In Case You Missed It: In a sign of the growing importance of cyber operations in warfare, the Obama administration plans to elevate the status of the Pentagon's Cyber Command. The U.S. Cyber Command, or USCYBERCOM, was created on June 23, 2009. Its stated mission is to, among other things, "conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations" to "ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries." Currently, it is a "sub-unified combatant command." The plan by the Obama administration is, according to reports, to make it a "'unified command,' equal to combat branches of the military such as the Central and Pacific Commands." This news comes on the heels of reports that the U.S. has conducted cyber attacks against ISIS.
In the News: The Olympics are providing new opportunities for information sharing in the sports industry. The Cyber Resilience Institute, a private cyber security company based in Colorado Springs, CO, has partnered with the Colorado Army National Guard and various other cyber security companies to create an "information sharing and analysis organization," or ISAO, for professional sports. ISAOs are partnerships between the private and public sector entities that share information in order to better spot security threats. The purpose of the Olympics-based trial run of the sports-focused ISAO will be to see whether such information gathering can in fact be beneficial to the sports industry.
Practice Tip of the Week: If you're running a start-up, don't put off thinking about data privacy and security. It's easy when thinking about funding, strategic planning, hiring, and launching to leave all but the most critical data security issues to another day. But kicking the data security can down the road this could prove costly in the end. Think carefully about your data and how you're going to protect it. Run an internal audit not only to understand your data and how it's being protected, but also to plan for what you will do, and who you will call, when a data breach happens.
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