attacks in the homeland since 2001,” the report said, “we have not sufficiently mitigated the overall threat that terrorists pose.”

The sobering assessment of a persistent, resilient threat seemed to contrast with other parts of the strategy that flatly assert the administration will wipe out terrorism against Americans — a goal most counterterrorism experts say is unrealistic.

It was also somewhat at odds with the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy, released this year, which pivoted the military away from counterterrorism to face threats from a pair of strategic adversaries, Russia and China.

The plan was delayed by many months, a victim of fierce internal debates over counterterrorism policy as well as a bureaucratic tug of war between President Trump’s two top former security advisers, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster and Thomas P. Bossert, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The strategy went through multiple drafts early in 2017 before languishing in the National Security Council. An early draft leaked to Reuters in May 2017 did not include the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” which Mr. Trump used regularly during the 2016 presidential campaign but which General McMaster urged N.S.C. staff members to avoid.

General McMaster was forced out of the White House in April, and Mr. Bossert was fired days later, after Mr. Trump appointed John R. Bolton to replace General McMaster.

The final document mentions “radical Islamist terrorism,” a term that refers to acts of terrorism by Sunni Muslim-affiliated networks like the Islamic State, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the report before its release.

But by substituting “Islamist” for “Islamic,” the official said, the strategy seeks to avoid condemning Islam as a whole.

The new strategy bears the imprint of Mr. Bolton with its emphasis on the threat from Iran, which he described in a White House briefing as “the world’s central banker of international terrorism since 1979,” supporting militant and terrorist groups across the Middle East. Iran’s role was previewed in the State Department’s annual list of global terrorist threats last month.

The strategy set an uncompromising goal, declaring, “We will eliminate terrorists’ ability to threaten America, our interests and our engagement in the world.” And it embraced the martial language that former President George W. Bush used after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “We are a nation at war,” the document said, “and it is a war that the United States will win.”

That reverses a position taken by former President Barack Obama, who said in May 2013: “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end.”

Mr. Bolton argued that it was wrong to lull Americans into thinking that the war on terror, which he characterized as a long ideological struggle, was over. “The idea that somehow we can just say, ‘Well, we’re tired of this war and it will go away,’ I think is a mistake,” he said.

In contrast to Mr. Trump’s confident public statements, the report took a sober view of the threat posed by the Islamic State. Despite losing all but 1 percent of the territory it previously seized in Iraq and Syria, it remains a potent threat to the United States, the document said.

The extremist group is still supported by eight official offshoots and more than two dozen related networks that regularly conduct attacks across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Similarly, the strategy said Al Qaeda’s global network “remains resilient and poses an enduring threat to the homeland and United States interests around the world.”

The assessment calls for a panoply of familiar tactics.

Military, diplomatic and law enforcement officials will apply constant pressure on terrorist networks. Government experts will sleuth ways to cut off terrorist financing and disrupt terrorist travel. Border security will be tightened. Increased attention will be paid to thwart terrorists’ use of the internet to plot attacks, raise money and attract new recruits.

“The debate is really about how to calibrate and where to deploy those tools, and increasingly how to do so in a world in which America’s high-end capabilities are also needed for other pressing threats,” said Joshua A. Geltzer, who was senior director for counterterrorism in the Obama administration and is now the executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

Mr. Trump came into office without a clearly articulated philosophy for using the military to fight terrorist groups. He had promised to be more aggressive in taking on the Islamic State — even suggesting during the 2016 campaign that he had a secret plan — but also signaled a desire to rein in the United States as the world’s peacekeeper.

Surrounded by generals who have been at the center of a decade-long shift toward relying on Special Operations rather than ground troops, Mr. Trump has chosen to maintain the same approach as Mr. Obama but has given the Pentagon more latitude in conflict zones like Somalia and Yemen.

The strategy also emphasizes the need for allied partners to help conduct counterterrorism missions — something France is now doing in West Africa and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen.

There are demonstrable shifts in at least some of the tools the United States can bring to bear.

The strategy, for example, calls for employing cyberoperations against terrorist foes. Last week, White House officials said Mr. Trump had authorized new, classified orders for the Pentagon’s cyberwarriors to conduct offensive attacks against state and nonstate adversaries more freely and frequently.

The administration acknowledged that another information-age goal — fighting extremist ideology, including terrorist organizations’ ability to continue attracting new recruits — remains one of counterterrorism officials’ most intractable problems.

“Unless we counter terrorist radicalization and recruitment,” the document concluded, “we will be fighting a never-ending battle against terrorism in the homeland, overseas and online.”

