Cassidian CyberSecurity’s portfolio of products and services is built along three tiers:

• Cyber Defence & Professional Services, aimed at providing high-level professional services (such as attack analysis and response, risk management, audits of security infrastructure architectures) and implementing operation centres dedicated to security supervision of Scada and IT systems. These security operation centres, enabling the provision of remote-operated cyber security services, will be based [initially] in the three launch countries of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
• Trusted Infrastructure, for implementing national and European high-security trusted solutions and developing technologies (e.g. cryptography, digital identity management) in accordance with regulatory and national sovereignty requirements.
• Secure Mobility, to provide next generation security products and services for industry and governments in the form of mobile equipment (voice, data, applications) and deployable communication nodes.

The government segment of the cyber security sector is experiencing a dramatic rise in the number and level of sophistication of threats, covering attacks from nation states, through to terrorist groups. According to a recent market study the U.S Federal cyber security market is red hot. With a cumulative market valued at $65.5 billion (2013 – 2018), the U.S. Federal Cybersecurity market will grow steadily – at about 6.2% CAGR over the next six years.

The major report findings are rather gloomy:

• Chinese capabilities in computer network operations have advanced sufficiently to pose genuine risk to U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict;
• Chinese commercial firms, with foreign partners supplying critical technology and often sharing the cost of the R&D, are enabling the PLA to receive access to cutting edge research and technology;
• The Chinese military’s close relationship with large Chinese telecommunications firms creates an avenue for state sponsored or state directed penetrations of supply chains for electronics supporting U.S. military, government, and civilian industry – with the potential to cause the catastrophic failure of systems and networks supporting critical infrastructure for national security or public safety.

• Threat Intelligence – Intelligence from one of the world’s largest repository of threat and vulnerability insights is planned to be available based on the real-time monitoring of 13 billion security events per day from the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Feed. This insight can flag behavior that may be associated with Advanced Persistent Threats, which may emanate from teams of attackers accessing networks through stealth means.
• Visibility into Enterprise Activity – The platform will unite events from IBM and non-IBM products that span four areas of organizational risk – infrastructure, people, applications and data.
• Pinpoint Analysis in an Age of Big Data – The platform can drill down to basic data elements to help analyze issues emanating from network access information at the periphery to database activity at the core of a business.

Goals of the conference:

• To look at recent (2 – 3 years) research results and deployment experiences that have occurred in cyber-physical areas across multiple industries. (e.g., healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, electric Smart Grid)
• To determine if there are security requirements that are unique to CPSs as opposed to strictly cyber or physical systems.

GFIRST is a great place for public and private sector leaders serving in non-technical roles to become familiar with the fundamentals of cyber security and incident response. GFIRST is also an excellent resource for practitioners in incident response and information security from the public and private sectors to include:

• Academia with Cyber Security Specialties
• Chief Information Security Officers
• Chief Technology Officers
• Computer Forensic Personnel
• Critical Information Infrastructure Owners & Operators
• Cyber Incident Responders
• Cyber Security Association Members
• Cyber Security Experts
• Emergency Managers
• GFIRST Members
• Incident Response Directors
• Information System Security Managers
• Information System Security Officer
• Information Technology Administrators
• Information Technology Directors
• Inspector Generals
• ISAC Members
• Law Enforcement Personnel Supporting Cyber Security Issues
• Network Administrators
• Process Improvement Managers
• Security Engineers
• Software Developers & Managers

FISSEA – now a NIST program under the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) announced the 25th Annual Conference. This year’s theme, “A New Era in Cybersecurity Awareness, Training, and Education” will focus on security training on a budget, current cybersecurity projects, emerging trends and initiatives. Attendees will gain new techniques for developing and conducting training, professional development, networking, and an opportunity to meet industry partners at the Vendor Exhibit.

This initiative will develop a “maturity model” that allows utility companies and grid operators to measure their current capabilities and analyze gaps in their cyber defenses. Maturity models, which rely on best practices to identify an organization’s strengths and weaknesses, are widely used by other sectors to improve performance, efficiency and quality.