Cybersecurity

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Cybersecurity Stocks Are Your Only Safe Bet

In a worldwide war with hackers, cybersecurity stocks will keep you safe

By Jeff Reeves

Source: Investor Place

http://investorplace.com/2015/10/cybers ... h3B36Sqcy4

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ARE YOU READY FOR A CYBERATTACK? by Sean Brodrick

Some of my subscribers and regular readers may be sick of me going on... and on and on and on... about cybersecurity. How hacking is the biggest threat facing our country. How the next world war will be in cyberspace. How low barriers to entry make cybercrime the crime of the century.

"Oh, that Sean," you probably say. "He's obsessed. He needs a Xanax and a good night's sleep."

Well, maybe so. But what if I told you that the head of the National Security Agency is also lying awake at night, worrying about the same kinds of things I am?

And if he's right: There is a tidal wave of trouble bearing down on the sleeping citizens of the U.S.A.

Admiral Michael Rogers is director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command. He recently spoke at a conference sponsored by The Wall Street Journal.

And he says that a big cyberattack on the U.S. is a matter of "If," not "When."

Admiral Rogers says there are three things that really worry him the most:

No. 1. Cyberattacks That Do Infrastructure Damage. By that, the admiral means the electric grid, railroad switches, traffic control systems, nuclear power plants and more.

Rogers told the conference: "It is only a matter of 'when' that someone uses cyber as a tool to do damage to the critical infrastructure of our nation."

He added: "I'm watching groups within some of that infrastructure. At the moment, it seems to be really focused on reconnaissance and attempting to understand the characteristics of the structure. But it's only a matter of time, I believe, until someone actually does something destructive."

No. 2. Data Manipulation. "What happens when suddenly our data is manipulated and you no longer can believe what you're physically seeing?" Rogers asked the conference.

Like any kid who has cited Wikipedia as a reference in school, what we "know" on the Internet may not be real. For one example, attackers could take airplanes on and off the screens used by air traffic controllers.

Rogers is especially worried that false data could cause "risk-based decisions" to go catastrophically wrong.

No. 3. Stateless Bad Guys. This could be ISIS, al-Qaida or maybe a violent fringe group we don't know about yet.

Rogers asked: "What happens when a nonstate actor, who literally has no interest in the status quo, starts viewing the Web as not just a vehicle to generate revenue, to recruit, to spread the ideology? Instead they view it as a weapon system."

And the problem in all these examples is that the barriers to entry for tomorrow's super villains are getting lower and lower as our systems get more and more complex.

Terrorists can literally put a thousand (or 10,000) computer nerds in front of keyboards and keep them plinking away until they succeed. The only cost is electricity and whatever passes for jihadi junk food.

Of course, these aren't the only problems. There are also state-sponsored cyberterrorists. The Chinese government is linked to various large data hacks on U.S. corporations and on U.S. government agencies. In fact, U.S. businesses lose $300 billion a year from Chinese intellectual property theft.

And it's not just China. Russian hackers have plagued Wall Street for years. In August, Russian and Ukrainian hackers were arrested in a scheme in which they sneaked peeks at press releases, allowing them to trade the news early. That meant they banked more than $100 million in trades on stocks, including Panera Bread, Caterpillar, Boeing and more. The losers? American investors. Maybe even you.

When we talk about state-sponsored hacking, it's a long list. At least 29 countries have military or intelligence units dedicated to offensive cyberwarfare. That includes the good ol' U.S. of A.

And Admiral Rogers isn't the only one sounding the alarm. Recently, FBI Director James Comey briefed the U.S. Senate on "current threats to the homeland." Comey said that an element of virtually every national security threat and crime problem the FBI faces is cyber-based or facilitated.

Now for the Good News

I'm not trying to depress you. And there is some good news. A new report from Gartner says that global spending on cybersecurity will hit $75.4 billion this year. That's up 4.7% from last year.

How would you like to get a piece of that money flood? Now, you can.

The PureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF (NYSEArca: HACK) tracks a basket of 32 U.S.-listed cybersecurity companies. It has been active for not quite a year, and investors have poured $1.26 billion into it.

I'd say that's the tip of the iceberg. A lot more money should flow into this sector. And that should push PureFunds and the stocks it holds higher.

Cyberthreats are real. But so are the profits you can make from security rising to meet these threats.


