The CyberWire Daily Briefing 05.12.14

Summary

By The CyberWire Staff

More than a year old, but still being exploited: Microsoft Word vulnerability CVE-2014-1761 is used against Taiwanese targets.

The dreary tale of South Asian cyber rioting resumes, as Pakistan's MadLeets hacks an Indian Ministry of Railroads server.

Fallout from email hacking complicates Colombian FARC peace talks (and Colombian elections).

Many Heartbleed fixes are found to be "not totally working." Hasty fixes have jumbled certificates and patches, compromised keys are being reused, and governmental "red tape" has impeded stanching. Still, says CSO, it could've been worse: Heartbleed has proven more headache than disaster.

Tomorrow's Patch Tuesday, barring unforeseen backsliding by Microsoft, will be the first to exclude Windows XP. This greatly increases the risk of attacks on XP users. The software's retired but remains widely used, and hackers will reverse-engineer vulnerabilities addressed tomorrow, hoping to uncover similar unpatched holes in XP.

The market for cyber liability insurance continues to grow, driven to a great extent by fears of reputational damage. Insurers and their clients look for reliable ways of assessing and mitigating risk.

In industry news, GE buys Wurldtech in a SCADA play. Investment analysts take another look at FireEye's acquisition of nPulse and see a disciplined approach to closing corporate capability gaps.

In the US, the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees have both approved pending legislation governing bulk data collection. Observers from Hayden to Greenwald weigh in.

The US Justice Department urges more cyber threat information sharing.

A UK court finds cyber export control issues in HM Revenue and Customs.

Notes.

Today's issue includes events affecting Australia, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, India, Kenya, Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, and United States..

Selected Reading

Cyber Trends

Cyber liability insurance to grow (Business Times) Companies' concerns over reputational damage will drive demand, Marsh Singapore CEO Iris Teo tells Jamie Lee

Why the Target Breach Matters to Insurers (Insurance & Technology) Thus far, Target has reported $61 million in expenses related to its data breach. $44 million of which was offset by an insurance payment. While the financial impact of data breaches on insurers is significant, these incidents serve as a reminder of the cyber threats which put them at risk as well. With their growing reliance on third-party software and cloud-based services, insurers are at risk from the same type of supply chain attacks that led to the Target breach. Dynamic changes in the risk ecosystem are eroding the effectiveness of current approaches to security risk management and regulatory compliance for preventing data breaches. So what best practices can insurance providers implement to fortify their IT defenses?

Time to modernize thinking, technology in fighting malware (CSO) Study showing high-rate of malware infection in organizations indicates a need for modern technology and different approaches

A New Approach to Endpoint Security: Think 'Positive' (Dark Reading) It's time to move away from traditional blacklisting models that define what should be restricted and implicitly allow everything else

AV Isn't Dead. It's Evolving. (Webroot Threat Blog) Since the WSJ report was released, endpoint security solutions have received a lot of media attention. As many have started to ask "Is AV really dead?", I felt it was a good idea to talk about it from my perspective

Public sector cyber security a shame (Bangkok Post) Thailand's internet security is woeful, and nowhere are the flaws more obvious and dangerous than the websites of government agencies and state institutions. Not only has personal data on Thai government

Finland excels in cyber security review; language a deterrent (Uutiset) A fresh report by the software giant Microsoft places Finland among the top five locations for cyber security. However local network security authorities say while Finland's unique language offers some protection from online threats, Finnish web users shouldn't be complacent

Legislation, Policy and Regulation

House committees limit NSA spying on Americans (Capitol Hill Blue) The first sign of consensus in the bitterly divided House on the NSA surveillance

Former director of NSA and CIA: 'We kill people based on metadata' (Examiner) On Wednesday, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner proposal to amend the USA Freedom Act, the domestic metadata collection by the National Security Agency (NSA) of millions of Americans, passed unanimously by a vote of 32-0, in the House Judiciary Committee

The Disturbing Clause not Covered by Proposed NSA Reform (AllGov) The U.S. House of Representatives has before it two bills that are supposed to put some safeguards on the National Security Agency's (NSA) spying activities on Americans. But neither plan includes reforms for a controversial section of federal law on which many of the NSA's most intruding programs are legally based

Congressman Jim Cooper on the NSA Internal Watchdog Act (Nashville Scene) Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper was among a bipartisan trio of congressmen who introduced the NSA Internal Watchdog Act, to create a "tough, independent watchdog inside [the National Security Agency] who will be accountable to Congress and the American people"

