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At least 19 financial institutions have disclosed to investors in recent weeks that their computers were targets of malicious cyberassaults last year, a sign of growing openness among corporations about the breadth of cybersecurity incidents plaguing the private sector.
In their annual financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, major banks such as Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, along with smaller institutions, have reported that their systems were hit with computer disruptions or intrusions. Almost all reported that they were targeted in last year’s highly publicized “distributed denial of service attacks” (DDOS) — efforts to disrupt access to Web sites by barraging servers with computer traffic. The assaults, which are ongoing, made headlines in the fall when U.S. officials said they believed they were launched by the Iranian government in retaliation for sanctions imposed because of Tehran’s nuclear program. The disclosures are significant in that for years, companies, including banks, have been loath even to acknowledge that they have been victims of such incidents. But it appears that SEC guidance issued in October 2011 making clear that companies need to report significant computerized theft or disruption, combined with greater public attention to the issue, is forcing more disclosure. Also, the fact that the banks hit by the DDOS attacks have been named in media accounts has made ignoring them more difficult.
More companies reporting cybersecurity incidents
[Commentary] This may come as surprise to people in Washington (or perhaps not), but the sequester is hardly a topic of discussion in Silicon Valley. Indeed, it’s not even a trending topic on Twitter.
That is how unimportant short-term government decisions are to innovation. While lawmakers battle over taxes and fiscal cliffs, entrepreneurs are busy solving humanity’s problems so that we can go from debating how we distribute scarce resources to discussing how we equitably share the bounty we are creating. To be fair, basic research is necessary for long term innovation. Most of today’s breakthroughs are the harvested fruits of discoveries made in government-funded laboratories. If we choke off investment in the basic sciences, we will choke off future innovations. So we need to restore funding. The good news is that entrepreneurs aren’t getting distracted by the mindless battles in D.C.-they are still very much focused on saving the world.
Why innovation is sequester-proof
Republicans on the House Commerce Committee want to know if smartphones, tablets and apps will be regulated as medical devices under President Obama's healthcare law.
Six GOP lawmakers, including Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), wrote to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking for clarification. The group said the Affordable Care Act's excise tax on medical devices, if applied to mobile apps and smartphones, could "affect the growth and innovation in this market." "Has the FDA discussed, prepared, or analyzed the effect of the medical device tax on smartphones (as well as tablets or similar devices) or the creators or distributors of applications for those products?" the lawmakers asked. According to the letter, the FDA's draft approach to regulating mobile medical devices would only apply to technologies that were explicitly marketed for medical uses. This means that an iPhone or Blackberry used to run medical apps would not itself be considered a medical device.
GOP warns health law could tax smartphones, apps as medical devices
A copyright battle between The Associated Press and an online news-clipping service is reaching a climax, and the case could have significant implications for fair use.
AP sued Meltwater Group last year, arguing the "reputation management" company had a "parasitic business model" that violated copyright. Meltwater is defending the case, arguing that it is merely a search engine. Meltwater News is a media-monitoring service that helps corporations track what's being said about them in press outlets online. The company boasts that it can "track keywords, phrases, and topics in over 192,000 sources from over 190 countries and 100 languages" throughout the day. It doesn't send its subscribers full articles, but does copy snippets and headlines then provide links to full stories -- like Google News. Last week, the nation's largest newspapers lined up to tell the New York federal judge considering the case that they support the AP. An amicus brief was filed by The New York Times, The McClatchy Company, Advance Publications, and the Newspaper Association of America, which represents 200 newspapers around the country. In the brief, they argue that Meltwater isn't a search engine -- it's a competitor. The newspapers argue that Meltwater isn't a "search engine," but a competitor undercutting their own news-clipping businesses. In the brief, the publishers say that Meltwater is a threat to their own digital businesses, which are supported in part by revenue from "other publishers and users and aggregators." Those revenue streams cannot be "sustained if news organizations are unable to protect their news reports from the wholesale copying and redistribution by free-riders like Meltwater."
Newspapers go all-in for copyright fight against clipping service
Questionable behavior, fleeting infatuations with the new and the flashy, and conflicted opinions about what’s right and wrong are clear signs of adolescence. They’re also hallmarks of people’s relationship to mobile.
