Intelligence Alliance Site Hacked
Attack Occurred Days After Publication of Cyber Intel Paper
Intelligence and National Security Alliance President Ellen McCarthy used the revelation of the hack, uncovered late Wednesday, to highlight a major point of the study (see Cyber Intelligence: What Exactly Is It?): "Over 90 percent of the telecommunications infrastructure is held in the private sector. The question then becomes how does the government facilitate the sharing of threat information with the private sector in order to protect that infrastructure?"
The alliance Friday acknowledged its leaders became aware late Wednesday that its computer systems were compromised and that membership information containing names, addresses, e-mail addresses and, in some cases, phone numbers was made public. INSA said it does not keep sensitive membership information such as Social Security numbers, credit card numbers or passwords in its database.
"Due to the nature of our business, INSA takes security very seriously," McCarthy said in a statement. "We are outraged that someone finds it sporting to make private organizational data public, but we are not naïve. It is not a coincidence that this incident happened just two days after INSA's Cybersecurity Council released a report documenting the need for government and the private sector to begin to work together to solve our nations cyber security vulnerabilities."
McCarthy said the alliance is using the expertise of its member companies to ensure such a breach doesn't occur again.
