Cyber Roundup (3/27): A new House cyber bill, back for more Lulz, another setback for Huawei, and the US military goes on the cyber offensive

A quick survey of today's news…

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On March 27th, Eric Engleman and Chris Strohm reported for Bloomberg on a new House cybersecurity bill introduced by House Republicans.  According to the article, the bill is very similar to Secure IT, the cyberlegislation introduced by Senate Republicans.  The article didn't mention the bill's name, but explained that the bill would offer incentives to companies like Verizon, Comcast, and ConEd to encourage cyber threat information sharing with the government.

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In an article written for the Los Angeles Times, Salvador Rodriguez suggested that the militant hacker group LulzSec is not yet dead.  A group of hackers calling themselves "LulzSecReborn" recently targeted a dating site for military singles.  In doing so, the hackers may have "exposed the accounts of nearly 171,000 members of the military."

Remember that the FBI dealt LulzSec a large blow after its leader, Sabu, turned in several members of the hacking ring.

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Nicole Perlroth and John Markoff reported for the New York Times on the joint partnership between Symantec (a U.S. cybersecurity company) and Huawei Technologies (a large Chinese tech company).  The NYT explained that Symantec is breaking its joint venture with Huawei because Symantec "feared the alliance with [Huawei] would prevent it from obtaining [U.S.] government classified information about cyberthreats."

Yesterday, news reports broke that the Australian government precluded Huawei from bidding on a project to build an Australian national broadband network.  The Australian PM cited concerns over Chinese cyberespionage as a factor behind the decision.   

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Zachary Fryer-Biggs wrote for FederalTimes on how the U.S. military is going on the cyber offensive.  Specifically, the article explained how CyberCommand is distributing cyber weapons to regional combatant commanders (like PACOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM).  Centralized authorities (like CyberComm) have traditionally held those cyber weapons, exercising a strict level of control and requiring combatant commanders to coordinate with CyberComm.  However, this new aggressive approach will arm separate combatant commanders, "allowing for broader access to capabilities, more rapid action and the pairing of traditional kinetic attacks with newly developed cyber capabilities."

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote on an op-ed for The Hill on cybersecurity legislation.  Sen. Johnson argued against the CSA and over regulation, writing that the private sector (encouraged by Secure IT) should lead the way.