Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Suspected Russian Hack Said to Have Gone Undetected for Months

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Cyber Security

Comments: 0

A suspected Russian hack of U.S. government agencies and private businesses across the globe festered for months, going largely undetected by the Trump administration and cybersecurity firms until the past week, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Russian operation was disclosed Sunday and was met with alarm by current and former intelligence officials, security experts and lawmakers, some of whom said they were stunned an apparently widespread attack appeared to have evaded recognition for so long.

As early as March of this year, customers of SolarWinds Inc., a U.S. network-management company, began unwittingly installing malicious software as part of a routine and seemingly benign update issued for a software product known as Orion, according to the company.

That update, which would have been especially difficult to identify as a threat, contained what investigators called a back door that could have granted easy access to nearly 18,000 entities that downloaded it. Investigators expect the number of fully compromised victims to be smaller, perhaps totaling hundreds.

Both the U.S. Commerce and Treasury departments had some of their systems compromised in the breach, according to officials and people familiar with the continuing investigation.

On Monday the list of known impacted agencies grew substantially. The Department of Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health and the State Department were all hacked as well, people familiar with the matter said.

All three agencies declined to comment about their breaches. The Washington Post first reported the intrusions at the NIH and the State Department late Monday.

The hacks identified so far appear to be a fraction of the total number of federal and private networks that were compromised by Russian spies intent on monitoring internal communications.

Photo: The Treasury Department was among the agencies believed to have been compromised in the breach. - ERIC BARADAT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspected-russian-hack-said-to-have-gone-undetected-for-months-11607974376

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