Friday, July 13, 2012
Daily Report
Top Stories
• Los Alamos National Laboratory significantly
underestimated how much radiation could leak from the nation’s premier
plutonium lab after a major earthquake and fire, a federal oversight panel
concluded. – Associated Press
12.
July 11, Associated Press – (New
Mexico) Oversight board: Los Alamos lab underestimated risk from possible
radiation leak in disaster. Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos,
New Mexico significantly underestimated how much radiation could leak from the
nation’s premier plutonium lab after a major earthquake and fire, a federal
oversight panel concluded, according to a July 11 report by the Associated
Press. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently sent lab officials
a report and letter saying board staff identified a number of deficiencies in
calculations that concluded any release would be below the threshold deemed
safe to the public. Board staff said its calculations indicate the potential
for a radiation release from an earthquake-induced fire could instead be more
than four times higher than levels considered safe for public exposure. Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/oversight-board-los-alamos-lab-underestimated-risk-from-possible-radiation-leak-in-disaster/2012/07/11/gJQASq1mdW_story.html
• Delta Air Lines faced nearly $1 million in
fines from the Federal Aviation Administration after the agency said the
airline flew planes with flaws in a nose cone and a cockpit light. – USA
Today
21.
July 11, USA Today – (National) FAA
proposes nearly $1 million fine against Delta Air Lines. Delta Air Lines faced
nearly $1 million in fines from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after
the agency said the airline flew planes with flaws in a nose cone and a cockpit
light, USA Today reported July 11. The latest case for Delta involved a
February 2010 inspection that found a chip in the Boeing 737-800 nose cone that
was supposed to be fixed immediately. But the FAA proposed a $687,500 fine
because the plane allegedly flew 20 additional flights before it was repaired.
The FAA also claimed Delta had a problem with an Airbus A320 that had a broken
cockpit floodlight socket that was to be repaired within 10 days. The FAA
proposed a $300,000 fine because it said the plane flew 884 times from May 2010
to January 2011 without a fix. Source: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/story/2012-07-11/FAA-proposes-nearly-1-million-fine-against-Delta-Air-Lines/56156006/1
• Yahoo Inc. said it was reviewing reports of
a security breach that may have exposed nearly half a million users’ e-mail
addresses and passwords. – Associated Press See item 40 below in the Information Technology Sector
• A Utah wildfire that destroyed 52 homes and
left a man dead was caused by arcing between power transmission lines that were
built too closely together and sent a surge to the ground that ignited dry
grass, a fire investigator said July 11. – Associated Press
55.
July 11, Associated Press – (Utah;
National) Arcing power lines caused Utah wildfire. A Utah wildfire that
destroyed 52 homes and left a man dead was caused by arcing between power
transmission lines that were built too closely together and sent a surge to the
ground that ignited dry grass, a fire investigator said July 11. The central
Utah Wood Hollow Fire began June 23 and was not fully contained for 10 days,
costing nearly $4 million to fight, according to State officials. They said 160
structures were destroyed. The 75-square-mile blaze began when winds caused two
sets of high-voltage power lines to touch or swing close enough to each other
to create a surge that swept down the poles into dry brush, said a State deputy
fire marshal. Elsewhere in Utah, five major wildfires continued to burn July
11, but fire crews largely had them contained. Meanwhile, fires burned across
the West. An eastern Oregon wildfire had grown to about 450 square miles July
11, and authorities put some residents on notice that they might have to evacuate.
A nearby fire had grown to about 70 square miles. Firefighters had little
containment on both blazes. A wildfire in the Boise National Forest east of
Idaho’s capital city was threatening about 100 homes July 11 as lightning
sparked several new fires across the State. The blaze on about 300 acres was a
concern for a nearby subdivision about 25 miles from Boise, authorities said.
