All Passcode

John Carlin, chief of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, says the US needs to raise the stakes for cyberattacks on the US: If the cost of stealing information from American companies results in swift criminal action or sanctions, hackers may eventually decide it's not worth it.

Passcode went on the road to South by Southwest Interactive, the annual gathering of digerati in Austin, Tex. Here's what we learned.

Privacy groups and tech industry associations oppose the proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights for different reasons. Their opposition reveals the deep division between those who want more protections and those who say the industry is already doing enough.

Protecting smart devices means building cybersecurity into the design process, from hardware to software. Making security a priority at the start, instead of coming up with patches later, is the key to ensuring the growing number of connected gadgets remain safe.

Rep. Will Hurd of Texas brings to Washington rare hands-on expertise from the front lines of American spycraft and information security. Now, as cybersecurity issues heat up, Hurd wants to be a liaison between the intelligence community, tech sector, and lawmakers.

The hacktivist collective Anonymous has gone through a significant evolution – shifting from Internet pranksters to prominent global activists. Gabriella Coleman explains the often misunderstood Anonymous phenomenon in her book, “Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.”

The Sony hack revealed the challenges of identifying perpetrators of cyberattacks, especially as hackers can masquerade as government soldiers and spies, and vice versa. It's a dangerous new dynamic for foreign relations, especially as what governments know about hackers – and how they know it – remains secret.

The Obama administration's proposed Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights should be viewed as the basis for starting a national conversation about stronger data protections laws, which are crucial as there is no future in which less data will be collected and used.

The password is one of the weakest forms of security. DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, wants to solve this problem by turning people and their behavior into passwords through its Active Authentication program.

Some security experts are concerned that newly adopted net neutrality rules will limit broadband providers' abilities to limit malicious traffic and spam, thus slowing down progress toward a safer Internet.

Among the lessons from the Sony hack was that conventional cybersecurity measures don't always stop intruders. What more corporations need to apply is an active defense to better understand and stop future threats. 

The Pentagon's advanced research arm revealed its latest version of Plan X, an in-progress system designed for the military to visualize defending against cyberattacks, at a Passcode event on the future of cybersecurity innovation.

Today, we suffer from two key challenges in addressing cyber security threats: (1) an over-abundance of endless data, and (2) a small pool of highly skilled cyber security personnel.

Today, as a nation, we are plagued by attacks from cyber criminals who range from ideologically motivated individuals and groups to well-financed nation-state bad actors.  They seek to disrupt our commerce, steal our money and assets and create uncertainty that we have only seen previously in the physical world. 

A glimpse into the future of defending against threats to cybersecurity featuring a live demo by DARPA's Plan X team of its cyber threat visualization system.

Even if it passes Congress, 87 percent of Passcode's Influencers say President Obama's push for more information sharing between the government and the private sector will not significantly reduce security breaches. 

It's the notion that in a free society, anyone should be able to read, learn, and debate without being monitored and recorded. Americans have long cherished this freedom, but author Neil Richards says it's being threatened by pervasive online tracking of digital habits and social media discussions. 

In the movie 'Ocean's Eleven,' cunning crooks outwitted an elaborate defense system. The same dynamic plays out on the digital front. That's why cybersecurity requires strong threat deterrence and not just stronger locks and taller fences.

Telegram promotes itself as a private chat application. But a security firm says it uncovered a flaw that can reveal a message even after is has supposedly been deleted permanently. 

Ransomware is malware that encrypts victims' data until they pay up. A popular variety known as CryptoWall has infected an estimated 1 million victims and collected approximately $1.8 million in ransom.