Cyber City, USA News

By Brittany Ballenstedt

With the looming threats of tighter budgets, pay cuts and sequestration, federal employees -- whether working in IT or other fields -- may be looking for a career change. And if you consider yourself a creative problem solver, the in-demand, high-paying field of cybersecurity might be right for you, according to one expert.

Eric Cole, a senior fellow at the SANS Institute, said Monday that SANS is hosting a new training session next month that provides participants with little to no knowledge of cybersecurity with the basic foundational knowledge to get started on a cyber career.

“In five days, we’ll get them to understand the terminology so they can go into the workplace and...

By Aliya Sternstein

The U.S. Cyber Command, which directs network offensive operations for the Pentagon and protects its networks, is becoming more open about the military’s capabilities in cyberspace. Recently, the Defense Department was forced to show part of its hand when leaks surfaced about U.S.-manufactured cyber weapons and cyber espionage missions. Still, since 2011, the department has told the world it stands prepared to protect U.S. national security interests through cyberspace maneuvers.

With intrusions becoming ever more frequent and public—Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have called Chinese hackers a continuing and concerning threat—the military is focusing its...

By Valentino Lucio

When it comes to the technology industry, women are an endangered species.
The number of women entering computer science and information technology fields is dramatically lower than their male counterparts, and the figure is shrinking. Take a ride up the corporate ladder, and the numbers get even smaller.

It's a chicken-and-egg situation: There are fewer women in IT because few women have the education for those jobs. There are fewer women interested in getting that education because they see so few women in IT.
Employers say they'd like to see more women in the industry. But if women aren't applying, how can employers hire them?

The issue may have to do with cultural...

Las Vegas (CNN) -- The hacker who goes by the pseudonym CyFi won't share her real name and declines to be photographed without her signature aviator sunglasses.

At the annual Def Con hacking conference here Friday, Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and head of the U.S. Cyber Command, brought CyFi on stage during his keynote address and called her "the most important person for our future."

CyFi is 11 years old.
For the second year in a row, Def Con organizers included a full schedule of Def Con Kids programs for beginner hackers ages 8 to 18. The children and teens, who must be accompanied by a parent, learned how to pick locks, competed to find the most bugs in mobile apps...

CAN you build a technology entrepreneur from scratch in four months flat?

Yes, contends a global training program called the Founder Institute, which was started in 2009. For tuition of less than $1,000, students attend classes with one goal in mind: to create a fully operational company. In fact, they are required to incorporate before they can graduate.

To be accepted, students don’t need to have a fully baked idea, but they must take a test that the institute says can predict their entrepreneurial success. They can keep their day jobs while attending class, but that does not mean the program is easy. The workload is grueling, and 60 percent of the students fail to graduate.

But this for-profit...

By Jenna Goudreau | Forbes

Over the past three decades women’s median income has increased 63%, and now more than a third of working wives earn more than their husbands. It’s no surprise when, although they were once discouraged from pursuing higher education, women now surpass men in achievement of bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Across sectors, women continue earning only 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, but more and more they are landing high-paying professional jobs and narrowing the gap. An analysis of the median weekly earnings of full-time American workers in 2011 by occupation and gender, as tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the top 20 jobs where women are earning the...

The Lone Star State is tops again, displacing Virginia, which doesn’t even finish seconds this year. Last? Rhode Island.
By Scott Cohn | CNBC - Texas has done it again.

The Lone Star State makes a triumphant return as America’s Top State for Business—its third time at the top of our rankings.

“Listen, there is a reason that Caterpillar moved their hydraulics manufacturing and their engine manufacturing to the state of Texas,” said Gov. Rick Perry in November during the CNBC Republican presidential debate.

We can attest to that.

In our sixth annual study, Texas racked up an impressive 1,604 points out of a possible 2,500, with top-10 finishes in six of our 10 categories of...

By Sarah E. Needleman | The Wall Street Journal

Despite the many products and services on the market designed to protect computers from getting hacked, many businesses—small firms in particular—are still suffering at the hands of cyberthieves.

Just ask Lloyd Keilson, the co-founder of Lifestyle Forms & Displays Inc., a mannequin maker and importer that had $1.2 million wiped out of its bank account in just hours through online transactions in May. His story was described in a Wall Street Journal article Thursday.

So how did the company get hacked?

Mr. Keilson isn't entirely sure, though experts in Web security say that cyberthieves likely covertly installed a virus on one of his company's...