Glenn Greenwald: NSA Believes It Should Be Able To Monitor All Communication (Capital Public Radio) The journalist, who received a cache of highly classified documents, says no one disputes that the security agency should be reading emails from al-Qaida, but the system has become too powerful

Government snooping on social media may breach Privacy Act (CBC News) Ottawa should explain how and why data is being collected, privacy advocates say

Intelligence Policy Bans Citation of Leaked Material (New York Times) The Obama administration is clamping down on a technique that government officials have long used to join in public discussions of well-known but technically still-secret information: citing news reports based on unauthorized disclosures

ODNI clarifies more limited effect of its new preclearance policy (Just Security) Steve Aftergood reported yesterday on a new Office of Director of National Intelligence Instruction 80.04, which appeared to establish new restrictions, and a more robust "prepublication" review, for virtually all writings and communications of ODNI employees and officials that discuss "operations, business practices, or information related to the ODNI, the [Intelligence Community], or national security." Instruction 80.04 caused a great deal of confusion and concern on several fronts

Federal Agents Seek to Loosen Rules on Hacking Computers (Bloomberg) The top U.S. law-enforcement agency wants to give investigators greater leeway to secretly access suspected criminals' computers in bunches, not simply one at a time

U.S.: Companies should share security data (KSPR) The Justice Department is issuing new legal guidance encouraging companies to share cyber-security information with each other and the government, while protecting the privacy of their customers

Threat data sharing key to public-private security collaboration: strategist (CSO) Government agencies need to improve their collaboration with private-sector security firms to boost the effectiveness of a unified security response, the head of Fortinet's security strategy has warned

Booz Allen VP Ronald Sanders: Interagency Collaboration Is Key to Solving "Wicked" Crises (ExecutiveBiz) Ronald Sanders, a corporate vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, has co-edited a book that suggests methods to help government agencies hone leadership skills and build collaborative programs to address issues such as cybersecurity, FCW reported Wednesday

Smartphone Kill-Switch Bill Resurrected In Calif. (InformationWeek) Supporters of the legislation insist smartphone kill-switches must ship enabled

Kaspersky Lab hails Kenyan anti-cybercrime efforts (BizTech Africa) Kenya's new draft cyber security laws are a major step in the right direction, says Bethwel Opil, Channel Sales Manager East Africa for Kaspersky Lab

Products, Services, and Solutions

OMESTI Group and Digital Shadows form strategic partnership for Asia market (Intercooler Online) Asia-based OMESTI Group, a part of Formis Resources Berhad, has teamed up with UK-based cyber security innovator Digital Shadows to offer its market-leading security monitoring services and solutions to clients across the South East Asia region

Wick Hill Now Shipping WatchGuard's New APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) Solution (IT News Online) Wick Hill is now shipping WatchGuard's new Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) solution, WatchGuard APT Blocker. Delivering real-time threat visibility and protection in minutes, not hours, APT Blocker identifies and submits suspicious files to a cloud-based, next-generation sandbox, using the industry's most sophisticated full-system-emulation environment for detecting APTs and zero day malware

Bit9 Endpoint and Server Security Platform Integrates with Check Point Software Technologies' Next-gen Firewall and Threat Emulation Offerings (IT Business Net) Bit9®, the leader in advanced threat protection for endpoints and servers, today announced the availability of Bit9 for Check Point, a new solution that integrates Bit9's real-time endpoint and server security with the next-generation firewall and threat emulation offerings of Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd., the worldwide leader in securing the Internet

Technologies, Techniques, and Standards

How to thwart hackers with a cyber playbook (Information Age) With cybercrime increasing and response times lagging, is a cyber playbook the answer?

Beyond Brute Force: Three User-Friendly Strategies for BYOD Security (Forbes) In 1825 a painter named Samuel Morse was visiting New York City to fulfill a portrait commission and received word that his wife—at home in Washington DC—had fallen gravely ill

4 tips to successfully deploy a wireless security network (FierceMobileIT) Wireless technology can improve the performance of an organization's physical security system while lowering the cost and complexity of deploying cables connecting security cameras and access control systems throughout a facility

Can big data predict the next cyber attack? (Jerusalem Post) Analyzing big data can help raise the alarm in real time when something out of the ordinary is happening, as may be the case in a security breach

Do You Need EV-SSL? (eSecurity Planet) The CEO of Comodo, a key contributor to the EV-SSL standard, explains why extended validation SSL matters but why you might not always actually need it

Here's how to hacker-proof your app in 5 steps (Venture Beat) As reports of companies suffering data breaches continue to roll in with alarming frequency, concern about data security has moved beyond the realm of IT pros and into the mainstream

Six Clicks: How do you keep track of all your passwords? (ZDNet) If you have just one password for everything it's easy to remember, but we all know that isn't safe. So how do you keep track of a large number of them — and not have to worry about it?