The State’s largest wildfire had burned through about 340 square miles but was
expected to be contained by July 11. Lightning sparked several new fires in
Montana, including one that forced the evacuations of 30 homes near Livingston
30 miles east of Bozeman. The fire was mostly contained July 11 after burning
more than 1,500 acres. In southeastern Montana, officials reported the 389-square-mile
Ash Creek fire was completely contained by July 11, but red-flag weather
conditions persisted. Source: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Report-Arcing-power-lines-caused-Utah-wildfire-3699607.php
Details
Banking and Finance Sector
13. July 12,
Tyler Morning Telegraph – (Texas; Arkansas) ‘Loan Ranger Bandit’
strikes again in Salado. The man accused of robbing two Texas banks is
believed to be responsible for at least three more in Texas and one in
Arkansas, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported July 12. The First State Bank in
Salado, Texas, was hit by a man matching the description of a robber who struck
two Tyler banks: BBV Compass Bank in May and the Altra Federal Credit Union in
August 2011. The man, dubbed the “Loan Ranger Bandit” used a handgun and did
not wear a mask in the robbery. The robber’s brand comes because he targets
institutions that issue loans, and he wore a Texas Rangers cap in at least one
robbery. A Tyler Police Department spokesman said the department was working
with the FBI. Source: http://www.cbs19.tv/story/19008612/loan-ranger-bandit-strikes-again-in-salado
14. July 12,
International Business Times – (International) HSBC faces
$1 billion ‘money laundering’ fine. HSBC became the latest banking giant
mired in scandal after it emerged July 12 that the British lender will be fined
$1 billion by U.S. regulators for failing to implement sufficient money
laundering controls. According to an internal memo, HSBC will “acknowledge and
apologize” to a U.S. Senate committee the week of July 16 for failing to spot
money laundering activity in its banks that could have been used to finance
terrorism and organized crime from 2004 to 2010. In a bid to eradicate money
laundering in the future, HSBC’s CEO told Agence-France Presse the bank will
continue to increase its compliance budget. The bank increased its spending on
anti-money laundering efforts to $400 million from $200 million in 2010.
Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/362276/20120712/hsbc-banking-scandal-billion-dollar-fine-laundering.htm
15. July 11,
Oakland Tribune – (California) Oakland: ‘Fedora bandit’ arrested in bank, store
robberies. A convicted Washington bank robber was arrested in Oakland,
California, July 10, less than 5 hours after police said he robbed the same
downtown bank he held up in June. Besides the two heists at the Citibank
branch, the man who police dubbed the “fedora bandit” because he wore a hat in
some of the holdups, was also suspected of robbing a CVS drugstore, and a
Safeway supermarket. Authorities said the man was armed with a gun when he
robbed the Citibank location July 10. Police investigators said police
recovered the hats worn in the robberies and some of the cash. Police also
found evidence indicating he was involved in identity theft, check fraud, and
counterfeiting. Losses in the robberies ranged from a few hundred to a few
thousand dollars. Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/portal/breaking-news/ci_21052182/oakland-fedora-bandit-arrested-bank-store-robberies?_loopback=1
16. July 11,
KAAL 6 Austin – (National) 2 arrested in West Metro skimming scheme. Two
people from California were arrested in Plymouth, Minnesota, for setting up
credit card skimming devices in the pumps at a local gas station, KAAL 6 Austin
reported July 11. The two were arrested late the week of July 2. Inside their
car, police found a list of nearly 100 metro gas stations, a cordless drill,
and items to make fake credit cards. Officers went to a gas station in New
Hope, where they found skimming devices on six of the eight pumps. The suspects
had the credit card information of several area people. Source: http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S2686441.shtml?cat=10728
For more
stories, see item 42 in the Information
Technology Sector
Information Technology Sector
37. July 12,
The Register – (International) Indian software pirating suspect faces US