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Reposted from ArtCrimeResearch.org

The Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) warmly invites applications to its postgraduate certificate program in the study of art crime and cultural heritage protection.  In 2019, the program will be held from May 31 through August 15, 2019 in the heart of Umbria in Amelia, Italy.

In its 11th year, this academically-challenging, eleven course program will provide in-depth, postgraduate level instruction in important theoretical and practical elements related to art and heritage crime. By examining art crime’s interconnected world, participants will experience an integrated curriculum in a participatory setting.  The program’s courses will include comprehensive, multidisciplinary lectures, classroom-based discussions and presentations, and field classes that serve as the backdrop for exploring art crime, its nature, and its impact. 

Each course associated with the program has been selected to underscore the value of, and necessity for, a longitudinal multidisciplinary approach to the study of this type of criminal behaviour, as well as its trends and motivating factors.  Designed to expose participants to an integrated curriculum in a highly interactive, participatory, student-centered setting, the ARCA professional development program utilises instructional modules that include both classroom and in situ field lectures as well as “hands-on” learning from case studies, organised research, and group participatory assignments and discussions.

Participants are encouraged and challenged from the outset of the program to develop their scholarly interests, and to evolve as independent thinkers and researchers while simultaneously contributing to the theoretical discourse. 

At the conclusion of the program, participants will have a solid mastery of a broad array of concepts pertaining to provenance, art market due diligence, illicit trafficking, cultural property protection, and cultural security.

Accepted Candidates Explore

• art crime and its prevalence
• art crime policing and investigation
• art and heritage law and international legal instruments
• illicit trafficking and its impact on the licit art market
• Provenance and the challenges of recovering looted assets
• criminological theories and their application to the study of art crime
• art crime during war and armed conflicts
• the art market and its associated risk
• art insurance and fine art underwriting
• risk management and crime prevention in museum security
• art forgery motives and methods
• art, antiquities and cultural identity

November 30, 2018 – Early Application Deadline
January 30, 2019 – General Application Deadline

Minerva scholarship applications will be accepted through February 01, 2019.

As spaces on the program are limited, candidates are strongly advised to submit their application materials as soon as possible. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until census is achieved, after which candidates will be placed on the waiting list.

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October 16, 2018 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

6250 Hollywood Boulevard 
Los Angeles, California 90028

Free

Catastrophic ​events ​caused ​by ​severe ​weather, ​increasingly ​sporadic ​threat ​conditions, ​and ​malicious ​behavior ​continue ​to ​change ​how ​we ​live, ​work ​and ​play. ​Although ​preventing ​all ​critical ​events ​​is ​out ​of ​our ​control, ​the ​use ​of ​global ​threat ​intelligence ​in ​conjunction ​with ​proactive ​response ​planning ​and ​strategies ​can ​help ​you ​rapidly ​respond ​to ​- ​and ​even ​avoid ​- ​sudden, ​unexpected ​disruptions. To ​help ​address ​some ​of ​the ​common ​challenges ​security, ​business ​continuity, ​operations ​and ​risk ​professionals ​face ​when ​managing ​critical ​events, ​we ​have ​organized ​a ​series ​of ​concentrated ​half-day ​workshops​. ​​Attendees ​will ​walk ​away ​with ​actionable ​best ​practice ​strategies ​to ​ensure ​employees ​are ​kept ​safe ​and ​business ​disruptions ​are ​minimized ​or ​even ​avoided ​altogether. ​ Hear ​​from ​​industry ​​experts ​​who ​​are ​​using ​​best ​​practice ​​strategies ​​and ​​leveraging ​​technologies ​​to ​​keep ​​their ​​employees ​​safe, ​​assets ​​protected, ​​and ​​their ​​businesses ​​running. ​​Faster. ​​ ​This ​is ​an ​event ​run ​in ​collaboration ​with ​ASIS ​International ​and ​their ​Security ​Management ​Publication. 

Click here to Register Now!

HEART (Heritage Emergency and Response Training) 2018 will take place December 10–14, 2018, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. This year’s HEART program builds upon the program launched last year in DC and further refined through regional programs in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. HEART 2018 seeks applications from cultural heritage professionals and emergency management professionals from all 56 states and territories and Indian Country. 

The application deadline is October 9, 2018. For complete details about this program and instructions on how to apply, please visit   https://culturalrescue.si.edu/hentf/training/

HEART is sponsored by the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, a public-private partnership co-sponsored by FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution. This training is made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Reposted from The Hill

FBI Director Christopher Wray in an interview marking 17 years since Sept. 11, said the U.S. is “safer” but the threats facing the country have “evolved.”

“People think of the 9/11 threat, they think New York, they think D.C,” Wray said in an interview with CBS that aired Tuesday. “Today's terrorism threat is everywhere, coast to coast, north, south, east, west. It's not just big cities.” 

