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 Hackers Used U.S. Networks, Official Says

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Cyber Security

Comments: 0

A sprawling cyber-attack that compromised popular software created by Texas-based SolarWinds Corp. was executed from within the U.S., a top White House official said, though the government believes Russia was responsible.

The federal investigation of the hack will take several months, Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger said in a briefing for reporters on Wednesday.

“As of today, nine federal agencies and about 100 private-sector companies were compromised,” Neuberger said. She didn’t identify them and said the government hasn’t ruled out the possibility of further victims.

She said the government believes it’s still at the “beginning stages” of understanding the scope and scale of the attack, which was publicly disclosed in December but was likely executed months earlier. “The hackers launched the hack from inside the United States which further made it difficult for the U.S. government to observe their activity,” she said.

Neuberger is leading the U.S. response to the SolarWinds attack. The Texas-based company’s software is used by several government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

As many as 18,000 SolarWinds’s customers received malicious code through updates to the software, though far fewer are believed to have been targeted for further intrusions by the hackers. The targets included the federal departments of State, Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, including its nuclear weapons agency. The hackers used other methods to infiltrate networks besides SolarWinds, U.S. officials have said.

“Many of the private sector compromises are technology companies, including networks of companies whose products could be used to launch additional intrusions,” Neuberger said.

President Joe Biden said in a Feb. 4 speech at the State Department that the U.S. has “elevated the status of cyber issues within our government.”

The U.S. “will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia” for the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior, including cyber-attacks, Biden said in the address

Photo and Link: Suspected Russian Hackers Used U.S. Networks, Official Says (yahoo.com)

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