extradition. An alleged software counterfeiter from India faces possible
U.S. extradition. The man, a resident in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri, was
arrested by Indian police July 11 over alleged hacking and copyright
violations. Computers, CDs, USB sticks, and other evidence was seized from his
home by Mumbai police — who were acting on a request from the U.S. Southern
District Court, New York. It is unclear if U.S. authorities will seek the man’s
extradition or whether an FBI team will travel to Mumbai to question him. The
man allegedly used hacking techniques to defeat copyright protection measures
before creating counterfeit CDs, which he then re-sold. The case prompted an
FBI investigation that led to a March 2010 indictment. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/12/indian_software_counterfeit_suspect_us_extradition_threat/
38. July 12,
The Register – (International) Instagram bug ‘exposed’ hipsters’ private
photos to strangers. A recently patched vulnerability in Instagram
potentially exposed users’ private photos and more to strangers. A bug in the
popular photo touch-up utility, acquired by Facebook in April, allowed
malicious users to add themselves as “friends” to individual accounts without
permission and view pictures marked as private. In a security advisory,
Instagram said the “Following Bug” was fixed. It denied private photos were
even exposed, an assurance that conflicts with claims in a blog post by the
Spanish security researcher who discovered the flaw. He warned that photos and
private data were exposed by the bug, which stems from the ability to guess and
forge approved requests to follow, or befriend a user, using a brute-force
attack. Both Android and iPhone versions of Instagram were affected by the
vulnerability. Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/12/instagram_privacy_flaw/
39. July 12,
H Security – (International) Chrome 20 update fixes high-risk security
vulnerabilities. Google published a new update to the stable 20.x branch of
Chrome to close security holes in the WebKit-based Web browser. Version
20.0.1132.57 of Chrome addresses three vulnerabilities, all of which are rated
as “high severity” by the company. These include two use-after-free errors in
counter handling and in layout height tracking. A third high-risk problem
related to object access with JavaScript in PDFs was also corrected. Further
details about the vulnerabilities were being withheld until “a majority of
users are up-to-date with the fix.” Other changes include stability
improvements, and updates to the V8 JavaScript engine and the built-in Flash
player plug-in. Source: http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Chrome-20-update-fixes-high-risk-security-vulnerabilities-1637304.html
40. July 12,
Associated Press – (International) Yahoo says it’s investigating a report of a
breach involving 450,000 passwords. July 12, Yahoo Inc. said it was
investigating reports of a security breach that may have exposed nearly half a
million users’ e-mail addresses and passwords. The company said it was looking
into “claims of a compromise of Yahoo! user IDs” but did not disclose the size
of the reported breach or how it may have happened. Yahoo’s head of U.K.
Consumer Public Relations said she could not immediately provide any more
detail on the breach “as we are still investigating it.” Technology news Web
sites including CNET, Ars Technica, and Mashable said hackers calling
themselves the D33D Company claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that
data posted to the group’s Web site carried more than 453,000 log-in
credentials from an unidentified Yahoo subdomain. The little-known group was
quoted as saying that they stole the passwords using an SQL injection — the
name given to a commonly used attack in which hackers use rogue commands to
extract data from vulnerable Web sites. Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/yahoo-says-its-investigating-a-reports-of-a-breach-involving-450000-passwords/2012/07/12/gJQADtx8eW_story.html
41. July 12,
Softpedia – (International) DarkComet RAT used to target gamers, military
and governments, experts find. Researchers from Arbor Networks analyzed a
number of campaigns that relied on the DarkComet Remote Access Trojan (RAT).
