Directive will help shore up security, experts say
The directive will guide agencies in securing against cyberattacks, CIAO's Paul Rodgers says. Defense Information Systems Agency networks that failed a well-publicized 1996 security test would not pass it today either, DISA personnel acknowledged at a General Services Administration seminar in Washington last month. Sixty-five percent of the 1996 intrusions were successful, and only 4 percent of networks detected the attacks. Defense Department managers reported 1 percent of the attacks to DISA.
Lucent lets you order and buy phones online
Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hills, N.J., is launching a test program that will let users design, order and finance a telephone system online. "We are trying it with about 700 government customers around the country," said Denise Gibson, director of government sales for Lucent Direct. The federal users represent a cross-section of agencies with offices that could use the small to midsized Partner Advanced Communications System, a telephone key system.
Making NT secure is possible
"People think NT is unsecure, and it's not. It's the people who set it up," Brezinski said. "What I'm doing is not sexy," Dominique Brezinski advised the people coming in to hear his talk on attacking Microsoft Windows NT security. But they filled the room anyway as he clicked his way through an NT server's directories, gathering bits of information as he went.
As part of overhaul, Pentagon to get ATM backbone
Over the last 55 years, the Pentagon has accumulated more than 100,000 miles of copper and fiber cable. In the next decade, the cable will be torn out and replaced with new wire and a high-speed asynchronous transfer mode network that Defense Department officials predict will last for another half-century. The Defense Supply Service awarded the $110 million contract for rebuilding the Pentagon's information and telecommunications infrastructure to GTE Corp. GTE Government Systems will install the ATM
Toll-quality voice is now a measurable specification
The final judgment always rests on human opinion, Steve Voran said. Toll-quality voice is a big selling point for voice-over-IP and other computer telephony products. But who decides what toll quality means? The Commerce Department's Institute for Telecommunications Sciences (ITS) has been working on the question for several years. ITS has come up with a set of digital signal processing algorithms to evaluate the quality of audio transmissions.
New modules diversify use of network simulator for engineers and planners
The modules can model traffic over satellite and circuit-switching networks. CACI Products Co. has introduced a suite of new modules for its flagship Comnet III network simulator. The modules can model traffic over satellite and circuit-switched networks, as well as predict application behavior. The Satellite and Mobile Module is targeted to the government market, said Chris LeBaron, vice president of strategic marketing for CACI Products of La Jolla, Calif.
Maryland vendor sets up routers for network managers to test drive
World of Routers of Rockville, Md., has set up an array of Cisco Systems Inc. routers that networking professionals can experiment with in a controlled, real-world environment. "As far as I know, it's the only one of its kind," president Thomas W. Graham said. Some companies and government agencies maintain in-house test facilities, but Graham said World of Routers is the first place anyone can pay by the hour for hands-on experience with live network routers.
Transportation awards five contracts to bolster infrastructure protection
The Transportation Department has awarded five contracts worth roughly $45 million to protect the nation's transportation infrastructure. The new systems are intended to bridge the gap between physical and information security risks, addressing the infrastructure as a whole, according to officials at the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Mass. Volpe awarded the contracts last month.
NIH finds power in numbers
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute watch very small events that happen very fast. "We study the quantum chemistry of systems," said Eric Billings, a staff scientist in the Computational Biophysics Section. That means tracing the movements of individual atoms at picosecond, or 10-15-second, intervals.
FTS takes command of federal security hotline
The General Services Administration has chosen Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center to staff a government computer security hotline. The Pittsburgh CERT, together with the Energy Department's Computer Incident Advisory Capability group, has been handling the hotline under a two-year Federal Computer Incident Response Capability pilot. A FEDCIRC Management Center will be set up within FTS' Office of Information Security, said Judith Spencer, director of the office's Center for Governmentwide Security.
NASA network blasts off with Fast Ethernet
NASA's space shuttle fleet managers have upgraded their network at Johnson Space Center in Houston to a Fast Ethernet backbone with switched Ethernet to desktop systems. "We came off a 10-Mbps shared network, so this is much better," said Joe Capps, manager of network and desktop services for the United Space Alliance, or USA.
VA simplifies veterans' hunt for benefit information
The IVR system lets callers access recorded information about a wide range of VA programs. The Veterans Benefits Administration is piloting an automated response telephone system that does the call routing over Sprint Corp.'s FTS 2000 network rather than on equipment at VBA premises. The proof-of-concept pilot will help the Veterans Affairs Department choose between owning its integrated voice response equipment or paying for network service in future applications.
Military has smart-card idea in store for recruits
To automate payroll and registration for recruits, the Financial Management Service and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service are issuing smart cards to recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. The Lackland program kicks off a militarywide initiative. The Defense Department plans to eliminate checks and cash as the chief payment methods for recruits at Army, Navy and Air Force training posts, said Gary Grippo, FMS program manger for electronic money.
No turn's too tight for Guard
Every day about 350 vessels visit the Port of Houston, one of the nation's busiest ports. "They have a lot of dangerous traffic," said Lt. Mike Johnston, an engineer for the Coast Guard's Shore-based Systems Engineering Branch. The port's service area includes not only Houston and Galveston, Texas, but also Texas City, the nation's busiest petrochemical port for container loads of hazardous chemicals. The 54 nautical miles of channel are narrow and winding, making travel risky.
Call-management product maker will push wares in federal market
Rockwell Electronic Commerce will form a federal sales group in Vienna, Va., to increase visibility for its flagship line of Spectrum call-center products. "We haven't been addressing the federal market," said Rich Buchanan, East Coast regional director for the Wood Dale, Ill., business unit of Rockwell International Corp. Rockwell EC demonstrated its Transcend call-management software at the CTI Expo trade show in Baltimore last month. Using the same software as Rockwell's Spectrum Automatic Call Distributor, Transcend runs
Navy buys 3Com switches to build IT-21 ATM backbones for East and West coasts
The Navy has ordered two networks from 3Com Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., for its Information Technology for the 21st Century program. The ashore networks will create asynchronous transfer mode backbones for Navy organizations on the East and West coasts. The Navy's postgraduate school in Monterey, Calif., and the Naval Depot in Jacksonville, Fla., are each building networks using 3Com's CoreBuilder 7000HD ATM switch.
Hackers, feds say govt. net security stinks
LAS VEGAS—Hackers and feds faced off at the Black Hat Briefings last month but also found they had something in common: a lack of respect for the government's network security tactics. "In general, we don't have a clue what the threat is and what ought to be done about it," said a Defense Department employee who identified himself only as Ken.
Industry leaders debate state of network security tools
LAS VEGAS—Network security took a beating at the Black Hat Briefings held last month. Speakers offered up wildly divergent views. Some called network security adequate, but others said it is irreparably broken and must be rebuilt from the ground up. "I think we're doomed," said Marcus Ranum, president and chief executive officer of Network Flight Recorder Inc. of Woodbine, Md., a maker of network monitoring tools.
Feds develop freeware app to foil hackers
Shadow combines monitoring with statistical assessment to detect events that filters cannot decode. A consortium of agencies and private organizations has released a free network intrusion detector to combat about 40 types of cyberattacks. The intrusion detection team at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren, Va., primarily developed the Shadow freeware using Energy Department code.
Cabletron adds new backbone switch for ATM
A new member of Cabletron Systems Inc.'s SmartSwitch family rounds out the Rochester, N.H., company's asynchronous transfer mode products. The SmartSwitch 6500, designed for data centers and campus backbones, fits between the Model 2500 workgroup and wiring closet switch and the 9500 enterprise switch. The 6500's 10-Gbps ATM switching chassis works at T3 to OC-12 rates.
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