Source: The Non-Dollar Report

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The Simplest, Most Effective Strategy For Getting Wealthy in Hi-Tech Today

by Keith Fitz-Gerald

Source: Total Wealth

http://totalwealthresearch.com/2015/09/ ... ech-today/

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Everything You Need to Know About Ransom Web Attacks

By Miguel Leiva-Gomez

Source: Epoch Times

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1899731 ... b-attacks/

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Markets hack away at Cyber Security ETF

BY TREVOR HUNNICUTT

Source: Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/ ... ctt37RF.99

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Why FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) Stock Dropped 23% This Week

By DIANE ALTER

Source: Money Morning

http://moneymorning.com/2015/11/06/why- ... this-week/

[winston]

3 Cybersecurity Stocks to Buy for Inevitable Growth

Three things you can count on: death, taxes and the growing need for cybersecurity

By Tim Melvin

Source: Investor Place

http://investorplace.com/2016/02/cybers ... sAWm_J96M8

[winston]

The Global Cybersecurity Boom

By Sean Brodrick

Cybercrime is booming, which means that the business of providing cybersecurity is also booming.

If it hasn't happened already, this could well be the year that cybercriminals hack into some facet of your electronic identity. In the last year, the number of records exposed in data breaches soared nearly 100%, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.

On a personal level, the hits just keep on coming.

The IRS just announced that cybercriminals were using stolen information to launch cyberattacks on its e-filing system. The crooks used 101,000 Social Security numbers to access e-file PINs (out of 464,000 attempts). What's that mean? Someone can file your tax return before you do and have a refund sent to them. The IRS says the attacks were stopped before any money was stolen.

1.1 million customers of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield just had their personal information stolen. Does that sound bad? Here's worse: It's the third major cyberattack on a U.S. health insurer this year. And it's only February!

HSBC had to shut down its personal banking websites due to a relentless wave of cyberattacks.

Time Warner Cable says up to 320,000 customer email passwords were stolen.

Even the nation's top security officials are having their personal data stolen. U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says his personal email and phone were hacked.

For business owners, the risk is even bigger. Cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and more sophisticated all the time.

JPMorgan Chase has a cybersecurity team of 1,000 staffers and a budget of $250 million per year. It still got hacked. And why not? The banks are where all the money is!

Internationally, some of the sums involved are mind-boggling. Just this month, cyberthieves unleashed a massive attack on a Russia-based forex trading firm. They performed $400 million of unauthorized trades and pocketed the profits. Authorities speculate the hackers likely had co-conspirators and access to "a huge amount of money."

Globally, cyberattacks cost businesses between $400 billion (an insurance estimate) and $500 billion a year (an IT industry estimate).

And individual breaches are getting more expensive. The average cost of a data breach in the U.S. rose from $5.4 million in 2013 to $6.53 million in 2015.

Million-Dollar Breach-Front

Naturally, insurance rates are skyrocketing. Annual cyber-insurance premiums will more than double over the next four years, according to industry estimates.

The Really Scary Vulnerabilities

In previous columns, I have warned that the U.S. power grid could be at risk from cyberterrorists. Well, someone is apparently running training missions in Ukraine.

Investigators say hackers spent six months seeding the computer control system of a Ukrainian power company with malware. To what end? This was the groundwork for a later overnight attack.

A big section of Ukraine went dark until the problem was fixed.

Closer to home, Iranian hackers breached the computer controls for a New York dam in 2013. Could "sleeper" malware be infiltrated throughout important power systems? There's no way to know until and unless the lights go out.

Meanwhile, a recent survey revealed a stunning statistic. More than 82% of 150 IT professionals in the energy, utilities, and oil and gas industries said a cyberattack on operational technology in their organizations could cause physical damage.

What's more, 76% of respondents to the poll said their organizations are likely targets for a cyberattack that would cause physical damage. And 78% said their organizations are potential targets for a nation-state cyberattack.

So this opens the door to nightmare scenarios like this:

You wake up one morning and walk into your kitchen, only to find your programmed coffeemaker isn't working.

Mildly irritated, you notice that the normal messages waiting for you on your phone aren't there. Well, that's kind of a blessing. Then you notice your phone won't access the Internet at all.

You go and check your laptop or desk computer. Nothing. That's weird. Then, in the distance, you hear the fire department's old disaster sirens crank their rusty throats into life. They wail and wail, a sound that sets your nerves on edge.

Your spouse tells you the TV isn't working either. So you get a bright idea. You go out to your car to turn on its radio.

But as you walk outdoors, you see a horrifying site. A massive fireball soars into the sky. The shockwave rattles your windows.

What the heck is going on? You hurry to your car and turn on your radio.

"... a massive explosion at the liquid petroleum storage facility," the breathless radio host says. "But reports are coming in of catastrophic failures at important energy infrastructure across the country. Whatever can go wrong has gone wrong."

A cold chill goes down your spine as you remember the nuclear power plant across the state. Could that fail? You don't want to be around to find out. You're going to be smart and grab your family and get out of there.

You pile into the car and try to start it. The engine turns over and starts running! Hooray! But then the car fits and sputters like its electronic "brain" is possessed.

You suddenly realize you aren't driving anywhere.

Could such a nightmare scenario happen? If someone with a lot of time, energy and resources got really ticked off at us... who knows?