According to McCann Truth Central, an “intelligence unit” of advertising network McCann Worldgroup, we’re all only adolescents when it comes to mobile technology, starting with our overall relationship with mobile -- which, for the average person, is about 12 years. The online study found that most people are still figuring out what they want the mobile space to be and who they intend to be inside it. The bottom line: people are very conflicted. Sixty-one percent of respondents said what they do on their mobile device has no effect on the people around them, but 52% said it was more tempting to be rude to people who were using their phone in public. Seventy-two percent said mobile devices were a requirement to connecting to someone or something, although a similar percentage worried that our emotional connections to each other are weaker today than they were in the past.
When It Comes To Mobile, We're All Teenagers
By the end of April, the Pentagon will be devoting less attention and fewer staff to network security under spending cuts, according to budget analysts.
Mandatory, across-the-board decreases in funding will spare the salaries of uniformed Cyber Command members, but many of those personnel will be focused on sequester planning rather than operations. Meanwhile, their civilian peers face furloughs. Defense Department officials must reduce every program’s budget by about 8 percent. "That workload is going to detract from the actual mission work because you know jobs are at stake. Incomes are at stake," said Todd Harrison, senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Certain contractors will be let go and civilians will be furloughed for one day a week starting mid-April through the end of September, under the 2011 Budget Control Act that resolved a debt-ceiling crisis. The skeletal programming could continue through 2014 because the $10 billion slashing each year won’t sunset without new legislation.
Sequestration Positions Cyber Command for a fall
Each weekday afternoon from a small Southern California studio, two radio hosts raise hell, filling the airwaves with tirades against those they call villains and liars, crooks and idiots. In other words: politicians. And the recent arrival of John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou on the airwaves in the New York market has given the popular duo a big new audience and their newest target to mercilessly mock — in the “ultimate nanny” Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) — and the surprise of finding a politician they respect in Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ).
From three to seven p.m. PST, Kobylt and Chiampou regale listeners of “The John and Ken Show” with their takes on everything from the major political issues of the day to strange tabloid tales. They’ve got the Southern California market wrapped up, broadcasting on KFI-AM 640 during the key afternoon traffic time slot. In January, they started simulcasting the last hour of their show on WOR 710 at 9 p.m. EST and are also doing an additional hour specifically for the station. And with their entry to New York airwaves, they’ve been able to add even more politicians to their cast of characters to lampoon.
Radio duo: Michael Bloomberg the ‘ultimate nanny’
The Washington Post announced what it is dubbing an “online strike force” to lead and coordinate its political news coverage, as well as several staff changes on its political team.
The Post’s political team will now have point people on each major coverage area and some roles among its bloggers will shift “to make us even faster and smarter,” national editor Cameron Barr and national political editor Steven Ginsberg told staffers in a memo. Among the changes: Juliet Eilperin is leaving the environment beat to cover the White House, Aaron Blake will move from The Fix to co-headline PostPolitics with Rachel Weiner, Sean Sullivan will take a “broader role” for The Fix, and Scott Clement of the Post’s independent polling entity Capital Insight will write regular posts about polling. Digital political editor Vince Bzdek and The Fix’s Chris Cillizza “will work together to lead the team,” the editors wrote.
Washington Post announces an 'online strike force,' staff changes
Verizon Wireless expects subsidies for smartphones and other devices to fall over the next two to three years as competition intensifies among operating systems and devices move to being LTE-only, according to a senior Verizon executive.
Speaking at the Deutsche Bank 2013 Media, Internet & Telecom Conference, Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said Microsoft's Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10 and other emerging smartphone platforms will lead to more competition and lower prices among smartphones, which will, in turn, reduce subsidy costs for carriers. "I'm a believer that over the next two to three years subsidies will start to decrease just because of the ecosystems," he said. Shammo also said that as Verizon moves to Voice over LTE technology late this year and early next year, the company will begin to launch devices without CDMA chipsets in them, which also should reduce subsidy costs.
Verizon's Shammo: Device subsidies will drop over next 2-3 years
The unofficial theme at this year's Mobile World Congress show was: Everybody attack Apple, Samsung and Google. The reason is obvious: These three companies dominate the smartphone industry with a shocking totality.
Apple and Samsung together account for 103% of all smartphone handset profits. (The percentage exceeded 100% because of the way losses are accounted for.) Google dominates mobile search revenue in part because of its Android platform and in part because of its iOS apps. Google made about $5.2 billion in mobile ad revenue last year worldwide and grabbed an incredible 93.3% share of the U.S. mobile search ad market. The rest of the industry is fed up with watching Apple, Samsung and Google run away with all the money. Now they're fighting back.
Apple, Samsung and Google under fire at Mobile World Congress