Monday, March 17, 2008
Daily Report
• According to the KAKE 10 Wichita, a series of explosions at a chemical plant in Sterling, Kansas, woke up residents there Friday morning. Residents in the area say they heard explosions between five to eight minutes at the Jacam Chemicals plant in the southern part of the town. Sterling Police are confirming they received a call to the plant shortly after 5 a.m., but are not saying it was explosion at this time. (See item 3)
• Agence France-Presse reports U.S. officials said Thursday that “real and growing” threats to U.S. computer and telecommunications networks were behind the holding of Cyber Storm II, the largest-ever cyber-security exercises, this week. Computer security experts from five countries, more than 40 private sector companies, and numerous government and state agencies are spending a week fielding simulated “real-world,” on-line attacks on the computer systems of government bodies, corporations, transportation and other key industries. (See item 27)
Information Technology
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/03/13/factory.installed.virus.ap/index.html
27. March 13, Agence France-Presse – (National) US holds largest ever simulated cyber-attack exercise. U.S. officials said Thursday that “real and growing” threats to US computer and telecommunications networks were behind the holding of Cyber Storm II, the largest-ever cyber-security exercises, this week. Computer security experts from five countries, more than 40 private sector companies, and numerous government and state agencies are spending a week fielding simulated “real-world,” on-line attacks on the computer systems of government bodies, corporations, transportation, and other key industries. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate said the Cyber Storm II exercise sought to foster personal links between key officials in business and government. Those people, he said, are not always willing to share information about security issues involving the networks they run. Cyber Storm II tested the warning systems in place for attacks and sought to identify gaps in the way information was shared and reactions coordinated across various sectors. DHS officials declined to say what kinds of threats they found were most dangerous or what specific weaknesses were identified, citing security needs, but said a report on the exercise would be released later this year.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080313/tc_afp/uscomputerinternetsecurity_080313232801;_ylt=Aq2VbO4qhZVic5Wjm8.igiDYa7gF
28. March 13, USA Today – (National) Bush calls for tighter cybersecurity. A sudden spike in the number of successful attacks against federal government information systems and databases has led President Bush to propose a multibillion-dollar response. The number of incidents reported to the Department of Homeland Security rose by 152 percent last year, to nearly 13,000, according to a new government report. The security breaches, more than 4,000 of which remain under investigation, ranged from the work of random hackers to organized crime and foreign governments, says the president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance. The increase and severity of data breaches prompted Bush to recommend a 10 percent increase in cybersecurity funding for the coming fiscal year, to $7.3 billion. That is a 73 percent increase since 2004. Much of heightened concern focuses on China, which could be infiltrating U.S. government information technology systems despite denials by Beijing. In its annual report to Congress last week on China’s military power, the Pentagon said several cyberspace attacks around the world in 2007 were sourced back to China.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-03-13-cybersecurity_N.htm?csp=34
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206903458&cid=RSSfeed_eetimes_newsRSS