If one thing is for certain, the growing onslaught of cyberattacks is good news for the companies who are in the business of providing cybersecurity.

Merger Mania Is Happening

Cyber is one of the hottest spaces in tech right now. And cash-rich companies are gobbling up their peers on the cheap.

AVG Technologies, which has 200 million active users of its security systems, recently acquired Privax, a leading global provider of desktop and mobile privacy services.

Baidu, the Chinese Web giant, gobbled up online security startup Anquanbao.

Blue Coat Systems, a market leader in enterprise security, acquired Perspecsys, a leader in enterprise cloud data protection solutions.

Check Point Software Technologies, the largest pure-play security vendor globally, bought Lacoon Mobile Security. Lacoon leads the industry in mobile device security.

Cisco Systems acquired OpenDNS, a privately held security company based in San Francisco. OpenDNS provides advanced threat protection for any device, anywhere, anytime.

There are even more mergers in the works. Microsoft signed a letter of intent to acquire Israeli cloud security firm Adallom for $320 million. (Israel is the nexus of the cybersecurity industry, by the way.)

The point is, the business of cybersecurity is booming... And it will continue to boom for a long, long while. Perhaps even more compelling, the business of cybersecurity is a global one. It isn't just an "America thing."

Pay close attention to trends in cybersecurity and to the companies around the world leading the way in combating cyberattacks. Over the next several years, fortunes will be made by investing in this rapidly growing sector.


Source: The Non-Dollar Report

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Pentagon wants to plow $35 billion into cybersecurity

Source: Bloomberg

http://thecrux.com/pentagon-seeks-35-bi ... r-5-years/

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Blockchain and cybersecurity – Build it and they will come.

You’ve probably heard about the blockchain in the context of bitcoin. But thinking of blockchain so narrowly misses the point. I’m not going to talk bitcoin today… but I am going to explain why the blockchain is going to turn the world on its head.

If the whole blockchain story has passed you by, here’s a quick primer. Blockchain is essentially a way of recording transactions and data in a safe and verified way. It can be applied to anything – currencies, electoral rolls, medical records, financial data… the list is endless.

It’s a huge leap forward for both transactional safety and data security online. When I moved to the USA I was surprised that I had to pay my rent with a cheque. Chip and PIN devices were only introduced in December 2015 and are cumbersome to the point of annoyance.

For a European used to creating standing orders, direct debits and paying bills without forking out fees this was a reality check. Even depositing money into my own account, if not done in the prescribed manner, incurs fees. The high fee structure of banks represents perhaps the most inefficient market in history and blockchain is going to put it under a great deal of stress.

At its most basic the financial markets exist because of uncertainty. If you can figure out how to make that uncertainty work in your favour, you’re on to a winner. Since none of us know with absolute certainty what the future holds we have to come up with a value we are willing to pay or a prices we are willing to sell at that fits in with our opinion.

When a market is inefficient it means uncertainty is high and the spread between what someone is willing to pay and what is asked is wide. That is why charges are so high and they act as a tax on the consumer and economic activity. Every major financial innovation shares one common characteristic. They allow us to assess risk more effectively.

As a result prices for the items concerned come down. If prices come down we can afford to do more so volumes expand and as a result profits increase. We’re on the cusp of major financial innovations that are going to be as ground breaking for the financial sector as the internet.

In just 20 years we have gone from having only the woolliest idea of what the internet is to becoming wholly dependent on it. We now do everything online. Recent research says that Millennial mums spend 3-4 hours a day on their phones and my kids get withdrawal when away from their devices for only few hours. It’s no exaggeration to say your phone is your identity and it is valuable real estate.

Advertisers know this and spend a great deal of time trying to attract our attention.

More importantly criminals know it too and spend even more time trying to steal our identities. The response so far has been to insure us against loss for a year after our data is stolen from a vendor but that doesn’t change the fact that our most intimate details are out there on the web for nefarious elements to do with what they will.

Storing what is ours in a secure setting that is impenetrable to tampering but easy to access is the holy grail of internet security. That is what Blockchain is going to be.

The NASDAQ stock exchange is already testing a system that is storing trade data in a number of shares using the blockchain. In so doing it is creating an inviolate chain of custody that ensures the record of who owns which shares will be readily available but immune from outside interference.

Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander and Barclays among others are developing their own solutions and some are even attempting to secure patents. Doctors, accountants and lawyers will also have the ability to store contracts and records in the blockchain which will minimise repetitive busy work, eliminate expensive document storage and boost productivity.

Banks are rushing to get in on this market because using the blockchain we can pay bills, transfer money and accept payments all without ever using their services. They’re worried and that means they will have to pay big for access to what is a fast developing market.

My verdict: Keep your eyes fixed on the blockchain space this year. Things could develop very rapidly indeed. More on that in a future issue.

Source: Exponential Investor