Why Anonymity Apps Are So Healthy—And So Rotten (Wired) As far as interviews go, it was a bit of a train wreck. Last week, Michael Heyward was on stage at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, raising his voice, and stumbling over his words, as TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington grilled him about Whisper, the anonymous social networking app Heyward helped create in 2012. Things grew tense, and Heyward became so agitated that, at one point, Roelof Botha, a Whisper investor sitting to Heyward's right, gave the young entrepreneur a fatherly pat on the shoulder, as if to say: "Enough"

Marketplace

GE acquires Wurldtech, industrial security firm (ZDNet) For GE, Wurldtech, which focuses securing oil and gas, utilities and medical industries, is a cog in its plans to run the industrial Internet

King & Spalding advises GE on Acquisition of Cyber Security Solutions Company Wurldtech (King & Spalding) King & Spalding advised GE in its definitive agreement to acquire privately held Wurldtech, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based cyber security solutions company. Wurldtech solutions and services are used in complex environments such as oil refineries, power transmission grids or for individual assets like medical devices or smart meters

FireEye finds another piece of its security jigsaw (TechWorld) As its stock heads south, once-loved startup digs in for the long term

Cloud Security Startup Founder Risks It All to Battle Bots (!ExitEvent) A trio of NCSU grads are building one of the nation's most promising cloud security startups, Virginia-based Distil Networks

How a security startup secured $7.5 million in funding (Digital Journal) The "Heartbleed attacks" are still being felt as some victims are still suffering the aftershocks (and others aren't yet aware that they were hacked)

Symantec's 'antivirus is dead' assertion draws fire (FierceCIO: TechWatch) In a Wall Street Journal report that ran over the weekend, Brian Dye, Symantec's senior vice president for information security was quoted as calling traditional antivirus software "dead", as well as claiming that it isn't considered as a moneymaker "in any way" by the company

Cisco IoT Leader Resigns: What's Next? (InformationWeek) Internet of Things general manager Guido Jouret resigned this week. Where does that leave Cisco's Internet of Everything strategy?

Threat Report Concludes: Services Providers Must Become Security Providers (Business Solutions) Jeffrey Lyon, the founder of Black Lotus, discusses the findings of his company's recent Q1 2014 Threat Report

Agiliance Shortlisted for Four American Business Stevie Awards (MarketWatch) Judges recognize company for its innovation in technology, big data risk management, cyber security, and governance automation solutions

Jim Armitage: Cyber-security guru Eugene Kaspersky chuckles his way through a litany of computer scare stories (Independent) Global Outlook Spend an hour or so with Eugene Kaspersky and you come out thinking the world looks slightly more sinister

Cyber security firm brings 130 jobs to Wales (NewsWales) An American cyber security company which has links with Cardiff University's School of Computer Science & Informatics is set to bring more than 100 jobs to South Wales. Alert Logic, based in Texas, announced this week that they will be creating almost 130 jobs when they open a new European HQ in Cardiff and a UK data centre in Newport

New Strategic Partnership Strengthens Maryland's Homeland Security Enterprise (HSToday) Homeland Security Solutions, a global consulting firm committed to improving the homeland security enterprise, recently announced its strategic partnership with Chesapeake Innovation Center (CIC) in an effort to bridge the gap between public, private and non-profit sectors in the homeland security marketplace

Former DHS program manager joins SE Solutions as data analytics director (GSN) Reston, VA-based Strategic Enterprise Solutions has announced an expansion in homeland security strategic and mission-specific services with the addition of Eric Hagopian as technical director for data analytics

Chertoff Group Adds Senior Advisers with Cyber, Energy, DHS Background (GovConWire) Andy Bochman, Adam Golodner, Jack Thomas Tomarchio and Al Wargo have been appointed senior advisors at The Chertoff Group

