Cyber City, USA News

This article also appears in The Washington Post, with whom Mashable has partnered to provide additional coverage of the impact that digital is having on current events, politics and policy.

Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation at the State Department, has a piece of advice for students tasked with the nerve-rattling dilemma of choosing a college major.

“If any college student asked me what career would most assure thirty years of steady, well-paying employment,” said Ross, “I would respond, ‘cybersecurity.’”

That’s because cybersecurity is a field where the rules of the recession seem flipped: There’s plenty of jobs, but relatively few qualified applicants.

The government needs to hire at...

The National Security Agency has launched National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Operations Program; the program is intended to be a deeply technical, inter-disciplinary, higher education program grounded in the computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE), or electrical engineering (EE) disciplines, with extensive opportunities for hands-on applications via labs and exercises

The National Security Agency (NSA) announced the establishment of a new National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Operations Program. The program is in support of the president’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Edcucation (NICE). The goal of NICE is to advance the goal of broadening the pool of skilled...

Under a barrage of cyberattacks, U.S. companies are hiring more security engineers, analysts than ever before
By Carolyn Duffy Marsan, Network World

Embattled by hactivists, cybercriminals and foreign rivals seeking to steal proprietary information, U.S. corporations are ramping up their hiring of cybersecurity experts, with open jobs reaching an all-time high in April.
The need for cybersecurity experts spans all industries, from financial services, manufacturing and utilities to healthcare and retail. Among the major U.S. companies trying to fill cybersecurity-related positions are Boeing, Baylor Health Care System, Verisign and Office Depot.

BACKGROUND: Biggest threat to corporate nets in...

DHS-sponsored "International Partners Day" draws participation from Europe, Israel, Japan
By Ellen Messmer, Network World

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- In the interests of thwarting cyberattacks on critical infrastructure such as energy, water and manufacturing, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly reaching out to other governments around the world to find what problems may exist elsewhere and what research can be shared to improve industrial control systems (ICS).

Security of industrial control systems questioned at DHS conference
In a closed-door meeting today following a conference, ICS-CERT, the DHS division that investigates cyberattacks against ICS that control critical water and...

Rackspace Hosting invited students from local charter schools to its corporate office to give them a peak into the world of cloud computing.

Rackspace Hosting Inc. hosted a group of charter school students at this week as part of National Charter School Awareness Week.

In all, some 20 high school seniors along with faculty and staff from Jubilee and Alpha Academies were given the grand tour of Rackspace’s headquarters on May 10. Both high schools are part of the Jubilee Academic Center.
Cara Nichols, director of Community Affairs for Rackspace, says the goal of the tour is to give high school seniors a clear picture of what their future could look like or what they might be passionate about as it...

The Department of Defense in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security announced today important developments in defense industrial base cyber security activities. After a year-long Defense Industrial Base (DIB) cyber security pilot, the DoD’s Voluntary DIB Cyber Security/ Information Assurance (CS/IA) Program is now available to all eligible DIB companies. In addition, DIB Enhanced Cyber security Services (DECS) will become part of the expanded program.

These activities enhance and supplement existing cyber security capabilities to help safeguard sensitive DoD information that is maintained on DIB company unclassified information systems.

“The expansion of voluntary information sharing between...

by matt-scherer

Note:
For years, I have been working as a public relations professional in what I call Austintonio — the cities of Austin and San Antonio. For the past couple of years, I have been a correspondent with Austin Startup — www.austinstartup.com. This week, I completed an interview with Jason Seats, the managing director of the TechStars Cloud program about the success of the first program, that was posted on this tech portal. My intent was to share the success of the TechStars Cloud program with our northern cousins. Yet, after reading it and having it posted on Austin Startup, I felt it was important to share this with others.

Question:...

About 2 weeks ago, I was all jazzed up to write my first blog for Infosec Island. I set up my account and knew the topic I was going to write about – cybersecurity legislation.

Before I sat down to put my fingers to the keyboard, I decided to catch up on some reading that I had set aside in my Read It Later app just in case there was some good information for me to use for my blog.

The first one I read was a blog by James Altucher (one of my favorites to read) about procrastination. Needless to say, that may not have been the best thing to read first because what happened next was somehow predicted by that blog.

Life happened and abolished my last 3 weeks – I have hardly even looked at Twitter and...