Friday, September 19, 2008
Complete DHS Daily Report for September 19, 2008
Daily Report
Headlines
According to FOX News, a New York City dialysis center was shut down by the state health department after one patient tested positive for hepatitis C. Nearly 700 patients of the center in Manhattan are being urged to get tested for both hepatitis B and C strains, as well as HIV. (See item 27)
27. September 17, FOX News – (New York) New York City dialysis center exposes nearly 700 patients to Hepatitis C. A New York City dialysis center was shut down by the state health department after one patient tested positive for hepatitis C. Now, nearly 700 patients of the Life Care Dialysis Center in Manhattan are being urged to get tested for both hepatitis B and C strains, as well as HIV. In a press release, the Health Department said they uncovered poor conditions, including “blood on the treatment chairs and dialysis machines, lack of proper hand hygiene, and inadequate disinfection of equipment.” Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423882,00.html
The Washington Post reports that over a five-year period, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives lost dozens of weapons and hundreds of laptops that contained sensitive information, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department. (See item 29)
29. September 18, Washington Post – (National) ATF lost guns, computers. Over a five-year period, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) lost dozens of weapons and hundreds of laptops that contained sensitive information, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department. An inspector general identified “serious deficiencies” in ATF’s response to lost or stolen items and called the agency’s control of classified data “inadequate.” From 2002 to 2007, ATF lost 418 laptop computers and 76 weapons, according to the report. A regular audit of weapons and other sensitive items has been conducted since a study in 2001 revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies had misplaced hundreds of firearms. Many of the missing laptops contained sensitive or classified material, according to the report. ATF began installing encryption software only in May 2007. ATF did not know what information was on 398 of the 418 lost or stolen laptops. The report called the lack of such knowledge a “significant deficiency.” ATF employees did not report the loss of 365 of the 418 laptops. The report was less critical of ATF’s control of explosives, but when the inspector general reviewed inventory records, he found that amounts “on hand did not correspond with the amounts recorded” in records at eight of 16 locations. Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091703662.html?nav=rss_politics/fedpage
Details
Banking and Finance Sector
11. September 17, Bloomberg – (National) SEC stiffens short-selling rules amid market turmoil. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stiffened rules against manipulative short-selling after a market rout pushed American International Group Inc. to the brink of collapse and triggered Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy. The SEC adopted two regulations Wednesday forcing traders and brokers to close out short sales on all stocks, amid concern investors are driving down prices by flooding markets with sell orders. A third rule makes it a securities fraud when sellers deceive brokers about delivering borrowed shares to buyers. In traditional short sales, traders borrow shares that they then sell. If the price drops, they profit by buying back the stock, repaying the loan and pocketing the difference. The SEC rules target so-called naked short- selling, in which traders never borrow shares from their brokers. The agency is concerned that such a strategy can free investors to manipulate prices by placing unlimited sell orders. Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atc9nbq59jIw&refer=home
12. September 17, Associated Press – (National) Former Mercury Interactive directors settle. Three former board members of Mercury Interactive, a business software company acquired by Hewlett-Packard Co. for $4.9 billion in 2006, have each agreed to pay $100,000 fines in a settlement with federal regulators over stock options tampering. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday that it filed civil fraud charges against the former directors alleging they knew the company’s compensation records were faulty but “recklessly” signed off on them anyway. Mercury eventually had to wipe out more than $530 million in profits to correct the accounting problems. The company also shelled out $28 million to settle civil fraud charges with the SEC and $117.5 million to settle a group of shareholder lawsuits. Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hS8yU_owgZmYFjaIv3XelSLbLMXAD938PV080
13. September 17, Associated Press – (National) Judge OKs Lehman-Barclays deal. A bankruptcy judge on Wednesday gave Lehman Brothers initial approval to sell key North American businesses to Barclays for $1.7 billion in cash. The approval came just two days after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The judge’s approval sets in motion the asset sales but leaves open the possibility of a competing bid. Lehman plans to seek final court approval Friday. British bank Barclays said Tuesday that it would buy Lehman’s investment banking and capital markets businesses for $250 million in cash, as well as Lehman’s New York headquarters and two data centers in New Jersey for an additional $1.5 billion. Lawyers for creditors and bondholders objected to the speed of the process, saying two days was not enough time to evaluate the deal much less put together a competing bid. Source: http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/17/news/companies/lehman_bankruptcy.ap/index.htm
Information Technology
39. September 17, Computerworld – (International) Hacker posts QuickTime zero-day attack code. A hacker has released attack code that exploits an unpatched vulnerability in Apple Inc.’s QuickTime, just a week after the company updated the media player to plug nine other serious vulnerabilities, a security researcher said Wednesday. The exploit, which was published on the milw0rm.com site Tuesday, takes advantage of a flaw in the ““ parameter in QuickTime, which is not prepared to handle excessively-long strings, said a researcher with Symantec Corp.’s DeepSight threat notification network. In its present form, the exploit triggers a QuickTime crash, but it may be more serious. “The exploit suggests that code execution may be possible,” the researcher added, “[and] if this flaw were to allow arbitrary code to run, it may pose a significant risk, because attackers may be able to exploit the issue by embedding a malicious file into a site.” The researcher had little advice for users beyond urging them to be wary while browsing and to consider disabling the QuickTime plug-in, which is commonly found on Windows machines and installed by default on all Macs. Source:http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9114999&intsrc=hm_list
Communications Sector
40. September 17, Associated Press – (National) Hurricane Ike causes record Internet outage. The power blackouts that followed Hurricane Ike have caused the widest outage for U.S. Internet service since 2003, according to a firm that tracks Internet connectivity. Internet connections in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were the hardest hit, according to Renesys Corp. But the storm also caused outages in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. Surrounding states had scattered outages as well. It was the largest area to lose its connections to the Internet since the Northeast blackout of 2003, said a data engineer at Renesys. The company does not track Internet connectivity by the number of people using it, but by “autonomous networks,” which roughly equates to the “neighborhoods” of the global network. At the peak Monday, Ike had taken out more than 400 such networks for at least an hour each. Some of the outages persisted Wednesday, with Time Warner Cable Inc.’s network in Ohio and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, being affected, according to Renesys. By comparison, the Northeast blackout took out 2,500 networks. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/17/ike.internet.outage.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech
41. September 17, Reuters – (National) Qwest expects more phone customers to cut the cord. U.S. phone company Qwest Communications International Inc’s CEO expects more consumers to disconnect their landlines in favor of mobile phones over the next several years, but he said the company could survive. He said cost cuts were buffering the impact of falling landline sales and Qwest’s partnership with Verizon Wireless would help it grow. On Wednesday, media research company Nielsen Co. forecast 20 percent of U.S. households would rely only on mobile phones by the end of this year. Analysts have forecast that could rise to as high as 30 percent by around 2012. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN1731461620080917
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