Morning Security Brief: Terrorism Arrest in Texas, Federal CISOs, Federal Cybersecurity Seriousness Questioned, & Much More

♦ The FBI have arrested a young Saudi man in Texas for planning to blow up dams in California and Colorado and destroy former President George W. Bush's home. "Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who attended a community college near Lubbock, Texas, and allegedly kept a detailed journal outlining plans for attacks, was charged with attempting to build and use a weapon of mass destruction," reports the Los Angeles Times. "Aldawsari, 20, described nuclear power plants as 'nice targets' and collected the names and home addresses of three former U.S. military officers from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where inmates were tortured and humiliated by their American guards, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed Thursday."

♦ New cybersecurity legislation would put a chief information security officer at every federal department to ensure cybersecurity regulations are followed. "The 'Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011' -- introduced a week ago by Sens. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., Susan Collins, R-Me., and Tom Carper, D-Del. -- spells out the role of CISOs within federal agencies and outlines how federal agencies should better manage security both inside organizations and across the federal government," reports InformationWeek. "According to the bill, CISOs will, like CIOs, be given the authority and a budget to perform their duties, first and foremost of which will be to ensure compliance with the security measures they set up within each agency."

♦ The legislation may be welcome because a majority of IT security managers and professionals working in local, state, and the federal government believe the federal government doesn't take cybersecurity serious enough. "Two-thirds of the surveyed IT security professionals and managers working for federal, state and local governments responded 'No' when asked whether the federal government placed enough emphasis on cybersecurity; 26 percent replied 'Yes' and 7 percent had no opinion," according to GovInfoSecurity.com. "The survey findings suggest that government IT security practitioners - whether they work at the federal, state or local levels - want strong leadership from Washington, and aren't getting it."

♦ A British inquiry into the 7/7 bombings revealed that MI5 and police failed to connect the plot's leader to terrorist activity. "Suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan was photographed by detectives with other extremists in the Lake District in 2001," according to the Mirror. "But he was not identified until after 52 people died in London four years later. West Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable John Parkinson said officers did not fully understand the camp’s purpose. But after the outrage they traced all but one of Khan’s companions."

♦ Groups of researchers are racing to see which team will produce a workable liquid scanner that will finally let travelers pass through security with liquids. "The challenge for Augustine and Broz has been to find a middle ground in which a device can see inside an aluminum can but also tell with a high degree of accuracy what’s inside," reports McClatchy Newspapers. "Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and elsewhere are also trying to solve the problem in what has become a friendly competition, Broz said.The researchers have been working into the wee hours to have a prototype ready by year’s end, he said. They hope to mass produce the scanners and get them into airports within a few years."