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Mike Steinmetz will make $176,419 a year to advise the governor on digital security policy.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Governor Gina Raimondo has appointed Mike Steinmetz, a former National Grid and National Security Agency manager, as Rhode Island's first cybersecurity officer.

Steinmetz, who started Monday, will be Raimondo's top adviser on digital security policy and lead the creation of a state cybersecurity strategy, according to a news release Tuesday from the governor's office.

"Modern infrastructure is more than just roads and bridges," Raimondo said the release. "It's also the digital connections we're making faster and more frequently than ever before."

Steinmetz will make $176,419 a year, according to Raimondo spokesman David Ortiz.

The cybersecurity officer position was created in the state budget approved by lawmakers last year and reports to the director of administration. It is not considered a cabinet position and does not require state Senate confirmation, Ortiz said.

Before joining state government, Steinmetz was a National Grid director of strategy and planning and director of governance and compliance. Before that, he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Security Agency.

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Ex-NSA manager R.I.'s first cybersecurity officer - The Providence Journal

A new cybersecurity summer camp is giving middle and high school girls a head start at a career intech.

The program, called GenCyber, will be entirely free thanks to theNational Security Agency (NSA), which is footing the bill fortuition, boarding andregistration fees for all participants. The NSAs goal forthe campis to inspire young people to direct their talents toward cybersecurity careers they believe are critical to national and economic security.

Another goal is to increase diversity in tech. Currently, women earn only 28 percent of computer science degrees, own only fivepercent of startups and hold only 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies.

With the shortage of women in technology fields, anything we can do to encourage young women to explore STEM careers can only be good, said Jose-Marie Griffiths, president of Dakota State University, which will beone of the camps two locations.The other host campus isSouth Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Both were launched inSouth Dakota as an effort by the universities, because itsbeen identified as one of the industry sectors with the highest potential inthe state.

Core sessions at the camps will focus on cybersecurity, programming, networking and robotics. Students also have a choice of electives including multimedia forensics, socket programming, password cracking, iRobot create, network forensics, web hacking and 3-D printing.

At the DSU camp, an FBI Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) will present ondigital forensics, and twospeakers from Google will discuss security and privacy.There will also be a cyber sleuth escape room, and Access Data, a leading forensics company, will be hostinghands-on labs with social media and web traffic.

The SD Mines camp features a collaboration with Black Hills Information Security (BHIS), a company focused on customized security solutions for their clients. Officials from BHIS will be involved in enhancing the curriculum alongside professors in Mines Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. There will be some fun opportunities to get off campus as wellfield trips toMt. Rushmore and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum

You can find out more about attending theMines and Dakota States GenCyber here and here.

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NSA Is Hosting a Free Cybersecurity Summer Camp for Teen Girls ... - Observer

From his Russia exile, NSA 'traitor' Snowden shows savvy on the ... Sacramento Bee Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden rakes in healthy fees in weekly video chats to universities and conventions, speaking on issues of secrecy and ... and more »

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From his Russia exile, NSA 'traitor' Snowden shows savvy on the ... - Sacramento Bee

Published time: 17 Apr, 2017 17:26

Malicious computer malware that caused substantial damage to Irans nuclear program may be the work of the NSA, researchers burrowing into the latest leak from hacking group Shadow Brokers have discovered within the computer data.

A tool found in Fridays leak matched one used by the notorious Stuxnet malware.

First detected in 2010, Stuxnet is believed to be the joint work of the US and Israel; a claim that Edward Snowden backed up in a 2013 interview but which has never been acknowledged by either government.

Designed to target industrial control systems used in infrastructure facilities, Stuxnet modifies data on controller software affecting their automated processes.

Computer code found in last weeks leak from Shadow Brokers, alleged to have been stolen from the NSA, was also found to match that used in Stuxnet.

Officials, who spoke under anonymity to The Washington Post, said in 2012 that the worm, developed under George W.Bushs administration and continued under Barack Obamas, was designed to damage Irans nuclear capabilities.

When it infected Irans nuclear facility in Natanz, it reportedly destroyed a fifth of their centrifuges after causing them to spin out of control, all the while relaying readings back to technicians at the plant that operations were normal.

"There is a strong connection between Stuxnet and the Shadow Brokers dump," Symantec researcher Liam O'Murchu told Motherboard. "But not enough to definitively prove a connection."

A definite link will be almost impossible to prove as Stuxnets script was later copied and used in an open-source hacking toolkit, allowing it to be replicated numerous times online.

However, O'Murchu said the script found in Fridays leak was last compiled on September 9, 2010 - three months after Stuxnet was first identified and shortly before it was added to the hacking toolkit.

Also contained in the leak was ASCII art of a medal with the words Won the gold medal!!! above it. Stuxnet was reportedly given the codename Olympic Games.

Security architect Kevin Beaumont tweeted the results of an antivirus program check on the Shadow Brokers exploits leaked on Friday, which returned that it had detected Stuxnet.

The latest evidence against the NSA was contained in Fridays leak from Shadow Brokers, which also detailed hacks aimed at Windows PCs and the SWIFT network, used to process payment orders.

READ MORE: What the hack? The leaks that shaped 2016

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Shadow Brokers leak links NSA to alleged US-Israeli Stuxnet malware that targeted Iran - RT

PARIS (AP) _ Up-to-date Microsoft customers are safe from the purported National Security Agency spying tools dumped online, the software company said Saturday, tamping down fears that the digital arsenal was poised to wreak havoc across the internet .

In a blog post , Microsoft Corp. security manager Phillip Misner said that the software giant had already built defenses against nine of the 12 tools disclosed by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has repeatedly published NSA code . The three others affected old, unsupported products.

Most of the exploits are already patched, Misner said.

The post knocked back warnings from some researchers that the digital espionage toolkit made public by TheShadowBrokers took advantage of undisclosed vulnerabilities in Microsofts code. That would have been a potentially damaging development because such tools could swiftly be repurposed to strike across the companys massive customer base.

Those fears appear to have been prompted by experts using even slightly out-of-date versions of Windows in their labs. One of Microsofts fixes, also called a patch, was only released last month .

I missed the patch, said British security architect Kevin Beaumont, jokingly adding, Im thinking about going to live in the woods now.

Beaumont wasnt alone. Matthew Hickey, of cybersecurity firm Hacker House, also ran the code against earlier versions of Windows on Friday. But he noted that many organizations put patches off, meaning many servers will still be affected by these flaws.

Everyone involved recommended keeping up with software updates.

We encourage customers to ensure their computers are up-to-date, Misner said.

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Raphael Satter is reachable on: http://raphaelsatter.com

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Microsoft says users are protected from alleged NSA malware - New Pittsburgh Courier