Wray added cyber threats are “at an all-time high.”

“Terrorism today moves at the speed of social media,” he said.

The FBI director also said that the FBI is focused on “homegrown violent extremists.”

“We’re also very focused now on homegrown violent extremists which are people who are largely here already in the United States ... and these are people who are largely radicalized online,” he said.

Wray revealed the FBI has made about 102 terrorism-related arrests in the last year. He said that of 5,000 terrorism investigations, the bureau investigated 1,000 “homegrown violent extremists.”

Wray said the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force receives “about 15,000” tips a year.

“Basically 40 tips a day, two tips an hour,” he said.

The FBI director spoke about the role of social media companies in preventing terrorism, saying the Bureau is attempting to work with tech giants to get them to address terrorism on their platforms “voluntarily.”

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Reposted from The Hill

Seventeen years after the 9/11 terror attacks, lawmakers are stepping up their warnings about how the next assault on the U.S. could be a cyberattack.

Airports and airlines increasingly rely on cyber networks to operate, yet there are no federal regulations specifically governing their use.

Lawmakers say they are drafting legislation that would impose new standards for cybersecurity as experts argue U.S. airlines are vulnerable to attacks.

“Cybersecurity risks, without question, represent the most preeminent and existent threat to the continuous safe, secure and efficient operations on U.S. airports and the global aviation system,” Michael Stephens, the head of IT and general counsel for Tampa International Airport, said at a congressional hearing last week.

While the industry has its own cybersecurity standards, lawmakers argue they aren’t enough and that the roles of federal agencies have to be more clearly spelled out when it comes to addressing cyber threats to aviation.

“We must urge security agencies to think creatively about potential new attack actors as terrorists continue to search for new vulnerabilities to target,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) said. “With that in mind, we must do more when it comes to the cybersecurity of transportation systems. We cannot allow them access to cockpits via cyber means.”

The New Jersey Democrat is working on a bill that would require the Transportation Security Administration to adopt rules that would require both airlines and airports to adopt baseline cybersecurity standards.

A spokeswoman for Watson Coleman told The Hill that the bill is in its earliest stages of development.

In the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 19 terrorists hijacked planes and crashed two of them into the twin towers in New York City and another into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa. 

The deadly attacks sparked a series of reforms to aviation safety, largely focused on physical safeguards meant to prevent people from weaponizing airplanes as was done on 9/11.

At a hearing last week, Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) expressed the fear that in the future, terrorists could use cyber means to turn U.S. aircraft into weapons without even being on board.

“The specter remains, a plane could technically be weaponized against us and be taken over by bad guys through cybersecurity threats,” he said.

Experts say that while the scenario is a real possibility, they are more focused on systemic cyber attacks that could cripple flight systems and dramatically disrupt business and life in the United States.

Joel Otto, the vice president of strategy and business development for Rockwell Collins Information Management Systems’s business unit who has spent three decades working in aviation, said those working in aviation are more concerned about making sure a plane takes off, flies and lands safely than about any specific example of an attack, like that mentioned by Katko.

“While you worry about the potential outcomes, what you more worry about is that any bad outcome is a bad outcome,” he said, adding that cybersecurity is now considered as important as safety within the aviation industry.

Because the industry’s standards have not been adopted into federal law, there could be discrepancies in how those standards are applied, experts say.

A survey cited by the federally-operated Airport Cooperative Research Program in its guide last year on best cybersecurity practices found that 32 out of the 41 responding airports had cybersecurity programs in place. However, only 49 percent of respondents felt that the measures offered adequate protection from cyberattacks.

And reports last year that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was able to breach a plane on a tarmac also amplified concerns about airlines’ cybersecurity. Internal DHS documents, obtained by Motherboard earlier this year, also indicate that some agency officials believe it’s only a “matter of time before a cyber security breach on an airline occurs.”

The impact of those potential cyberattacks has been partially realized at at least one U.S. airport this year.

The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shut down its WiFi networks in March as a precaution after Atlanta was targeted by a massive, days-long ransomware attack.

Christopher Porter, the chief threat intelligence specialist for the cybersecurity firm FireEye who testified at last week’s hearing, said during an interview this week that a federal baseline on cybersecurity could more clearly lay out the roles of airlines, airports and federal officials in the case of an attack.

Organizations like the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (A-ISAC) offer a way for the federal government, airlines, airports and aircraft manufacturers to share information about potential cyber threats. But experts said more needs to be done to loop in all parties when it comes to cyber.

“There may be parts of the aviation sector that have underinvested in cybersecurity because they can't justify it as a business expense, but everyone will be required to do it,” Porter said of a potential federal framework. “I think that would make it a lot easier for them to bring things up to par.” 

