South Carolina's Department of Revenue has been hacked, with personal information of 3.6M exposed. The breach occurred in August and September, but was disclosed over the weekend. East European and Russian cyber gangs are believed responsible.
Islamist hacktivists take down France's Euromillions lottery site. Anonymous goes after the Italian police (retaliating for Antisec arrests) and game manufacturer Zynga (for laying off programmers). Iran and the US continue to swap accusations of cyber aggression. The US Department of Homeland Security warns of a possible wave of hacktivist SCADA attacks on maritime systems via a recently discovered software backdoor. Media in Japan, Denmark, and Nigeria raise concerns about those nations' cyber vulnerability.
Broadcom mobile firmware and Firefox both get security patches this week.
Gartner points out that a lost laptop can cost a company seventy times the expense of encrypting all of its devices. About half of all enterprises are expected to increase IT security spending in 2013. NATO briefs industry on more than $2B in potential C4ISR spending. KEYW continues its push into commercial security, and Boeing expands its supply chain security offerings. (Boeing also partners with Tennessee State for research into avionic cyber security.)
Reviewers seem to agree that Windows 8 represents a step forward in security. After discussions with the Intelligence Community, the US Department of Defense plans to make the National Information Exchange Model the basis for its data exchange strategy. US Senator Mary Landrieu (Democrat, Louisiana) strongly dissents from her colleagues' criticism of Homeland Security fusion centers.