Department of Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Complete DHS Daily Report for March 16, 2010

Daily Report

Top Stories

 According to Military Times, Naval Air Systems Command grounded 104 Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets on March 12 after inspectors discovered the airframes were developing cracks much earlier than engineers had thought. (See item 11)


11. March 14, Military Times – (National) 104 Hornets grounded after cracks discovered. Naval Air Systems Command grounded 104 Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets Friday after inspectors discovered the airframes were developing cracks much earlier than engineers had thought. The grounding order affects the first four varieties of Hornet — models A through D — and does not apply to aircraft now flying combat missions over Iraq or Afghanistan. The number of Hornets affected makes up 16 percent of the Navy-Marine A through D fleet. There have been no crashes or other mishaps related to the problem, said a Navy spokesman. Of the 104 grounded jets, 77 are in flight status. Of those, 23 are in Navy and Marine Corps fleet squadrons; five are forward-deployed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan; five belong to the Blue Angels flight demonstration team; and 44 are in fleet replacement squadrons. The other 27 Hornets are in a maintenance status. The grounding notice from NavAir covered a “high stress focus area” that engineers already knew about as part of the Hornets’ service-life assessment program, the spokesman said, so NavAir issued a set of instructions for affected aircraft. Squadrons have been ordered to perform a magnetic field inspection on jets included in the grounding. The spokesman said most of the problems had been reported on C and D model Hornets across the Navy and Marine Corps, although there was a potential for cracks on all versions of the jet. He said cracking was taking place at the “aft wing shear attach fitting” — approximately the seam where part of a Hornet’s wing joins to the fuselage. There are a total of 635 A- through D-model jets in the Navy and Marine Corps fleet. Source: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/03/navy_hornets_grounding_031210w/


 The Associated Press reports that at least four incendiary devices have been found recently in mailboxes or postal processing facilities in eastern Texas. (See item 21)


21. March 12, Associated Press – (Texas) Authorities: 4 incendiary devices found in mail in eastern Texas; public not threatened. At least four incendiary devices have been found recently in mailboxes or postal processing facilities in eastern Texas, although none posed a danger to the public, authorities said. A U.S. Postal Inspector said on March 12 that one of the devices was discovered the night of March 9 at a processing site in Owentown, a town near Tyler 95 miles east of Dallas. The Postal Inspector declined to describe the device or to comment on reports of similar devices found in two nearby counties, but she said the public was never in danger. “If there was anything that was dangerous, we would certainly warn the public or our employees.” Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-mailbox-explosives,0,579987.story


Details

Banking and Finance Sector

15. March 15, WTTG 5 Washington, D.C. – (Virginia) Search continues for female bank bandit. Police in Vienna, Virginia believe the same woman who has robbed three banks in Fairfax County could have been responsible for another robbery on March 13. Vienna police say officers responded to the HSBC bank at 214 Maple Avenue Saturday after a woman walked into the bank and handed the teller a note demanding cash. Police dogs did pick up on the woman’s scent but lost the scent in the rear parking lot. Police say the suspect’s description in the case closely resembles that of an individual who is believed to be responsible for several other bank robberies in Fairfax County. Source: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/local/police-search-for-female-bank-bandit-fairfax-031510


16. March 13, Bank Info Security – (National) Four banks closed March 11, 12. Four more banks were closed by state and federal regulators on March 11 and 12. These latest closings raise the year’s tally of failed institutions to 34 banks and credit unions. The Park Avenue Bank, New York, New York, was closed by the New York State Banking Department, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $50.7 million. Old Southern Bank, Orlando, Florida, was closed by the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $94.6 million. Statewide Bank, Covington, Louisiana, was closed by the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $38.1 million. LibertyPointe Bank, New York, New York, was closed March 11 by the New York State Banking Department, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $24.8 million. Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2292


17. March 12, KSTP 5 St. Paul – (Minnesota) Andover printing broker pleaded guilty to Ponzi scheme. An Andover printing broker pleaded guilty on March 12 to a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. Investigators said the suspect admitted to scamming $51 million from investors by selling contracts for materials that never existed. According to the complaint, he used investor money to pay bills to older investors. The suspect’s attorney hopes the fact his client came forward about the scheme will work in his favor. A receiver is working to gather back assets for the victims and has already collected about $10 million. The suspect will be sentenced in June. He could face six to 10 years behind bars. Source: http://kstp.com/news/stories/S1464004.shtml?cat=206


