The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Top Threats Working Group today released, The Notorious Nine: Cloud Computing Top Threats in 2013 - a revised report aimed to provide organizations with up-to-date, expert-informed understanding of cloud security threats in order to make educated risk-management decisions regarding cloud adoption strategies. Today's review: Data Breaches.

Kosrae is an island in the South Pacific, whose rich history is unknown by the people who live there, as well as the handful of scuba divers who visit annually to explore the pristine coral reefs surrounding the island. That’s why Autodesk is teaming up with KnowledgeWell (a non-profit dedicated to transforming the barriers faced by under-resourced nations into opportunities for successful business and public sector programs) to create a 3D model of the island and help tell its story to the rest of the world.

This week in Technically News: Amazon Reportedly Signs $600M Cloud Deal With CIA; Data-Centric Cybersecurity in the Time of Shared Infrastructures; US Expanding Cybersecurity Watch; The Public Sector Needs Proactive Cybersecurity; Cybersecurity: Crime, Warfare, or Scaremongering.

Andrew "weev" Auernheimer will spend the next 41 months in federal prison. His crime? In 2010, he exposed a security flaw in AT&T's iPad user database, gaining access to the information of over 100,000 people. I want to ponder this question I asked myself after reading about Andrew: what role can public hackers play in government cybersecurity?

A while back, I took the folks over at RackSpace to task for spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) concerning Cloud APIs. Luckily for all involved they simmered down on the subject (which most likely had nothing to do with my little article), and now the OpenStack project that RackSpace incubated doesn't look like the Chicken Little of the open source software world anymore. However, just like that game of whack-a-mole, we've got another FUD top-ten hit ripping through the charts: Data Portability & Cloud Lock-in.

This week in Technically News: Hacked Federal Cybersecurity Databases Raise More Alarms; Is Your City the Tech Smartest; Could WW3 Start with a Cyberattack: Symantec's CTO Weighs In; Will Sequestration Compromise Agency Cybersecurity.

Today, I would like to give kudos to Quantum. I recently had the luxury of sitting in a hands-on demonstration for a feature called “Dxi Advanced Reporting.” This is a reporting feature for all Quantum DXi-series backup targets. This is what I learned:

The White House recently released the 2012 Federal Information Security Management Act report. The report tracks agencies’ progress toward reaching the compliance targets set in 2002’s Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). While the report documents some improvements and an increase in spending (up a $1 billion from 2011), it also highlights areas of weaknesses that help illuminate the current government cybersecurity ecosystem.

Government IT managers lack the in-house resources to expertly implement IT software, hardware, and systems. And with more budget cuts on the horizon, that gap will only widen. Earlier in the year, we expanded our Professional Services offering to help our customers.

In this edition: Symantec CTO: Enterprise Security Still Needs Humans; As Data Centers Consolidate, Those Remaining Need to be More Efficient; Complexity is Cybersecurity’s Real Enemy; Cybersecurity Challenges in 2013; GitHub Hires First Government Liaison.