Security Patches, Mitigations, and Software Updates

Patch Tuesday for May 2014 — 8 bulletins, 2 critical, 0/zero/zilch/zip for XP (Naked Security) A quick note to remind you that tomorrow is Patch Tuesday, so here's what to expect

Twitter makes password reset easier, account hijacking harder (Help Net Security) Twitter has announced two changes aimed at helping protect user accounts and restore access to them

IBM Patches Predictable Output Problem in SecureRandom PRNG (Threatpost) Details have surfaced on a recently patched vulnerability in IBM's SecureRandom pseudo-random number generator that could allow an attacker to predict its output

Cyber Attacks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities

Targeted Attack Against Taiwanese Agencies Used Recent Microsoft Word Zero-Day (TrendLabs Security Intelligence Blog) Vulnerabilities, particularly zero-days, are often used by threat actors as the starting point for targeted attacks. This was certainly the case for a (then) zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2014-1761) affecting Microsoft Word. In its security advisory released last March, Microsoft itself acknowledged that the vulnerability was being used in "limited, targeted attacks"

Pakistani Team MadLeets hacks and defaces Indian Ministry of Railway Server (HackRead) Writing a news about cyber attack is incomplete without mentioning India and Pakistan, where both countries are known for their skillful hackers and defacers. Keeping up with their cyber war, a Pakistani based hacker going with the handle of rOOX from Team MadLeets has hacked and defaced the server of Indian Ministry of Railway, which includes around 47 domains

Colombian peace talks at stake in presidential election (Reuters via the Chicago Tribune) Peace talks to end five decades of war are on the line in Colombia's election this month with President Juan Manuel Santos fighting for a second term while opponents accuse him of giving up too much to Marxist rebels at the negotiating table

A Pod of 'Crypto-clone' Ransomware Spawns in 2014 (Infosecurity Magazine) Call it the invasion of the crypto-clones: so far this year, several CryptoLocker-esque variants have popped up on underground forums and in the wild. These include CryptoClone and CryptoLocker 2.0, which have added functionality to officially make them self-replicating worms for greater possible damage

Heartbleed Fixes Not Totally Working (Top Tech News) The Web sites that are prehaps in the worst shape following Heartbleed are those that increased their vulnerabilities because they overreacted, according to a new report from Netcraft. Around 20 percent of servers that are currently vulnerable were not in the same situation in early April when Heartbleed was first made public, Netcraft and others said

Rush to fight Heartbleed leads to errors with certificates and patches (ComputerWorld) Some reissued SSL certificates use the same vulnerable key as the ones they replace, and some sites moved to a vulnerable version of OpenSSL

Many sites reusing Heartbleed-compromised private keys (ZDNet) Heartbleed has forced many to revoke and reissue TLS/SSL certificates, but more than seven percent have been reissued with the same keys

Red tape delayed federal network fixes to Heartbleed vulnerability by several days (Federal News Radio) An untold number of federal IT systems potentially were left vulnerable to one of the most serious cybersecurity flaws in history for several days longer than necessary, not because federal officials didn't know how to fix it, but because it wasn't clear that they had the legal authority to do so

Heartbleed was a headache, but far from fatal (CSO) It's been a month since the Heartbleed Bug set off a stampede to patch software in everything from network gear to security software as it quickly became evident that vulnerable versions of the OpenSSL encryption code had been very widely deployed

Fake Instagram 'Image Viewers' Are Latest Malware Fad (Tom's Guide via Yahoo! News) Do you use Instagram on your mobile device? Do you use a separate, third-party application to transfer your Instagram photos to your desktop PC?

Bridging the Airgap (Security Watch) Yesterday I spoke at the International Society of Automation Ireland Section's Cyber Security Conference. My talk highlighted how relying on air gaps to protect ICS and secure networks is a fallacy. Using well known incidents as examples of how air gaps failed I outline the problem and ways to address it

"Open the iPhone door, Siri!" — Apple's digital helper coughs up another lock screen hole (Naked Security) A hacker has found a way to bypass the iPhone 5's lock screen to get at your contacts. Ironically, he got in by asking Siri, Apple's voice-activated "helper"

Hackers now crave patches, and Microsoft's giving them just what they want (ComputerWorld) At least one of next Tuesday's updates looks like an excellent candidate to hackers as they sniff for bugs in the now-retired Windows XP