Information Technology


50. March 12, DarkReading – (International) Hackers not playing games with gaming sites. Cybersecurity is a serious issue for any online business, but for online gaming companies it’s doubly so. Beyond issues of data protection, which are similar for any company that handles customer data, Internet gaming companies can be damaged by cyber attacks in a broader variety of ways than other companies. Online retailers for example may suffer financially when they get hacked or hit with a denial of service attack, but damage to physical assets is likely to be insulated from online threats. For operators of online games, however, hackers threaten not only revenue and user trust, but user experience and the intellectual property — game source code — upon which the business is built. The ongoing exploitation of game bugs for fraud and cheating can be compared to altering Amazon.com so that links don’t work, pages don’t load, and recommendations don’t fit users — the result is a poor user experience that can drive customers away and limit both immediate and future revenue. It can also raise support costs as frustrated players call to recover stolen game items or to deal with in-game problems. Source: http://www.darkreading.com/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=223800077


51. March 12, The Register – (International) Trojan armed with hardware-based anti-piracy control. The latest version of the Zeus do-it-yourself crimeware kit goes to great lengths to thwart would-be pirates by introducing a hardware-based product activation scheme similar to what’s found in Microsoft Windows. The newest version with bare-bones capabilities starts at $4,000 and additional features can fetch as much as $10,000. The new feature is designed to prevent what Microsoft refers to as “casual copying” by ensuring that only one computer can run a licensed version of the program. After it is installed, users must obtain a key that’s good for just that one machine. “This is the first time we have seen this level of control for malware,” according to an analysis of the latest Zeus version published recently by SecureWorks. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/12/new_zeus_features/


52. March 12, eWeek – (International) IE attacks circulate as Microsoft updates advisory. Ongoing attacks targeting a new zero-day bug in Internet Explorer and the presence of exploit code on the Web prompted Microsoft March 12 to update its advisory. According to Microsoft, the IE vulnerability in question is due to an invalid pointer reference being used within IE. It is only known to affect IE 6 and 7. To address the issue, the company has made a handful of workarounds available and updated the advisory today to add a Microsoft Fix It that automates a workaround for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users. Other workarounds include reconfiguring Internet Zone settings to High and modifying the access control list on iepeers.dll. Instructions for how to do both things are contained within the Microsoft advisory. Since Microsoft published the advisory March 9, exploit code for the IE flaw has gone public, triggering some concern that there will be a rise in attacks in the days ahead as users wait for a patch. Source: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/IE-Attacks-Circulate-as-Microsoft-Updates-Advisory-766154/


53. March 12, V3.co.uk – (International) Apple issues Safari security update. Apple has updated its Safari browser on March 12 with a range of security and stability patches. Safari 4.0.5 fixes 16 security holes mainly in the Webkit rendering engine, which is also used by Google’s Chrome browser. The Windows version of Safari also includes updates for the ColorSync and ImageIO frameworks to stop attacks using maliciously crafted TIFF or BMP images. Apple said that the update is “recommended for all Safari users”. The new software requires Macs running OS X 10.4.11, 10.5.8, or 10.6.1 or higher, or PCs running Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7. Source: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2259391/apple-updates-safari-browser


Communications Sector

54. March 12, My Web Times – (National) AT and T experiences outage. Interruption in telephone service provided by AT&T on March 12 impacted a “couple hundred thousand customers,” according to a worker who did not want to be identified. An AT&T spokeswoman said in an e-mail the company was working on the problem that has impacted “business Voice over IP (Internet protocol) and teleconferencing services” for some customers. As of mid-afternoon on March 12, the problem appeared to be resolved. Source: http://mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=399665


55. March 12, Rockford Register Star – (Wisconsin) Charter working to repair network outage. A fiber-optic network outage has interrupted Charter Communications’ service in Beloit, Wisconsin, as well as South Beloit, Rockton and Roscoe. The outage was caused by damage to one of Charter’s main fiber-optic lines involving a garbage truck at the intersection of Willowbrook Road and Vesper Drive in South Beloit. Charter crews are on the scene, and repairs are under way. Local police are also on the scene to direct traffic in the area, near South Beloit High School. No estimate is available regarding the length of the outage. Source: http://www.rrstar.com/news/yourtown/x673417932/Charter-working-to-repair-network-outage