security

The American Civil Liberties Union announced a lawsuit against the National Security Agency on Tuesday, alleging what it calls "mass Internet spying" on Americans international emails, communications and other online activity.

Onstage at a major computer security summit at Stanford University, President Barack Obama signed an executive order Friday to make it easier for private companies to dip into the government's deep reservoirs of data on cyberattacks.

It was a typical winter morning on the Twitter feed of Eastern Shore television station WBOC: a stream of messages about snowfall and a reminder to download the station's weather app for the latest updates.

A federal judge in Baltimore ordered Maryland election officials to adopt an online absentee voting tool in time for this year's general election, a move designed to make it easier for disabled voters to cast ballots.

Thieves who steal data are striking with alarming frequency. And more and more, security experts say, cyber-criminals are targeting the places where people shop.

When federal databases containing sensitive information on U.S. intelligence or nuclear weapons come under cyber attack, the agencies call on major companies like Lockheed Martin, Verizon and Booz Allen Hamilton – and a two-year old startup in Federal Hill – to shore up defenses.

The state Board of Public Works approved a contract worth an estimated $2.6 million Wednesday for a contractor to monitor the credit activity of an estimated 300,000 people whose personal information was exposed as a result of a computer security breach discovered at the University of Maryland early this year.

Sen. Brian Frosh, Del. Jon Cardin and Del. Aisha Braveboy – three Democrats vying to be Maryland's next attorney general – stress different strengths they would bring to the office.

SafeNet, a 1,600-employee information protection agency based in Harford County, announced Thursday the appointment of Prakash Panjwani as president and CEO. The 12-year SafeNet veteran most recently served as vice president and general management of the company's data protection branch.

The future of a system that would let voters download absentee ballots before mailing them in was cast into doubt Thursday when the State Board of Elections refused to move forward with part of the plan amid fears it would open the door to widespread fraud.

The FBI is investigating a former University of Maryland contract worker who said he took College Park administrators' personal information from the campus network and posted online about the stunt to draw attention to major security flaws.

Standing in a pile of construction rubble on a cold and dirty location set at the Lord Baltimore Hotel here in January, I didn't know what to expect from Season 3 of HBO¿s "Veep."

Educational institutions are increasingly becoming the targets of hackers seeking sensitive or otherwise valuable data, prompting academics to reconsider what data to keep, for how long and where.

A data breach at the University of Maryland has exposed the identities of more than 309,000 faculty, students, staff and affiliated personnel at the College Park and Shady Grove campuses since 1998, University President Wallace Loh announced Wednesday night.

Many Maryland public schools are unwittingly trading student privacy and safety for free or discounted digital learning tools, and few parents or educators are aware of it.

Wendy Royalty first met District 1 County Council member Courtney Watson in 2006, when Watson, then a candidate campaigning for a first term on the Council, knocked on her door. Now, Royalty is running for Watson's Council seat, which the two-term Democrat will leave behind at the end of 2014 to pursue Howard's top post of county executive.

As details continue to emerge about the two year-investigation into Ross William Ulbricht, an unassuming 29-year-old and alleged founder of the massive online drug market Silk Road, one important piece of information remains cloaked in shadow: How did the FBI find the organization's servers?

Google will pay Maryland state government $1 million as part of a $17 million, 37-state settlement for collecting information on consumers' Internet browsing activity without their consent.

Harford County is set to join the growing list of jurisdictions that will be getting BGE smart meters, officials from the electric company told the County Council on Tuesday.

Maryland's economic future rests on rejecting two damaging changes to the biopharmaceutical industry.

Matthew Green, the Johns Hopkins cryptography professor who was ordered to remove from university servers a blog post about the National Security Agency's covert surveillance efforts, has concluded that it was all a "big misunderstanding."

RespectMyDNT.org is launched

Matthew D. Green thought his regular contributions to the growing public discourse on controversial online surveillance by the National Security Agency represented an achievement his superiors at the Johns Hopkins University would encourage. Then he got an email from the dean of the engineering school.

Baltimore startup Riskive's focus on social media security with FriendGuard landed the company with a host of tech industry honors and $2.2 million from prominent local and regional investors.

U.S. commerce "would grind to a halt in a matter of days" in the wake of a crippling cyber attack that the nation's ports — including Baltimore — are ill prepared for, according to a new Brookings Institution report. But Port of Baltimore officials called the report "misleading and factually incorrect."

Even though young students have a decade or more before they enter the work force, efforts to improve education in science, engineering, technology and math – better known as STEM – are a top priority for business, higher education and political leaders.

Cyber security jobs going begging?

Maryland has 19,413 openings for computer security professionals, most of them in Baltimore — let's start training for these jobs

Behind-the-scenes jostling for committee chairmanships in the U.S. Senate has left Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski poised to take over the Senate Intelligence Committee — a move experts said Tuesday could bolster the role cyber security plays in the state's economy.

Defense contractor Raytheon Co. said Wednesday it has acquired the government solutions business of Harford County-based SafeNet Inc., a cyber security company that had previously announced the sale of that piece of the business to an undisclosed buyer.

An Army private charged with leaking classified material to WikiLeaks said Friday that he tied a bedsheet into a noose while considering suicide during his pretrial confinement in Kuwait.

An Army private charged with sending reams of classified information to the secret-busting website WikiLeaks testified Thursday that his jailers at a Marine Corps brig answered his complaints about "absurd" restrictions by tightening the screws.

SafeNet selling government solutions business

Donna Dodson, chief, Computer Security Division and acting director of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will speak on "Cybersecurity – Facing the Challenges Together at a Cyber Breakfast, Wednesday, Oct. 3, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., at the Colony Ballroom at University of Maryland Stamp Student Union Center, Campus Drive and Union Lane.

Navigating the pitfalls of the Internet is a full-time job for parents