Has Microsoft set a dangerous precedent on the Windows XP security front? (ITProPortal) It's now a month since support for Windows XP came to an end, and we've already had our first exciting little post-XP incident. When a security flaw was discovered in Internet Explorer, an out-of-band patch was released for XP users despite Microsoft's previous claims that no more such updates would be issued. A month on seems like a good time to assess the lay of the land for the operating system, and that's precisely what security firm Secunia has done

Bitly hackers stole user credentials from offsite database backup (We Live Security) Bitly has shed a little more light on the serious security breach it suffered last week. As you may recall, the URL-shortening service announced last week that it believed the account credentials of Bitly users could have fallen into the hands of hackers, but it fell short of answering how it determined customer privacy had been breached, how securely passwords had been stored, or — indeed — what had actually gone wrong

5 Ways Snapchat Violated Your Privacy, Security (InformationWeek) Snapchat settles FTC allegations that the company lied to consumers about the application's security and privacy. Here's what you should know

Bulletin (SB14-132) Vulnerability Summary for the Week of May 5, 2014 (US-CERT) The US-CERT Cyber Security Bulletin provides a summary of new vulnerabilities that have been recorded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Vulnerability Database (NVD) in the past week. The NVD is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) / United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). For modified or updated entries, please visit the NVD, which contains historical vulnerability information

Cybercrime Boss Offers Ferrari to Top Hacker (International Business Times) A cybercrime boss has offered a Ferrari to the hacker who can come up with the best online scam, according to a European law enforcement official

Academia

IIT Delhi Graduate Wins ACM Award for Breakthrough Cryptography Tech (NDTV) Sanjam Garg, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, has won the Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2013 for developing a technique to protect against cyber-attacks

Litigation, Investigation, and Enforcement

UK tax office unlawfully hid export data of cyber-espionage tech to dictatorships (ZDNet) HMRC acted unlawfully by failing to disclose whether or not a body of evidence claiming tech sales of surveillance software to repressive regimes had been rejected

German Lawmakers to Interview Snowden (Guardian Liberty Voice) German lawmakers are in the middle of deciding when and where to interview former United States intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked information last year about the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) spying program to the rest of the world. While his grant of asylum in Russia expires next year, he has written to other U.S. allied European countries that have rejected his requests for asylum

Merkel Ally Says Snowden Would Face U.S. Extradition by Germany (Bloomberg BusinessWeek) Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition are blocking an opposition bid to bring Edward Snowden to Germany to testify, saying the German government won't grant him safe passage

Spy case legend hired by Edward Snowden speaks about five-decade career (South China Morning Post) Veteran of high-profile US espionage cases believes his vast experience will help NSA whistle-blower, who fled to Russia from HK

Data sovereignty laws hamper international crime investigations: AFP (ComputerWorld) International cyber crime police work is being hampered by data sovereignty laws, according to Australian Federal Police's national manager of high tech crime operations, Tim Morris

Facebook, Zynga beat wiretap lawsuits (Ars Technica) Court, however, revives allegations Facebook breached its terms of service

Federal regulators clamp down on mobile firms (FierceMobileIT) Dialing Services faces $2.9M fine, Snapchat agrees to 20 years of privacy monitoring

US Navy sailor allegedly led team that hacked government computers (Naked Security) A US Navy systems administrator stationed on the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman acted as ringleader for a gang of anti-government cyber crooks, prosecutors alleged last week

Fatal Errors Before Boston Marathon Bombing (Epoch Times) Inspectors General report shows errors, mistakes, and insufficient information sharing

Russian Hacker Charged in Biggest U.S Hacking Case Doesn't Want Extradition to U.S (HackerNews) Earlier we reported, 33-year-old Russian hacker Vladimir Drinkman is wanted in U.S and Russia for various cyber crime charges, and the Netherlands Court ruled simultaneous requests from the U.S. & Russia for the extradition were admissible. But now it's up to the Dutch Minister of Justice to decide, whether to which country he would be extradited. However, Hacker Vladimir Drinkman does not want to face charges in US and appealed to the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Country's highest court, to avoid his extradition to the US, Bloomberg reported

IT malpractice: Doc operates on server, costs hospitals $4.8M (CSO) New York Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center settle with HHS to end probe into 2010 patient data leak

Industry Events

For a complete running list of events, please visit the Event Tracker on the CyberWire website.

upcoming Events

Security B-Sides Cape Breton (Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, September 5, 2014) Security B-Sides Cape Breton is an open platform that gives security experts, enthusiasts, and industry professionals the opportunity to share ideas, insights, and develop longstanding relationships with others in the community. It is a rare opportunity to directly connect and create trusted relationships with key members of the community.