“Dark Comet is very popular RAT and is actively developed and widely used. It
can be difficult to determine the motive of the attacker, however sometimes
there are enough traces left over that can help us piece together the potential
goals of a campaign,” a researcher from Arbor Networks explained. The security
firm has over 4,000 samples of the RAT. They managed to identify some campaigns
by analyzing the command and control (C&C) servers, passwords, and server
IDs used by them. The C&C server’s IP address for one campaign pointed to
an area in South Africa where two air force bases are located. While they could
not determine the motives, the researchers believe the bases may have something
to do with the attack. In another campaign, the RAT was possibly used by someone
to redirect .gov sites. The domains are bogus, but the scenario shows the cyber
criminals were simulating man-in-the-middle attacks and redirects. Runescape
and other gaming communities were also targeted in operations that leveraged
this particular tool. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/DarkComet-RAT-Used-to-Target-Gamers-Military-and-Governments-Experts-Find-281011.shtml
42. July 11,
Dark Reading – (International) Series of convincing spam runs part of one
massive advanced attack campaign. Recent widespread spam runs posing as
convincing-looking e-mail messages from LinkedIn, Facebook, ADP, American
Express, US Airways, the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, and several other
high-profile organizations are all part of a single, orchestrated attack campaign
using the Blackhole exploit kit and aimed at stealing victims’ online financial
credentials, Dark Reading learned. Researchers at Trend Micro said they found
multiple common threads that tie the spam messages together as one effort by
one cybercriminal group, or multiple groups working together. “It’s one
operation probably run by two to three individuals very focused on the theft of
financial credentials,” and likely out of Eastern Europe, said the vice
president of cybersecurity at Trend Micro. The attackers are using mostly Zeus
and Cridex malware variants in the attacks via the Blackhole Exploit Kit, he
said. Source: http://www.darkreading.com/advanced-threats/167901091/security/attacks-breaches/240003573/
43. July 11,
IDG News Service – (International) Facebook launches malware checkpoints for
users with infected computers. July 10, Facebook launched a feature that
allows users to lock down their Facebook accounts and perform malware scans if
they suspect their computers might be infected. Facebook already uses internal
scanners to detect spam and malicious messages that might have been sent from
user accounts hijacked by malware. When found, such accounts are temporarily
locked down and their owners are asked to go through a multi-step account
recovery process that involves downloading and running a malware scanner called
McAfee Scan and Repair. The new “malware checkpoints” feature will allow users
who believe their computers might be infected to initiate the account lockdown
procedure themselves and perform an antivirus scan for free. Users will be able
to choose to scan their computers with McAfee Scan and Repair, a run-once
anti-malware scanner, or with Microsoft Security Essentials, a full-featured
antivirus product that must be downloaded and installed. Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9229005/Facebook_launches_malware_checkpoints_for_users_with_infected_computers
44. July 11,
ZDNet – (International) Tumblr haunted by stored (persistent) XSS
flaw. A security researcher posted evidence of a serious cross-site
scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Tumblr, the popular micro-blogging site used
by millions, ZDNet reported July 11. Technical details on the flaw, described
as a stored (persistent) XSS issue, were being withheld by the researcher who
found the issue. The researcher said he disclosed the issue to Tumblr June 25,
but the vulnerability still exists, putting millions of Web users at risk of
malicious hacker attacks. Source: http://www.zdnet.com/tumblr-haunted-by-stored-persistent-xss-flaw-7000000730/
45. July 10,
Network World – (International) Warp Trojan from China said to fool routers
into spreading Windows malware. A security firm said it spotted malware
from China dubbed the Warp trojan that takes a totally new approach; after
infecting a vulnerable Windows computer, it pretends to be a router and tells
the real local subnet router to send traffic for other networked computers to
the infected machine, so the malware can then try to compromise the other
computers through a man-in-the-middle attack. Kindsight Security Labs believes
Warp trojan hails from China and may be used as some kind of adware to drive
traffic to Web sites there. Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/071012-warp-trojan-260803.html
For more stories, see item 46 below in the Communications Sector
Communications Sector
46.
July 12, ZDNet – (International) BBC
website crash leaves millions without on-demand, news. The BBC’s Web site
crashed late July 11, but the broadcaster had yet to work out exactly what
happened and why. During television prime-time, the entire BBC Web site crashed
with an “internal error,” leaving hundreds of millions without access to BBC
News, or its on-demand television service, BBC iPlayer. The Web site failed to
load late July 11 and the entire online network was inaccessible 15 minutes
later. Many sections of the site were restored around an hour later, but its
front page remained problematic over the following hour. The publicly funded
broadcaster said there was a “major technical issue” caused by a failure of
traffic managers in both BBC data centers. A BBC spokesman explained in a blog
post its traffic managers are “critical” to its infrastructure and handle all
site requests. Source: http://www.zdnet.com/bbc-website-crash-leaves-millions-without-on-demand-news-7000000773/
For
more stories, see items 38, 40, and 44 above in the Information Technology
Sector
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