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Reposted from the Express UK

Terrorists and criminals are being hunted at museums using FBI-style “behavioural observation” techniques. The attractions are now seen as key targets for terrorists, with one 18-year-old female plotter being found guilty earlier this year of planning a grenade attack at the British Museum.

Guards at the Victoria and Albert Museum are among those trained to identify suspects using criteria such as facial expression, movement and voice. 

The method is a form of criminal profiling used by agencies such as the FBI and has also helped reduce minor crime such as pickpocketing and theft from backpacks. 

A source said: “The system uses key criteria to identify persons of interest. Staff are trained to seek out anyone suspicious, approach and confront them. 

“Potential criminals have certainly been identified and there has been a significant fall in petty crime since the system was brought in.” 

A V&A spokesman confirmed that it has developed techniques aimed at keeping the public safe.

He said: “The V&A takes security very seriously. We have developed a range of tactical options that we use to protect our visitors, staff, collections and buildings. 

“We do not discuss our security assessment or tactical options openly but work closely with the police and other partners to ensure we provide an appropriate response to any perceived risk.”

Behavioural observation uses scientifically researched primary indicators to identify potential trouble makers. 

These include what a person is looking at, their clothes, how they walk and how they act in a certain location. 

The methods are usually applied in security hotspots such as airports, ports and at celebrity events and this is the first time they have been used in museums. 

The training began last year and security staff have been told it is part of a wider approach to countering the threat of terrorism. 

The system is also believed to be used in other London attractions, including the Natural History Museum. 

A spokesman said they prefer not to comment on security but he added: “We continually review our security measures based on advice given by the Metropolitan Police. We have enhanced security procedures to protect our visitors, staff and the collection.” 

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Reposted from NY Times

Foreign terrorist groups and their affiliates had a bad year in 2017 as the United States and other countries fought back against the Islamic State, but Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias remain deadly threats, according to an annual government terrorism report that was released on Wednesday.

There were 8,584 terrorist attacks around the world in 2017, a 23 percent decline from 2016, according to the State Department report. As a result, more than 18,700 people were killed, about a quarter of whom were the perpetrators themselves.

That death toll represented a 27 percent drop from the previous year, the report said.

Much of the reason for the decline was the improved security situation in Iraq, according to Ambassador Nathan Sales, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism.

Still, more than half of all terrorist attacks worldwide took place in just five countries: Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Pakistan and the Philippines. And 70 percent of all deaths from terrorist attacks occurred in a different, if overlapping, set of five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria.

The security situation in Afghanistan continued to worsen as a result of coordinated attacks by the Taliban, including the group’s affiliated Haqqani network, the report noted. Some of the attacks were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan, a source of continuing irritation in relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Although four countries are designated as state sponsors of terrorism, the report highlighted Iran as a top threat.

The Trump administration has made its tough approach to Iran a central tenet of its foreign policy. President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal this year, and his top administration officials have excoriated the clerical government in Tehran at almost every opportunity.

The report said Iran is undermining legitimate governments and American interests in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The seven-year civil war in Syria has given Hezbollah, an Iran proxy, valuable battlefield experience, the report said.

The other three state sponsors of terrorism are North Korea, Syria and Sudan.

Broadly, the terrorism landscape grew more complex in 2017, according to the report.

While the Islamic State lost much of the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria, it shifted to a more dispersed model — encouraging attacks by sympathizers around the world using whatever weapons were at their disposal. Such efforts led to high-profile attacks in Manchester, England; Barcelona, Spain; and New York.

In a news briefing, Mr. Sales emphasized that while the Islamic State garnered much of the world’s attention in 2017, Al Qaeda quietly expanded its membership and operations. He called Al Qaeda a “determined and patient adversary.”

“Although ISIS has gotten the headlines,” he said, referring to the Islamic State, “we remain focused and determined to confront Al Qaeda wherever we find it.”

Smaller terrorist groups were also mentioned in the report, which has a lengthy listing of organizations from around the world, including Boko Haram in several African countries and Real I.R.A. in Northern Ireland. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba were cited as threats to South Asia generally.

Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, was highlighted for what the report said were its efforts to rebuild its military capabilities to support terrorist attacks against Israel. The Trump administration has rescinded nearly all the aid the United States traditionally provided to Palestinians, cuts that threaten many of the schools, clinics and hospitals that Palestinians depend upon.

Whether such cuts will encourage or discourage extremism among Palestinians has yet to be seen.

Under the Trump administration, the Pentagon has pivoted from a yearslong focus on fighting foreign extremist groups. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called Russia and China a “primary focus of U.S. national security,” and there are plans to slash the number of military counterterrorism forces in Africa.

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