SANS Security West (, January 1, 1970) SANS Security West will arm information security professionals with the necessary insight to prepare their organization for today and the future. Attendees will have the opportunity to advance their information security skill set by learning innovative ideas and techniques to fend off today's most challenging cyber threats as well as emerging threats.

Eurocrypt 2014 (, January 1, 1970) Eurocrypt 2014 is the 33rd Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques. It is devoted to all aspects of cryptology.

ISPEC 2014 (Fujian, China, May 12 - 14, 2014) The ISPEC conference series is an established forum that brings together researchers and practitioners to provide a confluence of new information security technologies, including their applications and their integration with IT systems in various vertical sectors.

GovSec 2014 (Washington, DC, USA, May 13 - 14, 2014) GovSec is the nation's premier event for Government, Homeland Security, and Law Enforcement professionals looking for proven strategies and cost effective technology so they can achieve their mission of protecting our critical infrastructures, key assets, communities and the nation.

Cyber Security for National Defense Symposium (, January 1, 1970) DSI's Cyber Security for National Defense Symposium is designed as an educational and training "Town Hall" forum, where thought leaders and key policy-makers across military and civilian organizations can come together for actionable discussions and debate. The symposium will focus on increasing the security and resiliency of the Nation's critical networks, operating freely in the Cyber Domain, and the protection of infrastructure in support of national defense and homeland Security.

CyberWest (Phoenix, Arizona, USA, May 13 - 14, 2014) Cyber threats affect all industry sectors and impact individuals, businesses and governments. From hacktivists to advanced persistent threats, conducting business on-line exposes individuals, corporations and Governments to a complex threat environment including hacktivists to trans-national crime organizations and advanced persistent threats. Join experts from government, industry and academia in discussing how we are making our future more secure.

Fraud Summit (Chicago, Illinois, USA, May 14, 2014) From account takeover to payment card fraud and the emerging mobile threatscape, the ISMG Fraud Summit series is where thought-leaders meet to exchange insights on today's top schemes and the technology solutions designed to stop them.

INFILTRATE (, January 1, 1970) INFILTRATE is a deep technical conference that focuses entirely on offensive security issues. Groundbreaking researchers focused on the latest technical issues will demonstrate techniques that you cannot find elsewhere. INFILTRATE is the single-most important event for those who are focused on the technical aspects of offensive security issues, for example, computer and network exploitation, vulnerability discovery, and rootkit and trojan covert protocols. INFILTRATE eschews policy and high-level presentations in favor of just hard-core thought-provoking technical meat.

Security BSides Denver 2014 (Denver, Colorado, USA, May 16, 2014) Each BSides is a community-driven framework for building events for and by information security community members. The goal is to expand the spectrum of conversation beyond the traditional confines of space and time. It creates opportunities for individuals to both present and participate in an intimate atmosphere that encourages collaboration. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. It is where conversations for the next-big-thing are happening.

Security Start-up Speed Lunch NYC (New York, New York, USA, May 19, 2014) Our goal for this inaugural event is to connect the most promising security startups in the world with decision-makers at aerospace, asset-management, banking, communications, defense, energy, healthcare, government, technology and transportation sector companies in a novel way: the speed lunch.

CEIC 2014 (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, May 19 - 22, 2014) It's no exaggeration to say that CEIC is the biggest digital-investigations conference of its kind and the only one to offer hands-on lab sessions and training for practical skills development. From sessions on acquiring evidence from mobile devices to international e-discovery to cyber security intelligence, there's simply no other training or seminar series available that packs so much relevant and practical information from so many expert speakers into a single four-day period.

The Device Developers' Conference: Bristol (Bristol, England, UK, May 20, 2014) The Device Developers' Conference is an annual UK event for the developers of intelligent systems and devices. The objective is to provide an event that provides engineers with an opportunity to learn about the latest tools, technologies and techniques for the successful development of leading edge electronic products and systems.

Mobile Network Security in Europe (London, England, UK, May 21, 2014) Following on from two successful events in the United States, this first Light Reading conference on Mobile Network Security in Europe will again focus on the key role of the network in safeguarding the mobile carrier's network assets while protecting its customers from security attacks. The conference will also consider the case for distributing and coordinating security strategies across the end-user device, the mobile network, and the cloud as carriers look to prevent attackers from triggering outages and degradations or from stealing sensitive customer information.

