Tony Bradley

In the wake of revelations that the US military network was compromised in 2008, and that US digital interests are under a relative constant threat of attack, the Pentagon is establishing new cyber security initiatives to protect the Internet. The Pentagon strategy--which is part digital NATO, part digital civil defense, and part Big Brother--may ruffle some feathers and raise concerns that the US Internet is becoming a military police state.

The mission of the United States Department of Defense is to provide military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of the nation. The scope of that mission includes emerging threats and the need to deter cyber war and protect the digital security of the nation as well. To fulfill that mission in an increasingly connected world, and with a rising threat of digital attack, the Pentagon wants to expand its sphere of influence.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – IBM on Wednesday reported that the number of discovered cracks that hackers could exploit in computer software surged in the first half of the year.

The number of new "vulnerabilities" documented by an X-Force Research and Development team at IBM increased 36 percent to 4,396 from the same period last year and more than half lacked patches to fix the flaws.

"This year's X-Force report reveals that although threats are on the rise, the industry as a whole is getting much more vigilant about reporting vulnerabilities," said IBM Security Solutions general manager Steve Robinson.

(Reuters) - A foreign spy agency led a 2008 cyber attack on U.S. military computer systems, a top Pentagon official said, shedding light on what he called the most significant breach of American military cyber security.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said the attack took place after an infected flash-drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a base in the Middle East, uploading malicious computer code onto the Central Command network.

"That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control," Lynn wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine published on Wednesday.

"This previously classified incident was the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever."

A 2008 cyber attack launched from an infected flash drive in the Middle East penetrated secret US military computers, a Pentagon official says.

The attack by a foreign spy service was the "most significant breach" ever of US military networks, Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn said.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Mr Lynn described it as a "digital beachhead" to steal military secrets.

He urged the US to speed up its cyber defence system procurement procedure.

Cybercrime is on the rise, according the a report released by PandaSecurity, the makers of Panda Antivirus Pro 2011. The finding, based on a survey of 1,532 American businesses and 7,938 global companies, revealed that the 2 percent uptick in cybercrime can be attributed to poor security practices.

According to Panda, 36 percent of U.S. small businesses use free security solutions that are designed for home use, 31 percent operate without anti-spam tools, 23 percent lack anti-spyware, and 15 percent haven't set up a firewall.