Positive Hack Days (, January 1, 1970) Positive Hack Days is the international venue for the unification of progressive forces of the IT industry. It is about innovators interested in information security problems; it is fresh blood and bright eyes, the atmosphere of a huge research ground, communication between people sharing the same views and their opponents, minimum formalities and maximum practice.

Georgetown Law: Cybersecurity Law Institute (, January 1, 1970) A day does not go by where cybersecurity is not in the news. In fact, according to a recent national survey conducted by FTI Consulting, cybersecurity is the number one issue on the minds of general counsels of American companies. Last year's inaugural Cybersecurity Law Institute received positive reviews for its unique simulation approach that prepared attendees on actions to take if their company faced a cyber-attack.

NSA Mobile Technology Forum (MTF) 2014 (, January 1, 1970) The Mobile Technologies Forum is an annual event that attracts SIGINT, Information Assurance, HUMINT, Federal Law Enforcement, Counterintelligence and Government personnel from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and United Kingdom focused in mobile technologies. Those companies who specialize in both current and future mobile features and equipment or have efforts that benefit NSA's efforts should participate as a commercial vendor; conference attendance is limited to government employees.

CyberMontgomery Forum: Center of Gravity (Rockville, Maryland, USA, May 22, 2014) Cybersecurity will be a major growth engine in the region for many years to come. With solid federal government, industry and academic assets already in place in the region, there is still a need to bring them together so that they can coalesce and elevate the cyber ecosystem to a level of national prominence. CyberMontgomery Forum events will provide clear direction on finding business opportunities, contracting, forecasted demand areas, workforce development, recruiting & staffing, legal responsibilities for businesses, updates on technologies being developed in MoCo and summary updates regarding our NCCoE neighbors, federal civilian agencies and commercial sector leaders.

Cyber Risk Summit (Washington, DC, USA, May 22, 2014) This one-day leadership conference will provide a discussion forum for business executives, insurance companies and policymakers on more effective private and public responses to cyber risk management. Topics to be discussed by expert speakers will include state and federal regulatory and legislative initiatives, efforts to develop a common cyber security framework, the threats from cyber espionage and terrorism, and the development of public and private mechanisms to finance and transfer losses from cyber events.

The Device Developers' Conference: Cambridge (Cambridge, England, UK, May 22, 2014) The Device Developers' Conference is an annual UK event for the developers of intelligent systems and devices. The objective is to provide an event that provides engineers with an opportunity to learn about the latest tools, technologies and techniques for the successful development of leading edge electronic products and systems.

Fort Meade Technology Expo (, January 1, 1970) The Ft. Meade Technology Expo is a one-day event held at the Officers' Club (Club Meade) on base. Industry vendors will have the unique opportunity to showcase their products and services to personnel that may otherwise be unattainable.

3 Day Startup (San Antonio, Texas, USA, May 23 - 25, 2014) The nation faces tremendous challenges to our online security. Turn innovative ideas into startups that protect our information and our livelihood. 3 Day Startup is an entrepreneurship program designed with an emphasis on learning by doing. The idea is simple: start tech companies over the course of three days.

How the SBIR/STTR Program Can Help Grow Your Business (Halethorp, Maryland, USA, May 27, 2014) The SBIR/STTR programs promote small business innovation and profitability while simultaneously meeting the government's research and development needs. Every year, small businesses receive millions of dollars in SBIR/STTR funds for research, development and commercialization purposes. This course will provide attendees with an overview of the SBIR/STTR programs; funding sources and eligibility requirements; best practices in SBIR/STTR proposals writing, involvement, and commercialization; and a discussion of how to protect your company's legal interests in either program.

CANSEC (, January 1, 1970) CANSEC is Canada's foremost defence tradeshow. A two-day event, CANSEC will feature 120,000 square feet of indoor exhibits by Canada's leading edge defence companies, as well as an outdoor static display. This tradeshow targets a wide audience of customers that includes Government agencies and departments with an interest in the defence sector.

Hack in The Box Security Conference (HITBSecConf) Amsterdam (, January 1, 1970) HITBSecConf Amsterdam is a gathering of network security professionals and enthusiasts who come from all corners of the globe to discuss the next generation of attacks and defense techniques. This is not an event you come to for 'security 101' talks or marketing hype. We cover stuff that hasn't made it into the news — yet. Potential security issues coming our way in the next 12 months.

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The CyberWire Daily Briefing for 5.12.2014